ALL of the GotY Pages are now accompanied by music from that selected game. The 2001 page for example now has "Dart's Theme", one of the most known songs from the "The Legend of Dragoon" (the selected GotY). Also, as you may have noticed we now have a countdown box for The GotY 2008. We will announce this year's best RPG and will have a complete page for it in "2008". Another thing you may have noticed is that we don't have 2006-2007 yet. I will hopefully be able to get those completed by tomorrow, and if not I plan on having them completely finshed by Saturday. I might even be able to finish 2005 tonight although the chances are slim eh?
[June 28, 2008]
EDIT: I actually finished the 2005 section tonight and I have given the GotY Award to "Guild Wars".
[July 23, 2008]
EDIT: I have finished everything but I have decided to merge all Games into one to try and lower our bandwidth useage and storage space (it cost us almost 90mb just for the music).
[July 24, 2008]
EDIT: From this point on, every Role-Playing Game of the Year will be listed. If you would like to hear some of the music, click on the game you would like to hear a sample from in the player below. We have also decided on shortening the text a bit, as to keep you from getting bored.
* Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, developed by BioWare and released on September 26, 2000, is the second computer RPG in the Baldur's Gate series, which takes place just a few months after the events of the original Baldur's Gate. It is based on the 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role-playing system but mixes in some elements such as the new monk, sorcerer, and barbarian core classes introduced in the 3rd edition. The story is set in the Forgotten Realms, the most popular D&D story setting. It has sold over 2,000,000 units and is widely regarded as one of the best role-playing games of all time.
The word that sums up Baldur's Gate II the best is depth. In 2000, no other game had given you so many choices and so much gameplay, in such a polished package. BioWare, BG2's developer, continues to raise the bar for the game's of the new millenium.
* Legend of Dragoon
One of the best RPG's since Final Fanstasy, the Legend of Dragoon was Sony's first attempt at RPG's. Nintendo already had one of the best RPG franchises around, Final Fantasy.
The Legend of Dragoon features three modes of play which are consistent in most RPGs: the world map, the field map, and battle mode. The world map is linear with the main character's movements, which is then limited to dotted lines from place to place. The field map is used whenever the player enters a town, dungeon, or landmark. It consists of 3D characters on a 2D pre-rendered background. Animations are overlaid to create motion such as the movement of water or light effects. Battle mode is a 3D field that compliments the current field map. Turn-based battles occur in this between playable characters and CPU-controlled enemies. Standard actions such as attack, magic, defend, item and escape are present though implemented in various ways.
* Neverwinter Nights
Play centers on the development of a character that becomes the ultimate hero of the story. In the original NWN scenario supplied with the game engine, the player is single-handedly responsible for defeating a powerful cult; collecting the four reagents required for stopping an insatiable plague; thwarting an attack on the city of Neverwinter, and many other side quests.
The first and final chapters of the story in the official campaign deal with the city of Neverwinter itself, but the lengthy mid-story requires the player to venture into the countryside and then northward to the city of Luskan. Neverwinter is a city on the Sword Coast of Faerûn, in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting of Dungeons and Dragons.
* EVE Online
Eve Online is a player-driven persistent-world massively-multiplayer online RPG set in a science fiction space setting. Players pilot a wide array of customizable ships through a universe comprising over five thousand solar systems. Most solar systems are connected to one or more other solar systems by means of jump gates. The solar systems can contain several entities including but not limited to: moons, planets, stations, asteroid belts, and complexes.
Players of Eve Online are able to participate in any number of in-game professions and activities, including mining, manufacturing, trade and combat (both Player Versus Environment and Player Versus Player). The range of activities available to the player is facilitated by a character advancement system based upon training skills in real time, even while not logged in to the game.
It is developed and maintained by the Icelandic company CCP Games. First released in North America and Europe in May 2003, it was published from May to December 2003, after which CCP purchased the rights back and began to self-publish via a digital distribution scheme. On January 22, 2008 it was announced that Eve will be distributed via Steam. The current version of Eve Online is dubbed Empyrean Age.
