10 Best Games of 2003 We NEVER FORGOT

the trip down memory lane continues today we're looking at the best games from 2003 starting off at number 10 the hit cartoon TV sitcom The Simpsons as a brand had been trying for years to really crack the video game code with varying degrees of success the original arcade game was great the wrestling game was kind of fun there was road rage but then there was the Grand Theft Auto clone hit and run and it may have been the perfect formula for one of the best Simpson games and honestly one of the best cartoon TV adaptions to video games tanana ron puts you in the shoes of various well recreated and properly voiced Simpsons characters plopped right into open-world Springfield from here you drive around all types of vehicles from the show like a maniac racing and crashing through stuff but also getting out talking to other famous characters and doing random missions sometimes you're punching enemies or platforming okay a lot of it boiled down to collect a Thon's but it was still a lot of fun because it felt so much like the show you're driving the plow King truck through the power plant you're doing platforming and finding collectibles hidden above the kwik-e-mart and then there were some great spooky Halloween treehouse of horror content - the gameplay was fun the driving was cool enough the environments had great exploration with tons of fun hidden stuff to find and most importantly the jokes were pretty funny next up our number 9 we have call of duty the one that started it all yes the very first Call of Duty game launched in 2003 and it's wild how many we've gotten since then originally launching as a PC exclusive and not hitting consoles into 2009 call duty shook things up a bit not that it did anything wildly different but it was just a super solid World War 2 shooter one thing that it did do differently that set itself apart was your AI squad most war shooters up until this point were way more lone wolf which always felt a bit odd for war shooters but call duty put a bit of emphasis on your AI teammates and they actually like did something they actually mattered they reacted to what was going on in the game so it wasn't scripted or anything so like if a grenade went off they knew that there was a grenade going off reacted they didn't just run headfirst into the blast radius it also offered up a great campaign that didn't just focus on the American forces you got an American campaign a British one and a Soviet one which was really cool getting to play as these different forces and seeing the war play out from three different perspectives it also had such a solid multiplayer like it was really good I actually still know someone that still religiously plays it with a group of friends as of a few years ago actually which is insane moving on to number eight we have the Rockstar San Diego developed Midnight Club - one thing that's really weird about Midnight Club - right off the bat is it's a racing game with zero licensed cars yeah they may have been based off of other cars but not you know actually licensed ones which is kind of funny it makes sense in their other games like GTA but considering this is all car focused I don't know thinking out loud anyway the story took you across the world over three different maps la Paris and Tokyo and they were all open-world they're really wearing barriers either if there was a drivable surface you could drive on it there wasn't anything keeping you on the tracks there was also some really cool damage here as well you had a meter that measured how damaged your car was but you could also you know physically see the damage on your car itself it was honestly just an all-around solid a racing game it didn't do anything like totally insane but everything that it did do it did very well at number seven this next one is a personal favorite of mine we got to talk about freedom fighters this one is awesome it's set in an alternate history where the Soviet Union dropped an atomic bomb on Berlin and ended World War two becoming a world superpower slowly starting to take over the globe surrounding the u.s. eventually the Soviet Union launches a surprise invasion in New York City you play as Chris stone in New York plumber who's on the job with his brother when the attack hits your brother is captured but you managed to escape you then spend the game saving him and fighting for the resistance and trying to take out the Soviet Union yeah the story wasn't amazing by any means but the combat setting and atmosphere is what really ruled here running around your story New York City streets and fighting on Ellis Island was awesome the game also had a surprisingly good AI you could get your own squad of Freedom Fighters to follow you and fight alongside you and they weren't dumb they actually helped out and made a difference it also really helped to sell that you were a freedom fighter trying to take back New York seeing that you were you know in destroyed New York and also rallying the troops here cause you know unfortunately we never got a sequel to this one but I'm still holding out hope so Interactive split from Square Enix they did take the freedom fighters IP with them so who knows maybe when they're done with hitman they'll jump on over to a new freedom fighters at number six alright so Prince of Persia the sands of time marked a big turning point in the series while the first three Prince of Persia games weren't poorly received they were all fairly basic like the first two side-scrolling games or the 1999 3d action-adventure game that said they were still you know fun as hell then 2003 rolls around and we got the sands of time a new entry from a new developer and publisher now a full-on ubisoft game sands of time took the vibe and spirit of the original games and push forward it did so by completely overhauling much of what you would you know come to expect from prince of persia game and adding in some really cool mechanics you're still a prince you're still doing Prince of Persia type stuff but now you have this really cool dagger of time which you can use to correct your mistakes and do stuff like saving yourself from a bad jump or even freezing enemies in combat had a really cool and challenging combat system that ya would absolutely kick your ass at times but when you pulled it off and completed a difficult encounter you really felt that sense of accomplishment oh it also looked incredible at the time and honestly it doesn't even look that bad going back and if you haven't checked it out yet I mean come on what are you doing next in number five we have Beyond Good and Evil this is a huge fan favor and has a bit of a cult following you play as an investigative reporter known as Jade and you're working with a resistant movement to reveal a planet-wide alien conspiracy sounds simple but it's in a completely unique universe the world here seems to be what really caught people's attention it was sci-fi as hell with spaceships and such but animals and humans like coexisted so it had this unique charm which on the surface level may have been a little cutesy but ultimately it was darker than that still there were characters you fell in love with throughout this adventure filled with some really cool slashy combat some hence the stealth