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Nintendo World Report Awards: 2010

Best Multiplayer and Best Import Title

by James Jones, Jon Lindemann, Jared Rosenberg, and Karlie Yeung - December 31, 2010, 2:24 pm EST

These are two awards that don't really have anywhere else to go. One is more Wii-centric, whereas the other focuses on the Nintendo DS market.


BEST MULTIPLAYER

While it might not be as important on DS, multiplayer on Wii has been a central marketing point for the console.  For the purposes of this award, "multiplayer" encompasses both local and online multiplayer.

Winner: GoldenEye 007
In a world where only one system had four controller ports, GoldenEye 007 on Nintendo 64 kept friends engaged in firefights late into the night. The fine folks at Eurocom have successfully created a Bond title that not only features great split-screen multiplayer that is reminiscent of Rare’s classic, but also a robust and modern online mode to go along with it. Local multiplayer fiends will love the numerous modifiers, including the nostalgic paintball and golden gun modes. On the other hand, players jumping online will enjoy the usually lag-free matches and the ability to level up their character to unlock new weapons and rewards. Great multiplayer map design, Classic Controller support, and Oddjob’s inclusion are just some of GoldenEye’s other fine attributes. Those desiring multiplayer action would be silly to avoid Bond’s finest Wii outing.


Four Player Split-Screen

Runner Up:  Monster Hunter Tri
Monster Hunter Tri faithfully brings four-player monster-tracking madness to Wii, with a fully fleshed-out multiplayer component that puts many other titles on the console to shame. In addition to local adventuring, friends can also meet up online. While a type of friend code is still used for online play, Capcom made them short and sweet, and the online lobby system and Wii Speak support makes finding and communicating with friends much easier. Add in downloadable quests and a constantly rotating selection of online challenges, and you have one of the best multiplayer titles the Wii has seen to date.


BEST IMPORT TITLE

While multiplayer may play a larger role on Wii than it does on DS, the DS has a definitive upper hand when it comes to import titles. Being a mostly region-free device, gamers can import whatever titles they choose from other parts of the world. This year our North American staff became enamored with two European imports in particular.

Winner: Jam With The Band
Some of the best DS titles of this year just never made it to North American shores. Inspiring the discipline of learning an actual instrument, Jam With The Band manages to provide a taste of the joy of performing music. With a large library of tracks on the cartridge, and up to 50 more from a choice of hundreds for download, the game offers a lot of music to experience. Unique instrumentation for each track allows the most devoted to delve into the intricacies of every song. If all of that doesn’t satisfy, hours have been spent in the studio mode recreating melodies for no reason other than the joy of music. Not bad for a a DS title.

This note path can get moving pretty fast

Runner Up: Last Window: The Secret of Cape West
A sequel to the extremely well done Hotel Dusk: Room 251, Last Window continues to unravel the mystery of Kyle Hyde. It brings along another brilliant story, uncovering the mysteries of the soon-to-be demolished Cape West apartments, and its connections with the death of Kyle’s father. While a North American release looks unlikely, fans of the first game or similarly-styled adventure games would do well to consider an import.

Kyle Hyde contemplates this traditional puzzle

Images

Talkback

Killer_Man_JaroTom Malina, Associate Editor (Europe)December 31, 2010

Three cheers for the timely release of these awards!

Nah, seriously, kudos to all the staffers who wrote their pieces. The picks were, in many ways, as expected, but of course no less deserving in spite of that. In fact, I'd have been very surprised if the platformers and the time thieves hadn't swept the board.
Can't help but feel sorry for Professor Layton 3, which got three runner-up spots, but didn't take the gold. I've yet to sink my teeth into that one, though I am psyched to do so.
And well done for getting Fluidity in there. A lot of other sites passed over that due its late calendar release, which is a real shame. It really is such a great adventure/puzzle game.

The DS and Wii GOTY matched mine perfectly, and I had a hard time deciding between the two of them for GOTY. Great awards overall.

pololmejorDecember 31, 2010

Picross 3D REALLY!? I like it but I preffer Professor Layton and the Unwound Future like a billion times... sheesh.

I played Picross 3D for about a minute at PAX East, and I've never touched a Layton game .  I might just pick it up if I see it super-cheap.

Hey, those awards were awesome!

Retro DeckadesDecember 31, 2010

The Unwound Future was great, but I was done with it long before I was done with Picross 3D. As a matter of fact, despite having solved all the puzzles on the card, I'm still not done with it.

