Gaming’s Greatest Month 20 Years Later – Remembering November 2004
Gaming has had many great periods over its fifty-four years of history (Computer Space, the first commercial game, was developed in 1970 and released the following year), and fans often have hot debates about the best year for new game releases. Today, however, I wanted to place the spotlight on what I consider to be, without a shred of doubt, the best month ever for gaming: November 2004.
Twenty years ago, eight seminal games were released in twenty-eight days, breaking people's wallets but also forever marking the spot (and, in some cases, outright changing it) in the history of this entertainment medium. In this article, I'll explain why they were (and in many ways still are) so important while also remembering my feelings about them at the time. The list is strictly ordered based on their respective release dates.
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Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - October 26, 2004
Rockstar's fifth main entry in the GTA series technically launched a few days before November, but it still fits the twenty-eight-day timeframe between it and the final game on this list. Moreover, I could never leave it out over something so trivial. While the previous installments in the franchise were already highly popular, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas reached an entirely new dimension when it dropped into the gaming market. The game outsold Vice City by 45% in its first week, selling 4.5 million units.
It would become the best-selling game in a crowded year, thanks to universal critical acclaim (95/100 on Metacritic) and some good old-fashioned mainstream controversy due to the infamous Hot Coffee minigame. The acclaim and sales were well-earned, as San Andreas improved over Vice City in every area: gameplay, visuals, world size, features, etc., setting a new standard for open-world titles.
As for my take at the time, I wasn't the biggest GTA fan back then, so it wasn't my most
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