December 2006
Monkey Island 2.
With some other nonsense falling by the wayside at #2. I honestly can’t remember what it was now.
Wait, got it: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Why not Ocarina of Time, you say? Well, it was a close one - almost too close to call - but Wind Waker is simply a more polished product. The music is incredible, the world alive and full of side-quests, and the cel-shading - naysayers be damned - works wonders on the graphical side. Never has a fantasy world been more appropriately portrayed in gaming.
Because, saps who complain that Wind Waker looks like a cartoon for children and babies and that Ocarina of Time was so much more adult and mature: you’re playing a game about an elf child fighting cutesy enemies with magic. Have you noticed?
Roll on Twilight Princess, I say, set as it is to be thrust into my waiting hands by the end of the week. For the Gamecube. Yes, I am a dismal failure.