Ummm, best music in a game goes to Half-life 2? The only part of HL2 I didn’t like “WAS” the music, because it was pretty mediocre (not bad, but totally uninspired and bland)… So you’re trying to tell us, HL-2’s poor music was better than Rome Total War’s? Better than World of Warcraft’s? Better than Knight’s of Honor? Better than Battle For Middle Earth?! Better than W40K Dawn of War???
Jeff Green, or any one else from CGW… I’m insanely curious how you came to this decision. In a year with great music in many, MANY games - not only do you pick a game with “blah” music - but you also give Painkiller the best fps award and nothing else to HL-2. Grievances due to Valve’s stupidness aside, you really think Painkiller had a better story, a better physics engine, better AI, and better productions standards than HL-2? Maybe I just don’t remember all the non-shooting/creative parts of Painkiller. Maybe I don’t remember the neat sidekicks Painkiller gave you that were like “dog”. Can you remind me of them again? cause I’m totally drawing a blank…
Each year GotY awards are controversial, but honestly this is simply stupid. I’m most pissed about the truly brilliant music in RTW which DESERVES to be awarded (if only all games had such driving and well written music), but instead you ignore it, along with all the other beautiful pieces written.
One last thing. I’m not sure what universe you guys were living in circa 2004, but last I checked there was more than just ONE wargame released… NOT just “Battles in Normandy”. So exactly, how did you forgot titles like “Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great” and “Combat Mission: Afrika Corps”? Or hell, what about “War in the Pacific”. Until I read your article, I “thought” WitP was a wargame, but I guess I was mistaken!!! Unless the dev’s don’t give a shit about CGW, I’d be a little pissed CGW seemed to have “forgotten” about many good titles for your grand 2004 awards…
Agreed, HL2 as best music was a rather odd choice. Battle for Middle-Earth probably didn’t qualify because it recycled music originally written for the film, though.
Personally I would have nominated Pirates – beautiful period dance pieces in addition to a competent movie-like soundtrack.
Agreed, Pirates would have also been a good choice. I really liked the “dance” music. It was quite nice.
[quote=“JM1”]
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JM, Ileft that statement exactly “as-is” on purpose. I was wondering if people would be more interested in the actual contents of this thread vs. a VERY easy cut/quote to humor the masses. Honestly, I thought that would have been response #1 (outside of my own).
At any rate, back to the CGW “music” and “wargames” discussion and please lets try and stay on that. Did it seem to anyone else the CGW awards were a pretty half-assed assessment of the year? I’m fairly astonished they could have left games like “War in the Pacific” and “Combat Mission Afrika Corps” out let alone all the other wargames released this year.
There were tiny clips of electronic/techno music that would play to intensify a moment. The music, while one of the few things I liked about HL2, only lasted for 10 seconds or so at a time.
Yeah, I remember the moment when I decided I liked the game was during the hovercraft ride. I was going fast, dodging furiously, and then the music kicked in. I though, “Wait, I am James Bond”.
A Brosnanite Bond, but Bond nonetheless.
I can’t remember a single bar of the music, though, so it can’t have been that good. Just a well-executed spot effect.
I’m hardly one to say what would be best of the year as CoH took up nearly all my time…but there’s no question in my mind that WoW has better music. It’s very well orchestrated, and the melodies are memorable. I can still recall the impact that the tunes had on me when I entered the new cities for the very first time.
That is not to say that what HL2 had wasn’t good - it just didn’t have as much of an impact on my playing experience.
I think there was an editing problem in the copy for CGW’s wargames review. The box reports no nominees (presumably besides Battles in Normandy, the winner), but the text says something about Normandy “trouncing the competition.” Had there actually been no other nominees, the CGW I remember would have followed up the comment with a snide remark like “, although to be fair, there was no competition. PC wargaming is domed!!”
From what I’ve read, it appears Tin Soldiers may be a better game than Battles in Normandy, but CGW hasn’t reviewed Tin Soldiers yet. Maybe it’ll be in the running for 2005 wargames. Or it will be the sole entry.
Hmmm… HL2 for best music does seem a little odd. I thought the sound in HL2 was brilliantly used, and in some ways the forgetable sound track helped out in that regard. It was, however, very forgettable, and pretty much any game that had music that wasn’t annoying could be considered better. As for choosing Painkiller as best shooter of the year over HL2, I can completely understand that. While I would go the other way, Painkiller was an excellent game that could easily be anyone’s number one shooter of the year. It wasn’t the most original game ever, but the design was mostly top notch. That statement describes both games :).
I used to read CGW religiously for years, buying it off the newstand, even writing to Scorpia once.
Something happened, and CGW isn’t the magazine it used to be (sorry, Jeff). I now read PCGamer. I know it’s not just me, because several of my old mates who have been reading CGW for decades have also made the switch, and we have all done so independently.
I agree fully with JPinard: the choice of Half-Life 2 for music seems completely out of place. Pirates! had by far the most memorable music, since it was integral to the dancing minigame, and surprisingly didn’t grate on me despite hearing it at least 40-50 times. I can’t even remember what Half-Life 2 sounded like, but I can still hum the old Pirates! tune.
In any event there were many competitors to this particular title: WoW, R:TW, etc. They all had better music than Half-Life 2. If I didn’t have more faith in the CGW crew, I’d have easily concluded that to give HL2 the best music award was a commercial decision.
I thought that the music in HL2 was great. It was used only to punctuate certain events. I even ripped the soundtrack to a CD and listen to it occasionally.