* World of Warcraft (WoW)
*Honorary Mentions:
Runescape 2 - Despite Runescape's success and now having 1,000,000+ players, World of Warcraft topped the 2004 RPG of the Year.
Fable: The Lost Chapters - Perhaps one of the best RPG's around, it would have won if not for WoW being such a dominant game.
World of Warcraft (commonly known as WoW) is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG). It is Blizzard Entertainment's fourth game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994. World of Warcraft takes place within the world of Azeroth, four years after the events at the conclusion of Blizzard's previous release, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Blizzard Entertainment announced World of Warcraft on September 2, 2001, 7 days before 9/11. The game was released on November 23, 2004, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise. It is currently the world's largest MMORPG in terms of monthly subscribers, and holds the Guinness World Record for the most popular MMORPG. World of Warcraft currently holds 62% of the MMOG market at 10 million subscribers. The current subscriber base for all MMOGs is 16 million.
* Guild Wars
Guild Wars is an episodic series of multiplayer online role-playing games developed by ArenaNet and published by NCSoft. Three stand-alone episodes and one expansion pack were released in the series from April 2005 to August 2007.
Guild Wars provides two main modes of gameplay—a cooperative role-playing component and a competitive player versus player (PvP) component—both of which are hosted on ArenaNet's servers. The games depict the history of the fictional fantasy world of Tyria, each campaign focusing on events in disjoint sections of the world, but roughly parallel in time. A player creates an avatar to play through the cooperative storyline of a campaign, taking on the role of a hero who must save Tyria from episode-specific antagonists. Players can group with other players and non-player characters, known as henchmen or heroes, to perform missions and quests found throughout the game-world. PvP combat is consensual, team based, and limited to areas designed for such combat. Players are allowed to create characters at maximum level and the best equipment specifically for PvP play, which is unusual for MMORPGs. ArenaNet hosts official Guild Wars tournaments where the most successful players and guilds may compete for the chance to play live at gaming conventions and win prizes up to $100,000.
* The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, or simply Oblivion, is a single player fantasy-themed action-oriented computer role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks/ZeniMax Media and the Take-Two Interactive subsidiary 2K Games. It is the fourth installment in The Elder Scrolls video game series. It was released on March 21, 2006 for Windows PCs and the Xbox 360. A PlayStation 3 release was shipped on March 20, 2007 in North America, and April 27, 2007 in Europe. One expansion pack, Shivering Isles, and a number of minor content releases followed.
The game was well-received by critics, winning numerous awards and scoring an average of 94% in Metacritic's aggregate. Oblivion sold 1.7 million copies by April 10, 2006, and over 3 million copies by January 18, 2007. A package including both Shivering Isles and the official plug-in Knights of the Nine, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition, was released in Fall 2007 for Windows PCs, the Xbox 360, and the PlayStation 3.
Oblivion's story focuses on a former prisoner drawn into a Daedric Lord's plan to invade the mortal realm of Tamriel. Gates to the hellish realm of Oblivion are opened, through which many daedra flow. The game continues the open-ended tradition of previous Elder Scrolls games, allowing the player to travel anywhere in the game world at any time, including the option to ignore or postpone the main storyline indefinitely. Developers opted for a tighter pacing and greater focus than past titles, a design choice that was well-received in the gaming press.
* The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar
The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (commonly abbreviated to LOTRO) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for Microsoft Windows set in a fantasy universe based upon J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. It takes place during the time period of The Lord of the Rings.
The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar was developed by Turbine, is subscription-based, and requires Internet access. It launched in Canada, the United States, Australia, Japan and Europe on April 24, 2007. In China, beta testing started in July 2007, and the game was released by the end of 2007. The first expansion pack, Mines of Moria, has been announced to be released in Fall 2008.