In the last weeks of December 2001, you had the opportunity to vote for the best RPGs (and a non-RPG) released in 2001. Nobody knows better what these are then you the player and as such The RPGDot 2001 Awards will look good on any game receiving one.
We thank all those who entered their votes and helped us in making it possible to select the best games.

Best Non-RPG
Even die hard RPG players tend to play another type of game every now and then. So we wanted an award for best Non-RPG as well to see what you like the best, besides RPG's. Almost 200 different games were entered by the voters. But there was only one clear winner.

The winner: Max Payne
Bang - this game noir hit the scene like a bullet from a Barretta. While one could argue it is (JAS - jus another shooter), Max Payne is slick looking, fast paced, a story well told and a bunch of great ideas. To fight in slowmo is great fun, and the automated sequences when you defeat the level boss are outstanding remainders of Matrix.

One other thing that is worth mentioning about Max Payne: it was a clean, nearly bug free release. You could have had problems with hardware - just because the game tried to get the max out of the machine. When I bought it, I owned a P3 450 with a second generation GeForce - I had to tune down graphics to enjoy the game. Today, with the AMD 1400 and the GeForce 3 - this baby flies and rocks.

Max Payne showed that a clever mix of originality and "more of the same" can make a great game that sells well. It is a worthy winner here at RPGDot.

(Rendelius)

Runner Up: Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Almost a decade ago, Wolfenstein 3D gave life to the genre of First Person Shooters (FPS). As every genre, FPS have undergone significant changes and split up into sub-genres.
However, Gray Matter's Return to Castle Wolfenstein is literally to be taken as the return of the classic FPS games and its success shows that -despite all advancement that's been achieved in the last 10 years- the basic ingredients to make a fun FPS haven't changed at all. Keywords are: An interesting choice of weapons, a challenging variety of enemies, sophisticated enemy AI and motivating missions in well designed levels. Return to Castle Wolfenstein delivers all that and more. id Software's aging Quake 3 engine has proven capable of producing a stunning visual experience in this game. The sound and music are top notch and the cutscenes add to the dense atmosphere of the WWII setting.

The only downside of Return to Castle Wolfenstein: it's too short. You will have finished single player in roughly 10 hours. Which isn't so bad in case you're into Multiplayer. The Multiplayer part of the game offers all the innovations the single player game is missing. It's real good fun to play on Allies or Axis side with a few buddies over Internet and to take on the challenging Multiplayer missions which mostly consist of several objectives that can only be achieved by real team work.

Conclusion: We don't need the Duke, um, at least.. until he's done...

(Moriendor)

Second Runner Up: Civilization III
Civ 3 appeared on shelves late last year, to the initial delight of Civ fans everywhere. However, many veteran Civ players found themselves disappointed. What Firaxis produced is a solid entertaining game, but not one that advances the genre in any significant way. The introduction of strategic resources was good, but could have been implemented better. You seem to get either a feast or a famine, and on larger maps it's more of the latter.

Many controls are not intuitive, and the game manual does a good job of hiding important information in insignificant little paragraphs. Message boards were soon lit up with players old and new asking where to find basic instructions, or simple controls, because they could not find it in the manual, or intuit them from the interface.

Strikingly, there was no multiplayer feature, something that surprised many, but not perhaps those who waited 4 years for multiplayer to appear in Civ II. It strikes me as ludicrous that multiplayer on one machine not even be included in a turn based game. Many LAN goers were disappointed that Civ III would be unavailable to them, especially since the computer opponents are as banal as ever.

In summation, Civ 3 is a great game but if you are still playing Civ 2, or Alpha Centauri, or even the original Civ, don't bother with this game, you are already playing one just like it. If you don't own a Civ game yet, it's time to find out what you have been missing. Get Alpha Centauri if you prefer a Sci-Fi theme to a Real-World theme.

(Chaerea)

The Numbers
To make it complete we now give you the top 10 (out of 27) as voted by our visitors:

And 41% of those who participated were unable to select a game.

We, the RPGDot team also voted to create our own, but it turned out to be a top 1, as all other games only got one vote. So here it is:

So we think Max Payne was the best game as well, which should not be surprising. What is surprising is that 1.35% of those who voted chose Everquest as the best Non-RPG....

Note that percentages are rounded to the nearest number.