2006 Game of the Year: Multiplayer

Playing alone certainly has its merits, but playing together is typically just more fun, especially if you are working together with other people in a team effort.

This year's best multiplayer games are a mix of online and offline multiplayers that catch the spirit and fun of playing together.

5th Place - Naked War

Developer: The Pickford Brothers		Players: 1-2 (at a time)
Website
System Requirements: Microsoft Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, 1000 Mhz, DirectX 7+, 32mb RAM Video Card, 64mb RAM, Internet connection

Naked War is a turn-based play-by-email game. A REALLY good one. The ability to take the game at your own pace, when convenient, makes it a perfect game to play with friends in another city or even those who are just across town.

In the game you control an army of 4. The goal is to destroy the opposing army. Players plan out their moves to move and fire on the enemy, gaining advantage by using the terrain and the 4 types of 'vehicles' that players can enter (Tank, Helicopter, Boat and Turret).

Jumping into vehicles is a decision that is not difficult to make, with so many cool looking vehicles it's hard not to take advantage of them every time you see one.

Each vehicle has it's own unique pluses and minuses, for example, the turrets are amazingly destructive and will literally change the face of the map, while the helicopters can cover the board in a turn. The mix of abilities leads to a wide variety of approaches that can be planned and then played out in the game.

Unfortunately the learning curve is pretty steep and most of the learning will be done in-game by making mistakes. After getting the hang of things though, players will agree that Naked War is a great strategy title that deserves a less-shocking and more appropriately amazing name.

4th Place - Bloodmasters

Developer: CodeImp		Players: 2-10
Website
System Requirements: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, 1.8 GHZ CPU, 512 MB SYS MEM, 128 MB Video Card

Top-down Unreal Tournament. That is a pretty basic description of Bloodmasters, but it does the job. The only other fact players need to know is that it is free. 100% gratis.

The game probably plays a bit more like Crimsonland than Unreal due to the top-down perspective of play. Players move with the keyboard and fire with the mouse. The game will make the adjustments for height when firing to keep the controls nice and simple.

There are a variety of cool weapons, including a Rocket Launcher, a Plasma Cannon and our favorite--the Grenade Launcher.

Making the game free only increases the number of people playing, which should give those wanting a chance to take on the world in a deathmatch or work together in a teammatch plenty of people to play online with at just about any hour of the day.

3rd Place - Rage of Magic 2

Developer: Gamebrew		Players: 1-2
Website	Download		Purchase
System Requirements: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP - or - Linux - or - Mac OsX

Do you remember those fantastic side-scrolling fighting games of old? Final Fight, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, River City Ransom and Double Dragon. Gorgeously drawn 2d graphics and a seemingly simple and fun button bashing control system that had you kicking and punching your way to victory within minutes of picking up the game. Those fiendish game designers lulled you into a false sense of security, and soon you were struggling with extraordinarily difficult opponents which forced you to dig deeper into each different fighter, their special moves and combo attacks.

Gamebrew, definitely remembers those great games of days gone by and has created an exhaustingly fun button-mashing bit of co-op goodness in Rage of Magic 2. The variety of characters that players control combined with a number of super cool combo attacks make this action game one you'll definitely want to try out. Having a friend only makes it even more enjoyable.

2nd Place - Minions of Mirth

Developer: Prairie Games		Players: MMORPG
Website
System Requirements: Windows XP, 800mhz, 256mb RAM, 64mb Video Card -OR- Macintosh OSX (10.4+), G4/G5/Intel Processor, 256 MB RAM, 64mb Video Card

Minions of Mirth manages to capture the essence of what makes a good online game, and this acts as a catalyst to turn the entire game into something more than the sum of its parts.

The mod-ability of MOM means that players have incentive to go out and create things for the game. The player-created content that makes it into the primary server gives a strong sense that an individual player can help shape the world. This makes them act more responsibly in protecting what they have invested time in.

At the same time, an opinion from the players means something to the developers. This has created quite a bit of brainstorming amongst players and goodwill between them and the development staff.

The end result of all this is that the community draws people into the game. It’s one thing to log into Everquest and see thousands of people, none of whom are the least bit interested in talking to you. It is another thing altogether to log into the Prairie Server and see a dozen friendly faces who will literally fight over who gets to answer your questions on how to start. If you like medieval MMORPGs, and want something different that has depth, ease-of-use, and lots of playability, Minions of Mirth is a game you should check out.

2006 Game of the Year: Multiplayer - Dawnspire: Prelude

Developer: Silent Grove Studios		Players: 16
Website
System Requirements: Windows 2000/XP, 2 GHz CPU, 512MB RAM, DirectX 9.0c+, 128MB Video Card with Pixel Shader 2.0

Dawnspire: Prelude is unfortunately often mis-categorized as a MMORPG. Clearly the people who label the game as such need to start playing games before they try to categorize them.

If they did they would find that not only is Dawnspire NOT a MMORPG, it's not even an RPG. What is Dawnspire? Well it is fun, really fun, and maybe that should just be the rating as well as the category.

Dawnspire plays a bit like Counter-strike. It is a team-based game of capture and keep the relics, set in a fantasy world. Each player creates a character, choosing from one of the five character classes, and then divides skill points out among the various skills, giving their character special abilities. The abilities available vary based on the character class and include offensive and defensive abilities similar to those you'd find in an RPG, with abilities such as healing and resurrection thrown in for good measure.

Ah, you say. Sounds like an RPG. However, in this game you never level up. Your character never gains more points or becomes more powerful. You can reassign your skill points to try different combinations of skills, but you can't ever create a character more powerful than the one you first started with. In essence, Dawnspire is an multiplayer PvP action game with very customizable character selection.

Once players have the slightly quirky player movement down they'll be amazed at how intense and fun team combat is. Players can infinitely respawn, after a short waiting period, which puts the focus of the confrontations on more strategic play.

Team play is absolutely crucial to winning. Small groups of 3 or more can be quite effective, but players who try to go it alone will quickly find that they are dieing all the time. The required team interplay makes the game rather social in a frantic "can't stop and chat for a minute or you'll lose the game" sort of way. It's a mix that works extremely well and makes for fun short games that are exciting and eventful.

Dawnspire is an interesting mix of its own ideas about character creation in a fantasy world and intense moments of battle that are similar to those that so many people look forward to in MMORPGs, without the character leveling that creates a barrier between veterans and newbies. The intensely fun multiplayer battles made it an easy pick as our 2006 Multiplayer Game of the Year.

Multiplayer Game of the Year Award History

History:
2006 - Dawnspire: Prelude
2005 - Trash
2004 - Void War
2003 - Orbz & Mage Bros.

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By: Russell Carroll
Posted: Tuesday December 26, 2006