Your pics for sleeper hit of 2004?

Mine will probably go to "Greg Hastings' Tournament Paintball" on Xbox. I got into paintball this past year and went from playing in backyards when I started to doing my first 3-man tournament just a couple weeks back. (We had 3rd of 14, open class) I like to think I have a pretty good feel for the sport and know what a videogame representation of it should play like. I'll be damned if WXP didn't nail it with this game.

The single-player starts out a bit easy. Probably so most people can get used to running from bunker to bunker. I mean your first guns are Tippmanns and everything so you they don't just throw you to the wolves against Karnivors, DM5, Pimp Kit, etc. Anyway, as career mode advances, you can recruit new players for each season, spend your own experience points on your players' abilities, and change ALL your gear from the gun you shoot to the clothes you wear. They have so much stuff from the biggest names in paintball that I'm blown away. I mean there's like 15 different pairs of SHOES you can buy and wear. Your teammates also have attributes that vary and help you make decisions of what kind of team you want to put together. Do you want a really aggressive player with great speed to play for you? What position? Or do you want somebody more defensive with great marker skill? The options are pretty wide open.

Anyway, Xbox LIVE play is really great though. The other players I've been against so far play it just like real paintball. Hang out too far and you'll get gogged. Its amazingly like the real thing. I haven't been on it too much because of Halo 2, but when I do play its a lot of fun.

There's my pic. Your turn!
 
Neither are 2004 games but I played them this year

Project Zero (Fatal Frame) :- Puts most survival horror games to shame. Excellent stuff.
Beyond Good & Evil :- Reminded me of Another World. Say no more.

Of 2004 games I'd have to go with:-

Chronicles of Riddick : Escape from Butcher Bay
or
Red Dead Revolver - sure it had flaws, but it was great fun.
 
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I forgot Tales of Symphonia came out this year. I prefer that to Katamari Damacy. :D

*i'd still pick Outrun 2 overall though.
 
Unison said:
What the heck? Is that a WoW screen? :lol

What a sleeper! :lol
just figured I would add a little levity.... :lol

sorry.. wishing I was playing it right now..

at the rate Paper Mario 2 is selling right now.. my vote might actually be for that...
 
I just picked up Chronicles of Riddick the other day, I'm going with that. I know I slept on it, but where the hell did that game come from? It's awesome.
 
Katamari

Richard Burns Rally for me personally, who knew WartHog could pull off not only a decent rally game but the best one ever.
 
Badabing said:
Global Operations

Didn't that come out like 3 years ago, homeboy? Great game though.

My pic for Sleeper hit. In a way hard to call it a sleeper, because it has been big in its own right. I just don't see many people speaking of it, or even contending its GOTY quality. It is and then some.

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I think my idea of a "sleeper" differs from others. To me, a sleeper hit is one that comes from an unknown studio (Tigon) or from a studio that traditionally puts out crap (Midway).

Outrun 2 and ToS don't qualify, IMO... and certainly not Pikmin 2 or WoW.

Katamari, Alien Hominid, Psi-Ops, Chronicles of Riddick, RB Rally, and the paintball game are all good choices.

Personally, I'm going with Outlaw Golf 2 from Hypnotix. A game that wasn't even going to come out this year. It was somewhat lost in legal shuffles and lost it's publisher, but still emerged as the best sports game released this year. Best $20 spent.


*cue gratuitous screenshot....


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teepo said:
do you not know what a sleeper hit is?
Yes, that's why I've suggested Taiko Drum Master... It's a sleeper here (North America). Katamari Damacy is also a sleeper for anyone that doesn't visit Gaming-Age Forums on a regular basis...
 
Laurent said:
Yes, that's why I've suggested Taiko Drum Master... It's a sleeper here (North America). Katamari Damacy is also a sleeper for anyone that doesn't visit Gaming-Age Forums on a regular basis...

taiko is deff my sleeper game as well.
 
teepo said:
do you not know what a sleeper hit is?

Exactly. A sleeper hit is:

A game that came out of nowhere, without the usual hype and hyperbole, to surprise everyone by climbing to the top of the sales charts or at least making a much larger impression than anyone anticipated.

So, you need to have two criteria.

1) It has to have little to no hype (thus the sleeper)
2) It has to sell disproportionately well to expectation (thus the hit)

99% of the games mentioned above, don't meet that criteria. Using this criteria, there can only be one real "winner".

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Others would be:

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sonycowboy said:
Exactly. A sleeper hit is:

A game that came out of nowhere, without the usual hype and hyperbole, to surprise everyone by climbing to the top of the sales charts or at least making a much larger impression than anyone anticipated.

So, you need to have two criteria.

1) It has to have little to no hype (thus the sleeper)
2) It has to sell, score, or have favorable impressions disproportionately better than the expectation (thus the hit)

Fixed... IMO
 
Katamari and TOS. Thank god for forums like this because I wouldn't have known about Katamari otherwise. What a fun pickup game for 20 bucks. And Tales filled a good 65 hours of RPG good-ness for me.
 
Damacy sold pretty well didn't it? I remember it was sold out everywhere when it first came out. Now, thats probably cause Namco didn't ship that many because they didnt think it would sell well, but it did.
 
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