Best Peripheral:
Nintendo decided to up the ante this year in the controller department with the release of their Wavebird wireless controller. Sacrificing only the rumble feature, the Wavebird performs flawlessly from all kinds of distances and I'm still on the original batteries that the damn thing came with. The only thing that I could ask for more is that the controller would have a clear blue version, but I guess that is a nitpick. The best part about the Wavebird release is the fact that the other hardware companies like Sony and possibly Microsoft are looking to produce first party wireless controllers. I'm sure I'm not alone in only wanting to use first party controllers.

Wavebird? Close, but you're way off. How anyone could vote for anything other than the Afterburner internal light for the GameBoy Advance is baffling. Triton Labs has succeeded where Nintendo failed, giving us a spectacular internal light that lets you play your GBA under any lighting conditions, even total darkness! No more bulky external lights, no more rearranging your furniture and no more neck pain! I mean, Jesus Christ, the Afterburner is a modern miracle that makes the GameBoy Advance a complete system for the first time ever. If you're a GBA owner you simply must get one of these suckers right now. Do yourself a favor and get one installed professionally at ABHQ.com, you won't regret it.

Best Wacky Japanese Game:
Japanese games have really fallen out of favor with me, due to the massive surge in American game quality of late. U-S-A! U-S-A! The Japanese still make some crazy-assed games though, like Jet Set Radio Future. Damn this game is crazy, with all the skating and graffiti-ing and phat beats and shit. It's one of the best platforming games I've ever played, and its unique audiovisual flair is a real treat to behold. This is a definite must-have for Xbox owners and should be more than enough to convince Dreamcast refugees to upgrade to Dreamcast 2... er, Xbox.

"The Magical Spell is Ei-Ei-Poo!" Aw come on! How can you not like monkeys in balls!??!? Super Monkey Ball 2 could quite possibly make your head explode with it's insanity. Not only did Sega improve upon the already awesome gameplay, doubled the amount of mini-games, but they also included a mind numbingly goofy 'story mode' complete with the insane chittering of the chimps as well as a disturbingly strange 'story' and I use that word loosely. Whatever the case, Super Monkey Ball 2 is definitely a wacky Japanese game, but it's also an extremely fun and playable game which I'm sure is enjoyed by far too few gamers out there.

Best Import of the Year:
I didn't do a lot of importing this year since companies have been better about bringing titles over, however one that I knew I needed was Ikaruga from Treasure on the Sega Dreamcast. Not only did I want to give my wonderful Dreamcast a little gift, but I just had to play the next shooter from Treasure as soon as I could. Ikaruga was rumored to have a November domestic release for the Nintendo GameCube, however, as we can see, that didn't happen at all. So, I was enjoying some tasty Treasure blasting action much earlier this year on a system that never deserved to die the way it did. Shooter fans should definitely check this title out. It's still supposed to have a US release on the GameCube, but we don't know when in 2003 that will be now. Shooter fans won't be disappointed at all since Treasure are considered masters of the genre.

Hardest Game:
Old school gamers were thrilled this year with the release of games like Shinobi and Contra for the PS2. Gamers looking for a serious challenge where also giddy with delight at the anal raping that these two games perpetrated on gamers this year. I couldn't decide which one I thought was the harder game, so it's a tie for me this year. Both games we absolute killers, featuring many ways to easily die at just about every point. If you need a challenge, check out either one of these titles which will surely make your knuckles white and possibly cause you to need a new controller as you throw yours out the window.

Although the first three difficulty levels are fairly easy, Halo on Legendary is a completely different beast. Grunts mercilessly empty their Needlers into you, Marines fall after like two shots and Elites fiendishly rip you to shreds with their Plasma Rifles, then piss on your twitching corpse. The tactics you use on Heroic become completely invalid on Legendary, forcing you to completely rethink your approach to each and every combat engagement. This isn't the same type of cheap difficulty that most other games foist on you in the form of omniscient opponents or super-accurate killing machines. Enemies in Halo become more aware of their environment, are better able to utilize their weapons and become very good at exploiting the weaknesses in your combat technique. Halo is already the Champagne of console shooters, and finishing the game on Legendary just might be the sweetest taste in all of gamedom.

Best Old-School Revival:
Metroid. I was a little late into the Metroid universe since I never owned the Nintendo systems back in the day, but I know that most attempts to bring a classic 2D game into 3D were usually exercises in futility. I know I was a skeptic on bringing classic 2D gameplay like Metroid, not only into just 3D, but making it into a First Person Shooter at the same time?!!? Was Nintendo insane? Retro Studios really nailed it with this one. I never would have thought that you could capture the same feeling of a classic 2D adventure with a FPS game. Retro is going to be a dangerous developer if they can keep making games of this caliber.

Holy shit, Metroid came back in a big fucking way this year. It had been over eight years since the release of the superlative Super Metroid, but Nintendo brought the series roaring back to the spotlight with two fucking games on the same fucking day. Metroid Prime is an excellent first-person shooter with beautiful visuals and the absolute best 3D puzzle design yet, while Metroid Fusion is a fantastic homage to the side-scrolling games of yesteryear. Both are excellent and you should definitely buy both if you're even remotely a fan of the series. Honestly, I think this might have been the only thing Nintendo did right all year. (Well, the Wavebird was pretty cool too, now that I think about it.)

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