The ZippyGamer Staff choose their picks for the best video game of 2004.

Joe – Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

There are just so many great games to choose from for 2004.  We saw the return of a classic NES series known for being difficult, Ninja Gaiden. And this sequel continued its challenging tradition. Those of you in the Eastern Hemisphere got The Legend of Zelda: The Minsh Cap in 2004. We got our forth Mario RPG game, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. And the Nintendo DS was released this year along with Super Mario 64 DS. This was also the year Nintendo gave us Metroid: Zero Mission and World of Warcraft took over many lives.

But as far as 2004 games go, I am going to have to say that Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is my choice for the best. It might not have been as memorable as the first Metroid Prime, but it incorporates some nice new features that make it rank right up there with its predecessor. Echoes brought us the very first multiplayer Metroid experience. It might not have been the best FPS multiplayer mode, but it was fun and eventually paved the way for Metroid Prime Hunters‘s online battles.

The single-player mode also shined with its duel worlds which we’re “echoes” of one another. This added for some nice puzzle elements. You may have to hit a switch in the dark world to open a path in the light world. Echoes was also the first 3D Metroid to feature Samus’s trademark Screw Attack move. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes may not have been the best Metroid game ever made, but it no doubt paved the way for the features of its successors.

Honorable Mentions: World of Warcraft (PC), Metroid: Zero Mission (GBA), Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (GCN), Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PS2)

Kelsey – Half-Life 2

Half-Life 2 is one of the best shooters ever made. A worthy successor to Half-Life, the game is made up of fun set-pieces. The technology behind the game is impressive, Valve’s emphasis on textures over polygons sounded pretty silly at the time, but they proved they knew what they were doing once the game was in action. Half-Life 2’s Source engine stands up well to ID’s Doom 3 engine – which is more demanding but just looked inferior due to mediocre texture work. The set-pieces themselves are memorable. One minute you’re running across rooftops and through sewers to escape the Combine, then before you know it you’re running through a zombie infested town, attacking a prison, before leading an armed rebellion in the middle of a city.

Lewis – Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

As a kid, I grew up with a PS1, and I loved playing games like Crash and Spyro, but my brother, who was 2 years older, loved a game called Metal Gear Solid, and I never understood why. Now I’m older and wiser, but when I decided to borrow MGS3 off a friend to see if I could love the series, I had no idea the sheer joy that awaited me. A nail-bitingly tense plot, a fantastic cold war setting, interesting gameplay, a incredibly immersive stealth system and a sense of humour to boot, Metal Gear Solid 3 stands as an example to all others seeking to be a cinematic game: This is how you do it. At the start of MGS3, I was skeptical; by the end, I was in love. Interesting boss battles mixed with a self-aware bizarreness (though never enough to distract from the plot) make this game appeal to the side of me that likes to know that beneath the half hour cutscenes there is a man genuinely enjoying his creations. His name is Hideo Kojima. And I love him.

Honorable Mentions: Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door (GCN), Half-Life 2 (PC)

Liam – Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door

To be honest, for me, 2004 was a bit stale in the video game department. Only a handful of great games came out, in my opinion of course.

The pick for me, had to be Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. If any of you have played the original Paper Mario game, You’ll know that Nintendo really know how to work the magic in the series; borrowing the elements that made the original so good and improved on them. The cast was great, and really bought the Mario universe to life. The story had some good strong comedy moments, and the Bowser gameplay parts were a great notch to old school Mario.

Honorable Mentions: Half-Life 2 (PC), Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (GCN), Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PS2)

Jonathan – Halo 2

I’ll just go ahead and say it: 2004 was the best year in gaming since 2000 and hell, I’d argue it could be the best year of all time. Now where do I start…

World of Warcraft was released this year and brought in a new era of MMOs. As we’ve discussed on the site before, WoW has over 11 million monthly subscribers which we estimate is over 1 billion dollars in annual fees. Who knew a single game could be so profitable? The game has a great storyline and is easy to get into, but it’s also deep enough to keep players around for years.

Another huge release was Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Considered by many to be the best game in the GTA series, it is also the highest selling game of all time on the Sony Playstation 2. The map of GTA: SA is huge, covering 13.9 square miles. With the ability to drive over 200 vehicles, added RPG elements, funny story, and Hot Coffee controversies, this game was and still is one of the best games ever.

My pick of the year is the only game I’ve ever stood in line at midnight to buy: Halo 2. This game is the reason I bought a Xbox, and not surprisingly its sequel (Halo 3) is the reason I bought a Xbox 360. I don’t even remember being a huge fan of the original Halo but something about Halo 2 and playing online really grabbed me. The only bad thing I can say about the game has nothing to do with the game itself: the players.

Cheating eventually became widespread and it was often very frustrating to join a game and have an opponent who could kill you with one pistol bullet from across the map. It made the game unplayable and finding a good match was much more treasured than it should have been. Shame on you, Halo 2 cheaters. You suck.

My brother and I played online together for years and we rarely got tired of it. There’s just something about Halo 2 that “clicks” better than any other shooter I’ve played, including PC shooters, and considering it was the most played Xbox Live game… I know I’m not alone.

I can’t talk about them in depth, but each of the following deserve a HUGE honorable mention: The Sims 2 (PC), Half-Life 2 (PC), Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II The Sith Lords (Xbox)