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Best Animation: Professor Layton and the Unwound/Lost Future
When you think of the Professor Layton games, puzzles probably spring to mind more readily than animation. And with its presentation largely done in a slideshow format, you might assume that the latest game in the series is an odd choice for this award. However, Professor Layton and the Unwound Future (or Lost Future in Europe) is packed with extensive cutscenes that are true exemplars of the animator’s art, packing a wealth of detail onto the small DS screen. Utilising the same attractive European art style of its predecessors, reminiscent of such critically acclaimed feature films as The Triplets of Belleville, these are animations that would not look out of place in a cinema release themselves.
Improving further still on the earlier Layton games, the cutscenes in Unwound/Lost Future are truly impressive pieces of work. The opening scene of Layton and Luke riding a bus through London includes a smooth pan around Big Ben’s clock tower, milling crowds on the pavement and London traffic all around them. A shot showing Luke through the double decker bus window even includes reflections of the bustling activity outside. This attention to detail is maintained throughout, right up to the spectacular conclusion. With quality this good, it is hardly surprising that in Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva, the series has taken the strength of its animation to a full Japanese film release. This is cinematic animation as it should be, and a worthy winner of our Aggie Award.
Runners-Up: Heavy Rain, Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse, The Dream Machine: Chapters 1 and 2
Readers’ Choice: Heavy Rain
When a game is touted as an interactive drama, it had better be able to back up the claim with an engaging cinematic experience. Heavy Rain succeeded in doing just that, in no small part to the high quality of its likelike animation. With convincing, emotive facial expressions and smooth motion-captured performances from real actors, this game comes as close as any we've seen to pole-vaulting over the Uncanny Valley.
Runners-Up: Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse, Lost Horizon
Next up: Best Music... the envelope, please!
Continued on the next page...
Heavy Rain
Platform(s): PlayStation 3
Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse
Platform(s): Mac, PC, PlayStation 3
Last Window: The Secret of Cape West
Platform(s): DS
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth
Platform(s): DS
Puzzle Agent
Platform(s): PC, Wii
The Whispered World
Platform(s): PC
Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
Platform(s): DS
Also known as Professor Layton and the Lost Future
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Platform(s): Mac, PC
I see “Black Mirror 2” got runner-up in pretty much every category, AG staff AND readers!
Heavy Rain, champion of the people! It was a great game , the Origami Killer is amazing. My favorite characters were Gaius James Rover, Sadwick and the Origami Killer of course. I haven’t played one game the staff picked besides Heavy Rain..hmmm time to get busy!
I found Norman Jayden to be the most lovable character. Mixing virtual reality and drug addiction was a really nice idea)
So glad Amnesia took a handfull of prizes. Frictional Games deserve it so much.
Yes it was a surprising choice for best adventure of 2010! But a fair one. And good for AG and good for Cing, despite them not being anymore.
Wow! The Whispered World! And I didn’t even vote!
Most surprising: Sadwick. (After all the complaints about his voice).
My personal choice from the same game would have been ‘The Rock Bros.’.
I totally love how they sound exactly like I had imagined them when I translated their parts.
Big thanks to the AG community and of course the team.
Cheers, Dan.
Now I really must play Last Window. I actually found it at my local electronics store, didn’t even know there was a newer release from Cing than Again, but picked it up for 25£ and put it in my DS shelf, where it has been since (together with Again that’s also unplayed)..
Also need to finish the Whispered World, Sam and Max season 3, Heavy Rain and force my bf into playing Amnesia while I watch, as there is no way I’m playing that one alone..
At least I should have a lot to look forward to!
Now, this is a twist at the very end! This is the first time I hear about the Cing game and the fate of the developer. Must be for a good cause that the AG staff decided to put the spotlight on them! Unfortunately, the PC world may never find out the merits of this game. So sad…
As for the readers’ choice award… Interesting! The Whispered World is a very good game indeed, but does have some major flaws too. In my eyes S&M and Lost Horizon deliver a better overall package than it. My take - hype campaigns still work wonders for getting ahead. Alas!
An interesting Awards season with no easy picks amongst the contenders. Many thanks to the AG staff for making it all happen once again. Salute!
It’s great to see Cing getting the recognition they so rightly deserve. I bought The Last Window at launch but I still haven’t played it in fear of it being the last Cing game I’ll ever experience :-( Maybe now’s the time to get over it and play this wonderful game.
A great list of deserving titles, and a nice send-off to Cing. I anticipated every release and was heartbroken to hear they were being shuttered.
And a big thank you to the staff and readers of AdventureGamers.com for doing my favorite genre proud. I love visiting this site.
So happy to see all the love for The Whispered World; it’s easily one of the best adventure games I’ve played since the LucasArts era.
I won’t judge AG choice for best game because i haven’t played Last Window, but i’m really happy to see that community loved The Whispered World. It may not the a perfect adventure, but it really tried and at most cases succeded to catch the spirit of those “golden days” being original along the way as well. Black Mirror 2 and The Lost Horizon deserved to win some of the category i think, but - every award needs to have it’s “Scorcese” 
And a big thank to AG editors who put this all together, now when you look at it, 2010. wasn’t that bad at all. I also hope that in the future we’ll get to see German releases much sooner in English localizations. I also hope to see more companies doing games and more adventure game publishers.
I have to say I’m VERY surprised that Sadwick was voted “best character.” Even once you gave in and turned off his atrocious, unlistenable voice, he was still a mopey, insufferable whiner in a stupid hat…
Surprised to see Heavy Rain win this. The story starts strong but falls to bits the closer you get to the end.