sequences taking photographs with your trusty camera some platforming and puzzle sequences and traveling around in your hovercraft it was kind of like a bizarre mashup between a sci-fi platformer and a bit of Zelda influence with a dash of stealth mixed in and it was the perfect mix apparently because people still love the hell out of it thankfully the remaster holds up to at number four Need for Speed Underground is just one of those games that release at the perfect time The Fast and Furious had released two years before too fast too furious also released in 2003 so the world was all about street racing and the cool crazy cars that went along with it so underground released at the perfect time and really capitalized on this new fad and it was great first off the actual racing in this game was intense there was a real sense of speed like you really felt like you were flying down the street and you can lose control at the last second and go from first to last it's really sucking when that happen cuz it did happen mixing in the nitrous and the drifting was also awesome with there actually being a drifting mode here was all about drifting you got more points for longer drifts which really changed up how the game played there was also a drag racing mode which also felt super different from the base game here you had to use proper shifting use your nitrous at the right time and not blow out your engine in terms of game modes and variety underground really not you think that there isn't much to do with a racing game in terms of like changing up the gameplay but underground really pulled it off then came the car customization that's where it really got awesome getting to do all that awesome stuff we just talked about with a car that was customized by you for you he was just unreal and number 3 we have Jack - man what a game coming off a jak and daxter which was bright colorful and fun Jack - got a bit more dark that took place in a futuristic city rather than acute platformer II forest type thing it actually opens with dax are saving Jack from some facility where he's been getting tested on for the past two years and now turns into this white-furred fury monster thing oh and Jack talks now and he's kind of a pissed-off jerk like he's got some attitude problems but yeah Jack - is one of the games that succumb to the open world game trend that was starting to really hit in a post gta3 war so you would have free roam of Haven City and would start new missions by going to their marker just like GTA you could also hijack vehicles which still gets me every time because it's a jak and daxter game and Here I am stealing her car like I'm freaking Tommy Vercetti also to go along with the game getting a bit more darker they gave you a dang gun like you could straight-up shoot men the morph gun was actually pretty cool weapon as game went on you unlocked more mods for it that made it fire differently jak 2 was just straight-up a blast it's definitely one of my favorite games from the ps2 era and it holds up surprisingly well so if you haven't played it maybe think about giving it a shot it's it's a really good platform coming down to number two we have the legend of zelda windwaker trading in crude attempts at a realistic models for a bold style i cel-shaded look it's no surprise this one aged so much better than so many other games of that era even now it still looks so darn good I mean just look at this thing but looks aside winwaker did so many things right from its fun seafaring adventure story that clearly links into the previous games in the Legend of Zelda series lore wise to the really smart and interesting dungeon design there's really just so much to love with this one the improvements on previous gameplay systems specifically the increased fluidity of combat the ability to perform counter-attacks and use enemy items as well as the way the camera controlled it was so much better definitely helped to elevate the experience as well now the game got a Wii U remaster in 2013 which probably the best way to play it if you can get your hands on it but I mean honestly the original GameCube version still looks and plays pretty good considering and there's always a solid option if you ask me finally at number one there are many contenders for the best Star Wars game of all time and every conversation has to have Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic this ambitious sort of traditional style RPG did a lot not only for Star Wars and the more mainstream embrace of some cool expanded universe law but also elevated Bioware to new heights of course they were already great but now they're like gamer household names even despite some recent misses combat was fun you could pause the game and plan your moves you had companions that you could order around and develop friendships with and of course when lightsabers dota gets way more fun there was tons of loot and lots of side story to really flesh things out and the light and dark side morality system was absolutely fantastic in RPG fashion you'd make story and conversation decisions be a good guy get access to Jedi class powers abilities and perks be a real jerk and get some cool Sith powers like force lighting and watch your character slowly change in appearance due to force corruption there was nothing more satisfying than rolling a character in this game exactly how you wanted all while exploring exciting expanded universe planets and learning about the legendary Darth Revan it still mostly holds up to every Star Wars fan should play it at least once real quick before you go we have some bonuses for you first up we have crimson skies this one is such an awesome plane game plane game I this is more of an arcade game than a simulator game and the way controls makes it a blast to play then we have command and conquer generals which is now pretty much an RTS classic and a great one in the varied command & Conquer portfolio then we have max payne 2 the fall of max payne and you know that we love max payne over here in max payne 2 is no different max is back he's still sad he still loves to slow down time and this time he's joined by a playable Mona sax finally we have NBA street volume 2 the very good sequel to the very good NBA Street I don't know what it is about these first two games but they always seemed like magic to me basketball games were always fun but taking them off of the court and onto the street just really did something that made them really stand out and those are our best games of 2003 but we want to hear from you so meet us down in the comments and let us know what you think as I'm sure you already know him the like button really helps us out if you're new here subscribing is a good idea because we put up videos like this every single day as always thank you for stopping by and hanging out with us we really appreciate it and we'll see you next time right here on game racks

Channel: gameranx

Views: 991,053

Rating: 4.8857656 out of 5

Keywords: best 2003 games, best 2002 pc games, best 2003 ps2 games, best 2003 xbox games, best 2003 gamecube games, video game culture, best open world ps2 game, simpsons hit and run, gameranx, andrew new guy

Id: FQ52ji1MtNA

Length: 12min 56sec (776 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 12 2020