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Published Oct 26, 2026, 5:53 PM EDT
Writing from the Chicagoland area in Illinois, Robert is an avid movie watcher and will take just about any excuse to find time to go to his local movie theaters. Robert graduated from Bradley University with degrees in Journalism and Game Design with a minor in Film Studies. Robert tries his best to keep up with all the latest movie releases, from those released in theaters to those released on streaming. While he doesn't always keep up with the latest TV shows, he makes it a goal to watch nearly every major new release possible. He has been honing his craft and following any and all movie news all his life, leading up to now, where he has a vast knowledge of film and film history. He also logs every movie that he watches on his Letterboxd page, and has hosted a weekly online movie night with his closest friends for over 6 years.
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Just like the film industry has award for Best Picture and the music industry has Song and Album of the year, the video game industry has used various Game of the Year awards to celebrate the very best in video games within a given year. There are various different Game of the Year awards, whether it be the wide array of awards running since the 80s and 90s, the Spike Video Game Awards in the 2000s and early 2010s, or the now massively popular Game Awards run by Geoff Keighley.
While several of the recipients of these awards are still massively celebrated and looked back on as some of the greatest games of their generations, there are also a select few winners that have aged considerably worse than their competition did. Due to technical limitations of the time or just outright incorrect decision-making by those who gave out the award in the first place, these once celebrated Game of the Year winners aren't nearly as enjoyable to play in a modern context. For the sake of this list and as not to complicate with so many different publications, it will strictly be looking at winners of Game of the Year awards from Golden Joystick, Spike Video Game Awards, and The Game Awards.
5 'Grand Theft Auto III' (2002)
It's certainly easy to understand why Golden Joystick awarded Grand Theft Auto III with the Game of the Year, as it was a groundbreaking action game that helped massively popularize the concept of open worlds, with a sprawling environment unlike anything else released at the time. However, Grand Theft Auto as a franchise has evolved so much since its first 3D entry, making the more poorly aged aspects of this PS2 classic all the more apparent to those who have played more recent entries (which, going off of sales data, is pretty much everyone).
The Grand Theft Auto formula has had so many quality-of-life improvements, better vehicle physics, more effective shooting controls, and actual checkpoints during missions, that this original entry can feel tediousat times. For the time it certainly made the most sense to award this groundbreaking game, but looking back, it's easy to see a wide array of great games that could have won the award instead, including the GameCube remake of Resident Evil, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, or most notably, the original Halo: Combat Evolved.
4 'Madden NFL 2004' (2003)
One of the strangest choices for a Game of the Year winner, Madden NFL 2004 was actually the very first Game of the Year winner awarded by the Spike Video Game Awards. Ironically, this sports simulation game isn't nearly as bad as one would think, considering just how pitiful the franchise has gotten in recent years. Many people actually consider this to be one of the best Madden games, but it still has its clear poorly aged attributes and is an absolutely shocking Game of the Year winner compared to its competition.
Several of the issues that the game faces are largely a facet of gamers growing accustomed to improvements in later entries, such as surface-level computer AI and poorly balanced players. Cover player Michael Vick (who has aged like milk in his own ways) is so overtuned in the game that he completely destroys any semblance of balance. What's most shocking of all are the games that this ended up beating, as it's hard to imagine anyone, even gamers in 2003, who would have given the award to this game over Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, or Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
3 'Thunder Blade' (1988)
In the early days of the video game industry and the fledgling beginnings of video game publications, many of these institutions were still fine-tuning and figuring out the best ways to judge and award the best games in a given year. This at least attempts to explain Golden Joystick's choice to give one of their 3 Game of the Year awards in 1988 to Thunder Blade. This 8-bit Sega Master System port of the beloved arcade game won the Game of the Year award specifically for home console releases, while the other two awards were for games released for 8-bit computers and 16-bit computers.
Even excusing the fact that there is no real reason to play this downgraded port in the modern day as opposed to the superior arcade original, Thunder Blade's win speaks to a larger issue of cultural differences in Golden Joystick and their EU readers compared to the modern day. What was once impressive in porting a 3D experience onto an 8-bit console now just doesn't impress beyond a novelty. It certainly doesn't help that several much greater and more iconic games could have won this award instead, such as Phantasy Star, Shinobi, Metroid and Castlevania.
2 'Overwatch' (2016)
Image via Blizzard EntertainmentOne of the only multiplayer-only games to have won Game of the Year at The Game Awards, Overwatch was an undeniable sensation of the industry when it first released, evolving the hero shooter genre with Blizzard's then exceptional track record to create what was one of the best multiplayer experiences of the era. However, in the modern age of games as a service and constant updates, the game that so many players fell in love with is not the same as the version of Overwatch that people play today. For Overwatch, this concept is taken quite literally, as the original Overwatch that won Game of the Year was taken offline in 2022 to be replaced by what was once Overwatch 2, before the sequel changed its name back to just "Overwatch" earlier this year.
At the very least, every other Game of the Year winner can still be played in the modern day in the iteration that won Game of the Year, a facet that just doesn't apply to Overwatch. Even before the free-to-play sequel replaced the original game and filled it with toxic microtransactions and false promises of real single-player content, the original game was certainly dwindling in the eyes of players. A myriad of awkward balance decisions and uninteresting new heroes had players losing passion and fun they once had with the game, especially with many new and more exciting hero shooters being released in the wake of Overwatch's success.
I promise that I did not intend to repeatedly dunk on the Madden series when constructing this list, but even more shocking than Madden NFL 2004's victory is that Golden Joystick awarded the original John Madden Football Game of the Year for games released on 16-bit consoles. At least 2004 is still appreciated and played by some die-hard Madden fans today, while this 16-bit sports sim game, while certainly groundbreaking for the era, is overwhelmingly outdated and improved upon by nearly every Madden game released since. There is some charm in seeing an effective football game work on a 16-bit console, but novelty and retro charm alone do not make a well-aged game in the modern age of gaming.
The game simply feels sluggish and unresponsive to play today when considering the overwhelming quality-of-life changes that football video games have received in the decades since this game's release. While Golden Joystick wasn't able to choose from the various great SNES games released in 1990, since the region didn't receive the console for a few more years, there were still numerous great Sega Genesis games more deserving of the award than this sports sim game. Most notably, icons of the Genesis library like Golden Axe, Strider, Phantasy Star II, Columns, and Altered Beast were all overlooked in favor of a game that is rarely ever looked back on today.
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