2005 MMORPG.com Editorial Awards

Voting is open on our Reader's Choice Awards, now comes the time for us to hand out our editorial picks.

By Dana Massey on January 02, 2006

2005 Game of the Year: City of Villains, Cryptic Studios / NCSoft

They won Developer of the Year, so I am sure some saw this coming. City of Villains had the advantage of coming out in a relatively weak year for the MMORPG genre, but that does not diminish what it accomplished. The game has the singular distinction of not only being a solid stand-alone product, but making another product - City of Heroes a lot more fun through their PvP-interplay.

At an event in San Francisco, Jack Emmert told us that the base-building feature was meant to be to City of Villains what character creation was to City of Heroes. This feature lets players build their own evil-layers and even extends back into City of Heroes for those that play both.

Throw in the previously mentioned PvP additions, in-depth character creation, the villainous theme and rich world Cryptic Studios has developed and you have yourself an extremely fun product that delivered on its promises. It also launched just a year and a half after Heroes, despite the fact Cryptic also put out a number of free-expansions to the original during this time.

Overall, 2005 was not a banner year. Besides Villains, we also saw Guild Wars - another NCSoft product and our Honorable Mention in this category. Beyond that, the pickings were slim as Irth Online and The Matrix Online - two other theoretical contenders - launched to niche audiences and less than rave reviews. This made it a two-horse race, but one in which City of Villains emerged as a clear winner.

The following eligible game did not win the category, but does deserve a nod for their efforts in 2005.

Guild Wars, ArenaNet / NCSoft

It is an MMO or isn't it? Well we believe it meets the criteria and list it as such, thus that was not a consideration. Guild Wars launched a great product, but a lack of subscription fee was not enough to push it over the edge. It is fun, it is fast paced, but simply put: we liked City of Villains more.

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