Game Of The Year: Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (GBA)
Runner-Up: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Xbox/PC)

With the deluge of quality titles that were released in 2003 (especially the latter half of the year) it was an extremely hard task to decide on which game was the very best. Any one title could've won it, and with games such as Zelda: The Wind Waker, Soul Calibur II and Mario Kart: Double Dash all seeing extremely successful releases, it's a miracle that it didn't take us a good month of arguing to get this feature done. After all the discussion was finished, two titles remained. Both were RPGs, and both were extremely proficient in pushing the genre forward. In the end, it came down to a matter of which title was the most entertaining to play. That honor goes to Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga.

It's one thing to take a successful franchise and adding simple features to make it worthwhile again, but it's a different story to take it in a completely different direction. Yeah, the Mario franchise has seen quality RPGs in Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario, but neither of them were able to bring the entire Mario universe together so well like Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga did, as well as introducing a couple of new foes for Mario and Luigi to do battle with. What makes Mario & Luigi such a good title is how well the game blends the traditional Mario gameplay with its RPG elements. The combat system uses traditional attacks such as stomping, swinging hammers and fireballs, but they're done in a way that makes fighting enemies enjoyable instead of the "Press the A button 500 times" marathon that many RPGs today are guilty of. That and the irreverent humour makes the game even more enjoyable to experience. Whether the game pays homage to past Mario games, or completely insults it, the dialogue is one of the best parts of the game. Sure, you can laugh along when everyone calls Luigi "the green guy", but come on, he has feelings too. Combine all of these elements together and you have a game that's not only the best this year, but one of the best RPGs in the past couple of years.

That's not to take anything away from our runner-up, of course. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is only the second quality RPG for the Xbox, but it easily surpasses any RPG released on either the PlayStation 2 or the GameCube this year. For the first time, BioWare has brought their magic to the consoles after staying with the PC platform for several years, and the results were amazing. Weaving together a well-written story with likable characters (especially the truly psychotic HK-47) and an enormous universe to explore made the adventure all that more epic as you traveled from planet to planet in search of Darth Malak.

But what made KOTOR such an addictive game was how open-ended it was. Some games claim that your actions affect your surroundings, but KOTOR is one of the few that does everything it says. As you sway between the forces of light and dark, your actions and what you say to everyone you talk to in the game directly affects how people treat you and thus how the story progresses. Become evil enough and you may even have the opportunity to kill your companions that you've never liked to begin with. For most Star Wars fans, this is the game that they've been waiting for. Sure, Rebel Leader was solid and Star Wars Galaxies is a decent title, but neither of them can match the combined gameplay and story elements that KOTOR had.

Sleeper Hit Of the Year: Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (PS2)
Runner-Up: Metal Arms: A Glitch in the System (Multi)

Although there were many blockbuster hits this year, there were also a handful of excellent titles that seemingly came out of nowhere and surprised just about everyone. Titles such as Metal Arms: A Glitch in the System, Beyond Good & Evil and Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon are just a few examples of some exceptional titles that went unnoticed by the consumer this year. However, one title made more of an impact than any other game that was discussed when choosing our sleeper hit of the year, and that was Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. From then unknown developer Nippon Ichi, Disgaea was a fantastic experience that had the complete package: a worthwhile strategy game with new features such as Geopanels and a truly entertaining story featuring hilarious banter about breast sizes and an appearance by the Prism Rangers. Not to mention you can easily rack up 200 hours in this game without even finishing it says a lot for its longevity and how addicting every aspect of this fantastic title is. For those who can only have one RPG for their PS2 this year, there's no other choice here. Disgaea is by far the best RPG for the PS2.

· · · Read our Disgaea: Hour of Darkness review!

