Online: Gaming's best bets?: What were the games of 2000? Steven Poole keeps the score

• Published in: The Guardian (London)
• Main Author: Steven Poole Greg Howson Andy Bodle Jack Schofield
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: London (UK) Guardian News & Media Limited 21.12.2000
• Subjects: Computer & video games; Year in review
• ISSN: 0261-3077

It was also the year that saw much-hyped games failing to deliver on their promises. Jon Romero's Daikatana (PC) turned out to be a fat, stinking dog, while the laudably creative ideas in Shiny's Messiah (PC) or Sega's Shenmue (DC) never gelled into outstanding games. Shenmue (the game where you had to get a job) created a jaw- droppingly beautiful and detailed environment, but in it you spent most of your time walking up to people and pressing A, or hanging around looking at your watch. It's very clever to simulate the tedium of everyday life, but in the end it's still tedious. Perfect Dark (N64), meanwhile, the long-awaited "spiritual sequel" to Goldeneye that finally hit the shelves in the summer, was fascinating and horribly flawed in equal measure. Its great achievement was an astonishing array of beautifully designed gadgetry. Here were the Combat Boost (a pill that slowed down time to enable you to rescue hostages with John Woo-style headshots to kidnappers), the Farsight (a weapon that could aim and shoot through walls), and the superb Laptop Gun, a rapid-fire weapon that could be deployed on walls as a friendly comrade. For sheer aesthetic origi nality, on the other hand, the best game of the year was undoubtedly Sega's Jet Set Radio. Its "cel-shaded" graphics combined traditional 3D rendering with a fresh, cartoony look, and - this is the magic touch of Sega's in-house developers - the skating 'n' spraying gameplay was simple to pick up but enjoyably challenging to master. Dreamcast was also blessed with a lovely conversion of Crazy Taxi (barking arcade gameplay soaked in American alt-rock), a brace of extremely good-looking driving games (Ferrari 335 Challenge and Metropolis Street Racer), and a very fine conversion of Quake III: Arena. And even though Soul Calibur came out last year, I'm going to mention it here again, because the visual and mechanical genius of Namco's fighter remains thoroughly undimmed.