Kytim89December 31, 2010

No More Heroes 2 is my Wii game of year.

Quote from: NWR_Lindy

I played Picross 3D for about a minute at PAX East, and I've never touched a Layton game .  I might just pick it up if I see it super-cheap.

Of course you don't.

Did you get electrocuted by that Picross 3D like Lauren and I did?

NWR_pap64Pedro Hernandez, Contributing WriterJanuary 01, 2011

Hooray! Great work on this, you guys!

KDR_11kJanuary 01, 2011

Dunno, some of the awards look like default victories (e.g. who was competing against Other M and No More Heroes?).

vuduJanuary 01, 2011

Quote from: NWR_Lindy

I played Picross 3D for about a minute at PAX East, and I've never touched a Layton game .  I might just pick it up if I see it super-cheap.

Is $9.99 for Picross 3D and $17.99 for the new Professor Layton cheap enough?

For Picross, yes.  Thanks to a $20 Best Buy gift certificate I got for Christmas, I picked it up for $10.61 after tax and I still have some money left over on the card.

I could pick up Layton with that, but I honestly don't think I'd play it.  I've never been particularly drawn to the series, and all of my DS time is better spent on DQ IX at the moment.

Scatt-ManJanuary 01, 2011

I don't know why I'm in the minority whenever I express my utter disappointment with Goldeneye. Maybe Game Mode on my TV reduces image quality considerably, thus the visuals don't wow me as they do in the screenshots 'n stuff, but that aspect wasn't even the biggest let down for me.

THE CONTROLS, MAN! They felt incredibly chunky...lacking a certain smoothness. After giving up on using the 'mote 'n 'chuck option, I was incredibly surprised that the same problems still persisted when using the Gamecube controller. Red Steel 2, The Conduit and Metroid Prime 3 never gave me this problem. *Has a cry about it* The defaultly set automatically adjusting height option for when going up stairs and the auto target ADS (Aim down sight) setting were all incredibly inconsistent and a massive annoyance.

END.

Quote from: KDR_11k

Dunno, some of the awards look like default victories (e.g. who was competing against Other M and No More Heroes?).

We're not under any obligation to give out an award.  If we didn't feel there was a worthy candidate we passed on a category.  If there was a worthy candidate, regardless of the presence of competition, we awarded it.

The awards that only have one winner are situations where we had a game that we loved but simply could not find another game that was worthy of similar praise.  In our mind it was better that we honor a great game even if it means having a category to itself.

ShyGuyJanuary 01, 2011

I wish Red Steel 2 would have gotten more respect.

vuduJanuary 01, 2011

I wish Red Steel 2 would have been worth more respect.

ShyGuyJanuary 02, 2011

I wish vudu had better taste in games. I also wish we would have gotten Conduit 2 or The Grinder this year.

GoldenPhoenixJanuary 02, 2011

Great list, I can't really comment on Kirby as runner up for GOTY since I haven't played it nor DKCR yet, but really not much disagreement with the picks there. Glad to see Endless Ocean 2 make it as well for a category.

xcwarriorJanuary 02, 2011

Good to see a number of titles get some love.

Monster Hunter 3 is my game of the year, with Galaxy 2 second.

DS by default I have to go Pokemon, but I'm sure I would have loved DQ IX had I picked it up already.

Glad to see NMH2 was mentioned, though a bit surprised DKCR didn't get a bit more love.

DKCR is a game we love certainly, but it is a very crowded field this year.  The reason it beat out Kirby for platformer but not for GotY runner-up is that as a platformer it is a better example of the genre.  Kirby's intangibles put it over for overall game.

TurdFurgyJanuary 03, 2011

Very well done! All of these games are well deserving. And I also wish Red Steel 2 would have gotten more respect.

LittleIrvesJanuary 05, 2011

Picross 3D hasn't been as much of a time-sink for me as I expected it, but there's no denying its effectiveness and charm.  I finally just acquired the "Normal" difficultly, and I feel like I've already gotten two games' worth of play out of it.  My girlfriend is sick of me poking away at the DS screen for 15 minutes before saying, "A-ha!  It's a Cuckoo Clock!" or whatever.
And I'm loving DKCR, but feel the pull towards Kirby more and more...  his (its?) soft edges might just be the ticket after the pounding I've taken from Kong.
As this is veering closer and closer to innuendo a bit too intimate for my tastes, I'll bid y'all adieu. Good work, NWRers.

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