2008 Aggie Awards
Best Console/Handheld Adventure: Professor Layton and the Curious Village
While home consoles showed brief flashes of promise for their adventure gaming potential in 2008, the DS once again proved to be the go-to system for non-PC adventures with some impressive new titles, and tops on that list was Professor Layton and the Curious Village. Many will argue that it's more puzzle collection than full-fledged adventure, but few deny that it's one of the most stylish and addictive titles of any genre on Nintendo's handheld, filled with clever riddles, bizarre characters, and ridiculously polished presentation.
While its story framework may be thin, that won't stop you from wanting to see the murder mystery facing the top-hatted archeologist and puzzle-solver extraordinaire through to the end, slowly uncovering the deceptively dark secrets of the peculiar town of St. Mystere. Along the way, oh what a collection of puzzles you will indeed encounter. The game's many riddles always challenge, but in a completely fair, I-can-do-this kind of way. Better still, along with those trying brainteasers come ample rewards: bonuses and rewards colour your adventure, giving you different perspectives to the puzzles you encounter. This is the kind of game that'll keep you up at night trying to solve "just one more" puzzle, only to find the next story segment drawing you further along once again.
Runners-Up: Time Hollow, Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People
Readers’ Choice: Professor Layton and the Curious Village
See? We told you few would deny how good Professor Layton is, although the supporters of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney and Strong Bad made a worthy but ultimately futile effort to keep the puzzle-centric DS adventure from top spot. But just as every puzzle has an answer, so every reader poll has one too, and to this choice of the winner we can only declare: CORRECT!
Next up: Best First-Person PC Adventure... the envelope, please.
Continued on the next page...
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Time Hollow can be purchased at:
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Time Hollow
Platform(s): DS
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Lost: Via Domus
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Professor Layton and the Curious Village
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Dracula 3: The Path of the Dragon
Platform(s): iPad, iPhone/iPod Touch, Mac, PC
Also known as Dracula Series: Parts 1-3Yay!!! At least “The Lost Crown” got honorble mentions. It HAS to win “Best Sound”, though!!!
Tragic.
That last one of day one will not do anything to stem the tide of mind-numbing inanity taking over as a “concept” appreciated by adventure gamers.
It’s not true, developers! Please, disregard! Heed not the death knell!
Jonathan Boakes! Matthew Clark! Arberth! Save Us!
Heh… apparently I’m a “traditionalist” because I share your sentiment.
I take back everything I said about being able to predict the Award results. It now seems to me (and of course I may be way off) that the people who voted are not the same crowd populating the forums… for instance, Overclocked was severely criticised on the adventure forum.
Actually, Overclocked is the only game I’m happy about that it won.
Funny. My votes and all the awards are a perfect match so far. The jury has a good taste.
Fienepien. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that people who voted are not the same crowd populating the forums. By that crowd you probably meant the active members of the forums. But then again there are a lot of “lurkers” like me, who read the forum very often but participate rarely. And yet I feel that I’m part of the AG community and part of the forum population. One more thing.
Overclocked was criticized but that’s no surprise. People give negative feedback much more often than positive one. IMO a game has to be of a superb quality before you start to see a lot of positive feedback.
Ascovel, I’m also happy Overclocked got an Award, I thought it was a great game. Correct me if I’m wrong, I still feel that the game was received much better in Germany.
Askobar, yes, I meant the active members. Btw, I do remember your nickname from the forums. Of course silent lurkers are also part of the AG community, so did we just hear them vote for the Awards in large numbers or did the active forum members change their minds?
Bear in mind this wasn’t simply a forum poll. Whether silent or active, forum members represent only a small part of AG’s overall reader-base, so these poll results include plenty of other people out there we don’t generally hear from. Not everyone who casts a ballot attends the rallies.
Critised by some, praised by others. Yey Overclocked! Way to go! *screams O-V-E-R-C-L-O-C-K-E-D with the funny stuff cheerleaders have in their hands*
I was surprised “The Lost Crown” didn’t win the Best Sound design, which Jonathan Boakes’ is known for. But Iw as so ecstatic that “The Lost Crown” won the best setting!! I thought it had it and it did!!!
The most obvious question presents itself: how many PC adventure gamers own DS-es?
I´ve got to say I´m quite satisfied with the results. Not all the games I voted for got to the list, some aren´t even runner-ups, but all in all, I believe the results are fair, from the overall point of view.
Hey, AG staff and readers,
now that the the final results are in, I’d like to take the opportunity and say ‘Thank You’ to the staffers and readers who voted for (and awarded) Overclocked. The team here at the HoT WHQ is happy that the game was amongst the nominees in four categories, and recieved recognition.
Personally, I’d like to thank you all for the ‘Best Writing - Drama’ Award. It’s a meaningful thing to a writer to see work recognised and appreciated (by both staff and readers). I’m pleased that some of what I’ve tried to put into this difficult project has found its way to you, our audience.
Congratulations to all winners!
MG - I thank you and whole production team for the opportunity to play a game I thoroughly enjoyed, despite some minor drawbacks. For me, Overclocked was one of the most enjoyable experiences (in AGs) in 2008.
Ok - you’ve done it Adventure Gamers! Aside from waiting for Momento Mori and Sill Life 2, I’m going to buy Overclocked tonight (Oh god, thank you, a download from your site, no blasted DVD to find and install) and Time Hollow. I can play Time Hollow on the plane when I go visit my parents. I can play Overclocked at my parents.
I like the whole award thing - clever and informative. Nicely done. It gives me ideas.
Great feature!
I missed though:
1) The best puzzle
2) The coolest easter egg
Enjoy both Time Hollow and Overclocked mszv, they are truly little adventure gems
Best puzzle would be awesome!!! And best easter egg, except I would be thinking a game from the past.
Best puzzle was in the original set of awards, but the nominators didn’t come to a consensus on those to put up for a vote after all the nominations were tallied, so it got scrapped. We thought of it, though!
Some fantastic games. Wonderful write-ups, too. Games I hadn’t heard of before sounded utterly brilliant. It gives a guy some small hope that things aren’t as bad as they’ve seemed lately.
Thanks to the AG Staff for all of the time and work that went into this presentation. And I like the clever use of the name ‘Aggie’ for the award. Fantastic picture, too.