The Wargamer: 2000 Best of the Year Awards

Year-end awards. Everyone does it. Sure, they recognize superior products released over the past year. In our case, we hope they reveal some titles enjoyed by your wargaming peers. Here you will find some nominees and winners that may have gone completely overlooked by many commercial websites. In a nutshell, the year 2000 proved that both mass-market publishers such as Microsoft and Interplay and independent publishers like Shrapnel Games and Battlefront can all churn out quality products.

A note on categories: Since The Wargamer focuses primarily on strategy, simulation, and war games, we have provided additional categories to help recognize all of the titles worthy of our accolades. Thus we have, for example, separate categories for real-time strategy, real-time tactical, and turn-based strategy; but we also have a Strategy Game of the Year that includes all strategy games.

Action	Role-playing	Real-time Strategy	Real-time Tactical	Turn-based Strategy
Real-time Wargame	Turn-based Wargame	Simulations - War	Simulations - Other	Hardware
Developer	Publisher	Wargame of the Year	Strategy Game of the Year	Game of the Year

Action

The Nominees

American McGee's Alice	(Electronic Arts)
Beach Head 2000	(WizardWorks)
Delta Force - Land Warrior	(Novalogic)
Diablo II	(Blizzard)
Half-life: Counter-Strike	(Sierra Studios)
Hitman - Codename 47	(Eidos Interactive)
Mechwarrior 4	(Microsoft)
No One Lives Forever	(Fox Interactive)
Rogue Spear - Urban Ops	(Red Storm Entertainment)
Rune	(Gathering of Developers)
Star Trek Voyager - Elite Force	(Activision)
Swat 3 - Elite Edition	(Sierra Studios)
Thief 2 - The Metal Age	(Eidos Interactive)

The Winners

Second Runner-up: No One Lives Forever
First Runner-up: Swat 3 - Elite Edition
Action Game of the Year: Delta Force - Land Warrior

Comments: A very close race (one point separated Delta Force and Swat 3 - Elite Edition), it should be no surprise that combat/police action games attracted the attention of our staff.

Adventure / Role-playing

The Nominees

Baldur's Gate II	(Interplay)
Deus Ex	(Eidos Interactive)
Diablo II	(Blizzard)
Icewind Dale	(Interplay)
Vampire the Masquerade - Redemption	(Activision)

The Winners

Second Runner-up: Vampire the Masquerade - Redemption
First Runner-up: Icewind Dale
Adventure/Role-playing Game of the Year: Baldur's Gate II

Comments: We almost didn't bother with this genre (just like we didn't bother with sports). Low vote totals and a handful of nominees indicate wargamers and RPGers may be two different species (I still recall the wary glances cast across the room in our college gaming club...wargamers on one side, D&D on the other, and a void in between). Interplay's contribution in the past year with their two D&D titles did not go entirely unnoticed by our staff.

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