My Games of the Year 2000 - 2017

What's your Game of the Year 2017? If your answer isn't "Breath of the Wild", chances are that you haven't played the game. This might seem presumptuous, but The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild clearly was one of the most ground-breaking games this year with its "Climb'n'Glide" approach for the open world genre. It sold the Nintendo Switch and it even sold Wii Us to those who couldn't get a Switch. It also won many "Game of the Year" awards already, including the Golden Joystick Awards and TIME Magazine's Best Games of 2017, as well as the infamous Game Awards, where they showed the trailer for the Champions' Ballad DLC. (Here you can find a comprehensive list of all this year's GotY awards, over 80 in total.)

I've spent over 600 hours with Breath of the Wild and I've also written over a hundred posts on this blog about the game this year, so it's clear that this is by all certainty my Game of the Year 2017. If you're a reader of this blog, you most likely concur with this choice.

Now, picking a GotY probably never has been as easy for me as this year and that made me reflect on what my picks were in the past. So, I decided to compile a list of all my "Games of the Year":

• 2000: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
• 2001: The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages & Seasons
• 2002: Unreal Tournament 2003
• 2003: Unreal II - The Awakening
• 2004: Unreal Tournament 2004
• 2005: Unreal Championship 2 - The Liandri Conflict
• 2006: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
• 2007: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
• 2008: Super Smash Bros. Brawl
• 2009: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
• 2010: Unreal Tournament 3 - Black Edition
• 2011: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
• 2012: Minecraft
• 2013: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
• 2014: Hyrule Warriors
• 2015: The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes
• 2016: Hyrule Warriors - Legends
• 2017: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

That's some slightly weird list, isn't it? Some of these choices shouldn't be all that surprising, others might seem odd. But let me explain. First of all, keep in mind that these lists are limited to the scope of what I've been playing all those years. Overwatch for example looks great and was the Game of the Year 2016 for many, but I haven't played it yet.

In my case there are only few criteria for a potential Game of the Year. First and foremost, it has to be a game where I've spent a significant amount of freetime during that year playing and enjoying it, as well as thinking or writing about the game. Ideally, this game was also released in that year and something new, so not just a port or a remaster. Though, there are exceptions to this clause, e.g. when the port has lots of new content, like Hyrule Warriors - Legends in 2016.

This list starts with the year 2000, because Majora's Mask was the first game that I bought on its release day, followed by the Oracle games the year after. The years 1998 and 1999 certainly also had amazing gems with Ocarina of Time, Unreal and Unreal Tournament, but I didn't play these games in the year they were released (it was Christmas 1999 where I got Ocarina of Time).

But I still remember how I went to the newsdealer in 1999 and 2000 to buy Nintendo magazines just to have some pictures of "Mask of Mujula", as well as "Acorn of the Mysterious Tree", the new exciting Zelda games. Those were the times before everyone had a broadband internet connection, but I still have those articles stored in a my "Zelda folder" and they surely bring back memories. Good times.

Well, it shouldn't be a big surprise that I have many Zelda games on that list. Even if I consider some of them to be "inferior Zelda games", those were still the games that excited me the most during that year. Twilight Princess for example is a game that kind of disappointed me after I've first played it, but it doesn't change the fact that this was the game that defined 2006 for me and I was really hyped for it, maybe a little too hyped. I also liked Phantom Hourglass quite a lot, when it first came out, probably more than most people.

And with this blog I automatically spent a lot of time with any new Zelda release, which certainly was the case with Spirit Tracks and Skyward Sword, even though I could compile big lists with issues about them. Tri Force Heroes is despised by many, but it was something that I wanted for a long time (an online multiplayer Four Swords game) and I enjoyed it a lot, while it lasted, even spent over 200 hours with the game. At least A Link Between Worlds is a very good Zelda game, which ended up as my Game of the Year 2013 and probably not just for me.

What might be surprising to you is the gap between 2002 and 2005, where Unreal used to be my absolute favorite game series and I wasn't much of a Zelda fan at the time. The GameCube and the comic style Wind Waker just weren't "cool" enough for a teenage boy. It wasn't before 2005 where I was able to try the 20 minute demo of the Wind Waker on the Collector's Edition disc and a demo of Twilight Princess on the Games Convention in Leipzig that I decided to purchase a GameCube and finally catch up with the franchise again. I did get The Minish Cap on release, though, but it didn't make the list, because it just couldn't compete with Unreal Tournament 2004. I spent a lot of time with the Unreal games back in the day, playing all game modes up and down, even building maps with the Unreal Editor. And I had a really good time with them, which is why they dominate the years 2002 to 2005.

I also played a lot of Unreal Tournament 3, but not before 2010, which is why this game shouldn't have made this list, because it actually came out in 2007 and therefore technically doesn't really qualify. But the game wasn't really finished, before Epic released the "Titan Pack" update and the "Black Edition" on Steam in 2009, the year before. And the only other real choice for 2010 would have been Metroid: Other M, probably the most despised Metroid game... And I don't even have any other Metroid games on my list yet, so this would be a toxic choice. I didn't get into the franchise before 2008 and the only other Metroid games that I got on release were the Metroid Prime Trilogy and just recently Samus Returns. The Trilogy is probably a close second to Spirit Tracks in 2009, but I decided to go with the new game. And Samus Returns is certainly great, but no competition to Breath of the Wild.

Minecraft also isn't a 2012 game, but I started with version 1.1, which came out in January 2012. So, let's pretend that this counts, because this game had to be on my list, after I spent about two years being sucked into it. Only the big Zelda wave that started in 2013 could save me from that addiction, where this was my true open world game before Breath of the Wild.

But looking back I had a good time with every single one of these games and I'm eager to find out what my future Games of the Year will be, starting with 2018. Something tells me that it might be another Zelda again...