GamesRadar's potentially annual Platinum Chalice awards 2006
It's been a stupidly big year for games. Why don't we reduce it to a single glib article?
Winner: Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure
Atari | PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox
Bloc Party's song "Helicopter" can make anything amazing, but it didn't have to work too hard during the tram-ride sequence in Getting Up. Say what you will about the game, but frantically leaping between four aerial cable cars and shimmying around their edges to spray paint a single giant message - all while dodging machinegun fire and tossing riot cops off the tops of the cars - felt overwhelmingly badass the first time we did it. Add a soundtrack that wailed "Are you hoping for a miracle?" over roaring guitars, and this easily nets our most dubious award of 2006.
Honorable mention: Jaws Unleashed
Majesco | PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox
This otherwise crummy shark simulator was a treasure trove of stupid-awesome moments, but none so much as when Jaws spit explosive barrels at the beachfront homes of chemical-company executives, who were then eaten alive as they tried to escape by running toward the giant shark. Delicious.
Winner: Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure
Atari |PC,PlayStation 2,Xbox
Bloc Party's song "Helicopter" can make anything amazing, but it didn't have to work too hard during the tram-ride sequence in Getting Up. Say what you will about the game, but frantically leaping between four aerial cable cars and shimmying around their edges to spray paint a single giant message - all while dodging machinegun fire and tossing riot cops off the tops of the cars - felt overwhelmingly badass the first time we did it. Add a soundtrack that wailed "Are you hoping for a miracle?" over roaring guitars, and this easily nets our most dubious award of 2006.
Honorable mention: Jaws Unleashed
Majesco | PC,PlayStation 2,Xbox
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
This otherwise crummy shark simulator was a treasure trove of stupid-awesome moments, but none so much as when Jaws spit explosive barrels at the beachfront homes of chemical-company executives, who were then eaten alive as they tried to escape by running toward the giant shark. Delicious.
Stellar Blade director jokes the action RPG "is the outcome of my creative dictatorship," but "everyone pretends to listen to what I say whilst creating what they want"
I wish Stellar Blade's New Game+ was added before my first playthrough, because it sounds like a whole new action RPG with 34 new outfits and a bigger skill tree