Naliking..can you (or your friend who has a suspiciously similar writing style to you) tell me why UT2004 should not have been nominated.
The fact that you don't like it isn't reason enough.
You love Csports right? So lets have a look at Csports. Now right now, at this moment, UT2k4 is the most popular game online of any released in 2004. Your beloved HL2 (which I own, and it's a damn fine game I accept), is less popular online that UT2k4. CS is a mod that comes with HL, so you can include that in HL2 if you want to stretch your point...but even so..looking at all the games that were released this year, almost none of them are more popular than than UT2k4. Doom3, Star Wars Battlefront, Tribes Vengeance etc etc.
Taking that into account, only a blind man with a passionate hatred for UT2k4 and some personal bias against it because he prefers the original UT, would say that it doesn't deserve a nomination.
I don't find it strange at all that it won multiplayer of the year...as I've said above, it's certainly the most popular stand alone online game released this year. CS is a mod.
As for game of the year, in terms of single player, then I accept that HL2 had by far the best single player of any game I've seen, and technically, pushed back the limits of video games. But personally, no matter how good a single player game is, I rarely play it through more than twice, and HL2s multi-player, you have to admit, is a one trick pony. Like many people, I judge how good a game is by how long I play it and how much fun I get out of it...And on this criteria, UT2k4 is more enjoyable than HL2 (which I rarely play anymore)
However, I accept that many people are into counter terrorism type games, thus the popularity online of CS. Personally, I don't like it.
You seem to obssessed with telling everyone how much of a failure UT2k4 is...I wonder how you define success. The games I mentioned above that came out this year have all been less successful than UT2004...so by your standards, apart from HL2, there hasn't been a successful game released this year.
You harp on about how UT has more players than UT2k4..whcich it actually doesn't according to your stats again, but neglect to mention that for most MP games (MoH, CoD, BF, CS, HL, Tribes) this almost ALWAYS happens..the originals are more popular than the sequals. In that light, UT2k4, along with Quake, is exceptional in that its later version is played more than it's original. Yet you still seem determined to label it a flop.
And when these things are pointed out to you by hal, you suddenly start to criticise the very same stats that you previously held up to prove your point. Strange no?
No doubt you'll reply and call me a fan boy...a word you so love to use. U think you define a fan boy as someone who likes a game and is willing to say so. Personally, my definition of a fan by (in the derogatory way you seem to use it) is of someone who is blind to everything else except the game he loves, and will even go onto the sites of other games that he doesn't like to tell people that they are wrong in not liking the game that they are so passionate about.
Ask me about HL2 and I'll tell you its awesome.
Ask me if its the best SP game I've ever seen, and I'll say yes.
Ask me if I play it as much as UT, I'll say no.
Tell people that it is better than UT and come onto a UT gamers site saying UT shouldn't be nominated for best game of the year with no real statisical proof, only your own personal opinion (not even backed up by the very stats you seem so keen to shove down everyone's throat), and I'll tell you that i think you are wrong.
And I guess this makes me a fanboy.
Find a game you like, and go an play it. Let other people play the games they like, and leave them alone. is that really so difficult for you? What is your agenda?