Every now and than a game will come along that will break the mold, and offer something new and exciting to the world of games. Whether it's a new concept, a new play feature, or a new engine that people can license out, somewhere along the line we are blessed with something new and exciting at least 1-2 times a year.

While bugged on release, and difficult to understand in the area of scripting, Neverwinter Nights came through on the first graphical, real time DM capable, table top version of Dungeons and Dragons. Players are able to create their own modules, through a very extensive tool kit, and also DM (Dungeon Master) that very same module on the fly for a party of characters. While very bugged on release, the patches have put this back into the limelight so to speak. Is it too late though? Most of the patches were implemented far too late after the games initial release, and a lot of the user base that would have played multi have gone on to greener pastures. A great design concept that almost made it. Although, I honestly think another company will have to get this right to make it what it should have been.

Max Payne would have stood out on it's own as a great shooter. But what set this game apart from the rest was a very unique ability. Right click the mouse and watch as your character almost goes into a Matrix state of mind, where bullets, movement, slows down to 99% of what it was. The tricky part about this, was to make it believable. Just slowing down the game would have been easy, but the transition between the normal time and bullet time, is what gave it it's appeal. With a wuosh, you slow down gradually into bullet time, and with another wuosh you speed up gradually back into real time. Bullet time of course making it easier to dodge bullets in massive gun battles, where most likely, it saved you a lot of time, and added a bit of unique fun to the game. Definitely, hands down, one of the best improvements ever made to a genre.

Let's take a brief detour from the good awards, and get into an award that unfortunately needs to be given. I do not like handing out any hall of shame awards, but they need to be done. If none other to wake up people from a PR hype that went too far. I am a writer that will always tell it like it is, and I can tell you, that some people are great at public relations and hype. However, these people never follow through, while the customer is left feeling cheated. Without further delay, the runner up, and the winner of the hall of shame award.

Without a doubt, this is one of the biggest botches in MMOG gaming history next to the release of Anarchy Online. When first released, people from all walks of life were having problems with installation and crashing. Literally no testing was done, or if it was, not nearly enough. Features that were supposed to be included such as the new user interface, and a new bazaar function that would allow for far easier buying and selling, were patched in over 6 months later. The end zone, Vex Thal, has the most piss poor loot for character upgrades that one has ever seen, and to this day, still has not been fixed. (Update: The VT loot table was finally fixed - 10 months AFTER release, but at least they did it right? Is this what high end guilds get to look forward to in future expansions from Sony?) About the only good thing that came from this expansion was a new tile set for graphics, pushing them up to 256x256 per square instead of the old 32x32. However, some areas were completely forgotten, and there are numerous places where I run that I can see the old 32x32 tile sets. Who's fault is it? Sony pays their developers about the same rate as the manager of the car wash down the road, with about as much turnover as well. How can a company honestly create a good game with decent design features, and make it stable, when they are being pulled this way and that to different projects all day long within the company? What really will bite this game in the butt is the inconsistent customer service. For example, a powerful high-end guilds' officers were recently suspended from EverQuest because they "Warped" the main boss of Vex Thal (End zone for the SoL expansion) to an area where they could kill it without wasting 7 hours killing the yard trash. Meanwhile, players can do this all the time in another zone in the Velious expansion, where guards, loremasters, and a ton of other NPC's do not have to be killed, while a King called Dain, is warped down to an ice cavern. How the hell are players supposed to know what they can or cannot do? With regards to SOE, they really need to shape up if they want anyone to buy their products. From choppy design all around, to products being pushed too fast unfinished and patched later at the expense of their player base, they will be lucky if George Lucas will log into Star Wars Online, much less have the 5th of the player base they now possess for EverQuest.