Destination: 2002 | the year of Age of Mythology, BloodRayne, Dungeon Siege, GTA: Vice City, TES: Morrowind, Splinter Cell, Warcraft III
Travel time: May-June 2022
Travel guide: link
Other travels: 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001

List of Games:
• 007: Nightfire
• 18 Wheels of Steel: Hard Truck
• Age of Mythology
• Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne
• Army Men RTS
• Arx Fatalis
• Battle Realms: Winter of the Wolf
• Battlefield 1942
• Blood Omen 2
• BloodRayne
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Burnout 2: Point of Impact
• Celtic Kings: Rage of War
• Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin
• Command & Conquer: Renegade
• Conflict: Desert Storm
• Dark Fall: The Journal
• Dead to Rights
• Deadly Dozen: Pacific Theater
• Delta Force: Task Force Dagger
• Disciples II: Dark Prophecy
• Divine Divinity
• Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project
• Dungeon Siege
• The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
• Emperor: Rise of the Middle kingdom
• Enclave
• Eternal Darkness
• Freedom Force
• Ghost Recon: Desert Siege
• Gothic II
• Grand Prix 4
• Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
• Haegemonia: Legions of Iron
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
• Hearts of Iron
• Heroes of Might and Magic IV
• Hitman 2: Silent Assassin
• Hotel Giant
• Icewind Dale II
• Industry Giant 2
• Incoming Forces
• Iron Storm
• The King of Fighters 2002
• Kingdom Hearts
• The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
• Mafia
• MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries
• Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
• Medal of Honor: Frontline
• Medieval: Total War
• Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance
• Metroid Fusion
• Metroid Prime
• Might and Magic 9
• Mobile Forces
• Moonbase Commander
• Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2
• Neverwinter Nights
• No One Lives Forever: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way
• O.R.B.: Off-World Resource Base
• Operation Flashpoint: Resistance
• RalliSport Challenge
• Ratchet & Clank
• Red Faction II
• Resident Evil: Remake
• Resident Evil: Zero
• Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood
• Roller Coaster Tycoon 2
• Search & Rescue: Coastal Heroes
• Search & Rescue: Vietnam MedEvac
• Serious Sam: The Second Encounter
• Simon the Sorcerer 3D
• Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus
• Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix
• Spider-Man: The Movie
• Star Trek: Bridge Commander
• Star Trek: Starfleet Command III
• Star Wars: Bounty Hunter
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars
• Star Wars: Jedi Knight II - Jedi Outcast
• Strategic Command: European Theater
• Stronghold Crusader
• Sudden Strike 2
• Suikoden III
• Super Mario Sunshine
• Syberia
• The Thing
• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
• Unreal Tournament 2003
• Warcraft III
• Warlords Battlecry II
• Warrior Kings
• Worms Blast

Time travellers:
- InkPanther (★ Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, ☆ Age of Mythology)
- Suicide_Angel (★ Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, ☆ Serious Sam: The Second Encounter)
- Ruvika (☆ Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, ★ Star Wars: Jedi Knight II - Jedi Outcast)
- ciemnogrodzianin (☆ Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell)
- foxgog (☆ Search & Rescue: Coastal Heroes, ☆ Search & Rescue: Vietnam MedEvac)
- PaterAlf (★ BloodRayne, ☆ Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project)

☆ – games played / declared to be played
★ – games completed

As per usual, any help with adding missing titles and removing those belonging to other years is greatly appreciated.

With over a month since the previous thread died completely, even more surprised to see this one pop up, but nevertheless glad of it.

Speaking of that one, I obviously got pretty much nowhere with Diggles yet, still on the second part, and was actually close to failing and found that objects can vanish (and wondering when or why), including caps of dead dwarves, so sadly two won't even get tombstones to be remembered by...

As for this list, played and finished Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne (review), Arx Fatalis, Divine Divinity (review), Heroes of Might and Magic IV (vanilla), Icewind Dale II, Neverwinter Nights (the entire Diamond edition), Syberia (quick review), Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. Also played, without either finishing or abandoning, so still thinking that someday I might just get back to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. And played and abandoned Warcraft III (found the last Undead mission utterly impossible, so after dozens of tries I gave up there).
Currently no plans to play anything else released that year, but outstanding year based on what I experienced of what was released during it, found all of those I listed to be enjoyable, some more than others but all of them definitely among the better games I ever played.

One game the list's currently missing is vanilla Gothic II (unavailable to be installed like that from GOG, must also install NotR, which was released in 2003). And I can consider it played and abandoned since I did end up unable to play it after a RAM module from that computer failed, and when I finally changed the computer I got it with NotR as well and restarted, and that version joins Morrowind on the neither finished nor abandoned list for many, many years now, but that's a matter for 2003.

Yay! Great! Thanks, bluethief!