PlayStation 2 Game of the Year: Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution
Runner-Up: (Tie) Guilty Gear X2 / Jak II

Overcoming one of the weakest releases ever (shame on you, Sega of America!), AM2's most prized franchise still found a home in the hearts of many gamers across North America. Building on the success of Virtua Fighter 4 (which won best fighting game last year), Evolution completely scrapped the fantastic Kumite mode of the original and replaced it with an even better Quest mode, allowing players to travel all across Japan to eight different arcades to compete in tournaments, acquire new items for their characters and win prizes, such as cute little icons and wallpapers. In fact, customizing your character was one of the biggest features of Evolution. Yeah, the default costumes are traditional and plain, but seeing Akira with spiked hair and a blue bunny on his shoulder or Sarah with a fiery red hairdo and bat wings, complete with a midnight black jumpsuit made things so much better. For those who always complained that fighting games never had an in-depth single player mode had no reason to complain here, as even the most solitude of gamers could enjoy Quest mode, which bordered on being an RPG.

Aside from the above, the reason why gamers loved Evolution is because of the gameplay. No fighting game on the planet has ever come close to matching the chess-like thinking that's a requirement in playing the game, and it's been something the Virtua Fighter series has been known for throughout its existence. No game. Not Tekken, not Street Fighter and definitely not Dead or Alive. It is the study of the game and its mechanics that has made the Virtua Fighter series so successful in Japan, and slowly in other parts of the world as well. Gamers may be intimidated by the sheer complexity of the game, but with an extremely robust training mode that allows you to change the settings of your practice dummy to anything you want, as well as an additional tutorial mode so that you can learn the foundations of the game, even the most clueless of players can now pick up Evolution with relative ease.

If that wasn't enough to convince you, then the $20 price tag will probably do it. Half the cost of a regular PS2 game, but with double the content? Sounds good to us, which is why we made Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution our PS2 Game of the Year.

· · · Read our Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution review!

GameCube Game of the Year: Viewtiful Joe
Runner-Up: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

If a game like American Idol represented everything that was wrong with the industry right now, then Viewtiful Joe is without a doubt everything that's right with it. Who would've thought that a 2D-style beat-em-up could be one of the most stylish, charming and addictive games released this year on any platform? Even more surprising is how revered this game has come from the gaming public since it's unveiling; you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't like Viewtiful Joe. With tight controls, gorgeous cel-shaded graphics and a challenge that will make new generation gamers weep, Viewtiful Joe was easily the complete package for any GameCube owner. But it goes far deeper than that. Even though it's an excellent game, it also pushed the once-stagnating genre forward. Unlike other games that utilize the infamous "bullet-time" gimmick, Viewtiful Joe makes it a part of the core gameplay. It's not for show, and it's not to make things easier on you, but rather it's a necessary element of the game.

The fact that this game was released in the same calendar year as Zelda: The Wind Waker and Mario Kart: Double Dash!! just goes to show you that Capcom still has it in them to produce high-quality games that everyone can enjoy... when they're not milking the hell out of their other franchises. With rumours of a viewtiful port for the Xbox and PS2 and the inevitable sequel (this is Capcom we're talking about), it looks like we'll be seeing a lot more of Joe in the years to come.

· · · Read our Viewtiful Joe review!

Xbox Game of the Year: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Runner-Up: Crimson Skies

The runner-up to Game of the Year was the near unanimous choice for Xbox Game of the Year, for reasons that we've stated before. Microsoft has been keen on making their media campaign focus on the capabilities of Xbox Live for the better part of the year, so it might come as a surprise that the best Xbox game this year was one that hasn't had any downloadable content via Xbox Live to date... yet. Considering that Project Gotham Racing 2, Crimson Skies, Moto GP2 and Rainbow Six 3 all use Xbox Live and are all extremely addicting, it goes to show how innovative and smart game design can make up for the lack of some features. Even without any XBL content, KOTOR manages to be one of the deepest, diverse games on the platform to date, with only Morrowind challenging it. Here's hoping that Lucasarts will tap BioWare in the future if they ever need another Star Wars RPG.

· · · Read our Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic review!

Handheld Game of the Year: Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Runner-Up: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

Our Game of the Year is obviously our Handheld Game of the Year, but with a field of competitors that included some of the best titles that the GameBoy Advance has ever seen, it wasn't an easy fight by any stretch of the imagination. Whenever you have to decide between stellar games like Fire Emblem, Wario Ware Inc., Advance Wars 2 and Mario & Luigi, you know any praise is well-deserved.

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