Game of the Year 2004 Awards: Biggest Surprise
Myrthos, 2005-02-22

The last couple of weeks you could vote for the best RPGs and MMORPGs that have been released in 2004. Not us but you the player decide who receives the RPGDot 2004 Awards in the various categories. We thank all those who entered their votes and helped us in making it possible to select the best games of 2004.

Biggest Surprise RPG
At times there are games that are better than expected and actually manage to surprise us.

The winner: Vampire - Bloodlines
It's hard to know exactly why our readers thought Vampire: Bloodlines was the biggest surprise of the year. Perhaps it was because the game was just so good or perhaps because doubts lingered over Troika's ability to deliver a compelling first-person action-RPG with a quality story - or even that a first-person action-RPG would offer the depth of roleplaying players were looking for. No doubt the Vampire license itself conjured images of tortured Goth teenagers for many and the superbly written mature themes may have caught players by surprise.

(Dhruin)

Runner Up: Sacred
No doubt many players sighed in quiet frustration when yet another apparent Diablo clone was announced by a company known for its soccer and strategy/sailing games. Yet Ascaron had a few different ideas in play for Sacred: a huge world to explore freely, horses and mounted combat, different classes such as the Vampiress, some simple crafting and the ability to create your own combo attacks all helped create an action-RPG a cut above the average. With good graphics, nicely animated attacks and full multiplayer support, Sacred is one of the best action-RPGs to ever follow in Diablo's footsteps.

(Dhruin)

Second Runner Up: Pirates!
For a game that was originally introduced back in 1987 - having the Firaxis/Atari "revised" Sid Meier's Pirates become one of the big "surprise games" of 2004 seems rather ironic (though not without merit).

From it's refreshing, updated, and crisp graphics; its enhanced gameplay and what I would call "mini-games"; its new and thoroughly appropriate soundtrack; its highly interesting storyline driving the otherwise open-ended game play; and its oveerall pure pleasure in just playing for hours on end - all of these factored in to prove that you can actually (sometimes) improve on a proven product - and that speaks volumes for the genius of Sid Meier and his immortal game - Pirates!!!

(Kristophe)

The Numbers
To make it complete we now give you the top 10 as voted by our visitors:

And 23% of the voters didn't have a clue about what to select.

The team members list shows something completely different:

List of the awards
Awards on RPGDot:
Best graphics
Best Sound and Music
Biggest Surprise
Biggest Disappointment
Most Anticipated
Dream Game
Best Console RPG
Best Non-RPG
Best RPG

Awards on MMORPGDot:
Best graphics
Best Sound and Music
Biggest Surprise
Biggest Disappointment
Most Anticipated
Dream Game
Best Expansion MMORPG
Best MMORPG

Note that percentages are rounded to the nearest number.