I'm always surprised how a particular year shows titles I'd consider much older (Enclave, Arx Fatalis) or much newer (Mafia!, Heroes of Might and Magic IV).

Glad to see that this is still a thing.

There's a few more games that might be worth adding to the list. Going by NA/EU release, the original Project Zero/Fatal Frame came out in 2002, which started one of the biggest horror game series'. It was released in December 2001 in Japan though. Probably also worth mentioning Super Mario Sunshine and Metroid Fusion. There's Suikoden III as well, though not in Europe. That might be worth mentioning too since Suikoden is receiving more interest due to Eiyuden Chronicle.

As for me, no RPGs this time. I think I'll play Splinter Cell and Serious Sam: The Second Encounter. I played the former when I was younger and never got past the second mission, and I haven't really tried to get into the series since, even though it's one of the biggest stealth franchises. Interested in seeing how I do this time. As for Serious Sam, I did complete TFE and I mostly enjoyed that, but TSE escalates the formula quite a lot, with much larger and more difficult levels, which is generally a good thing, but I got burned out at the time.

Most of my favourites from 2002 are console games. Eternal Darkness and Project Zero are both horror classics, easily rivalling any of the Silent Hill games, and of course there's Metroid Prime and Wind Waker. 2002 was definitely a strong year for the Gamecube. I actually didn't realize there were as many notable PC games as there were, though I'm guessing Warcraft III, Morrowind and the GTA 3 port came out on top in sales and popularity.

Anyway though, in short, I'll play Splinter Cell and Serious Sam: TSE this time.

Operation flashpoint : Resistance came out in summer that year.
It was strange that there was never a proper big improvement in that series of games even taking into consideration BIS split with Codemasters.

There can be a lot of reasons for people not engaging with these threads as much as desired, but as long as there are some that like it, I'll keep them coming.
As I said previously, playing the games is just part of the fun. These threads also can serve as a way for people to get to know games they didn't, to just talk about them, make friends, whatever they decide. I'll add it to the list, thank you.

Enclave might be because we never had the planned sequel. Mafia, on the other hand, had two sequels and recently a remake so it's fresh on the mind.

I played both games recently and they're still fun, especially Mafia.

Just signed you up :)

Added Super Mario Sunshine, Metroid Fusion and Suikoden III.
Didn't add Fatal Frame because it's originally from 2001.
Thanks. The first Splinter Cell is a bit clunky to control nowadays, but once you get the hand of it, it's fine. It's still a good game, but unfortunately you cannot be 100% stealth. In this regard Chaos Theory is the best one.

As for Serious Sam, imo it's fun, but after some time it gets tiresome and frustrating. I gotta play it again the foreseeable future, though, just to see how I fare nowadays. Signed you up :)

Added to the list, thank you.

I never got to play any Operation Flashpoint. I remember at the time thinking the games were not good looking compared to other fps from the same year.

Well, I have Chaos Theory as well, so I can definitely play that too. I've heard that most people consider that to be the best one.

Serious Sam is harder than a lot of other FPS games IMO since you can get overwhelmed easily by the enemies if you don't get good at switching between weapons on the fly, and knowing which one to use for each situation. Plus the movement speed is actually slower than something like Doom even though it has similar numbers of enemies at a time. Honestly, I think that's it's greatest strength though, since it's kinda lacking in other areas like level design and variety.

Oh yeah I remember Bloodrayne.
Fun little game. A little jank but it was pretty fun (well, except for the opening swamp level, that was a terrible idea) and it did have some style.

Pity what happened to TRI in the end though.

Playing chronologically I'm still stuck in 2001. But 2002 looks like the year of many subpar entries in many games series.
AoW2 suffered from having no boat AI at all.
Morrowind I used to love, but the static game world (after Gothic showed how it could be done) make it almost unplayable for me now.
HoMM IV I haven't actually played, so it will be interesting to learn if it's really a decline, or just different.
IWD 2 I never finished. Disliked the stupid class system. It's like AD&D really wanted to be classless, but couldn't make a clean break from earlier editions.
MM9. I will never understand why they didn't reuse art from earlier games instead if using things that looked like it was made in a kindergarten.
NOLF 2. Some bizarre scenes, but the respawning was a letdown.

Of games I haven't played I'm most looking forward to Arc Fatalis. I don't think I ever saw physical copies for sale.

It is. I never played Pandora Tomorrow, but Chaos Theory is such a big improvement over the first one. I believe you can 100% stealth your way through.

Blacklist is also very good. It's very fast paced compared to Chaos Theory, and you can choose your style of play: stealth non-lethal, stealth lethal or play it as a shooter.

Conviction is a pure action game. Almost no stealth at all. You feel like you're Jason Bourne.

Double Agent is the worst: a bad PC port, weak level design, stealth is limited, amid other problems. However the story plays an integral part in getting the bigger picture when going into Conviction.