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Best Music: Heavy Rain
Hiding under a bed, you can hear the footsteps of a suspected killer grow closer as the soundtrack begins to stir and grow. Strained, tense musical movements heighten the tension and reach a crescendo when the creepy taxidermist discovers where you are hiding. Now shifting tone and tempo, the chase is on and the action becomes more frantic. As you panic and waste time, the strings get more and more erratic, punctuated by dark, overbearing woodwinds, and you can almost feel the sweat rolling down your forehead. Somehow you manage to escape, and both your character and the instruments let out a relieved sigh, the anxiety draining from the music as the pace slows again. Whew!
The score composed by Normand Corbeil to accompany Heavy Rain almost becomes a character of its own. Mirroring the mood and atmosphere of the in-game action perfectly, the music doesn't seem scripted but entirely organic. Rather than being cued by the action, it seems to be reacting naturally along with it, flowing seamlessly as players make different decisions that dictate the direction of the game. Several scenes use synthesized music where appropriate, such as a visit to a nightclub, but the bulk of the score is made up of grand orchestral, stirring pieces. It may not be particularly groundbreaking in its arrangement or style, but the fact that it resembles a perfectly assembled theatrical score – one which has the ability to change with each different playthrough – is an impressive feat that makes it the deserving Aggie winner of a very close vote for Best Music.
Runners-Up: Last Window: The Secret of Cape West, Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse
Readers’ Choice: Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse
Jared Emerson-Johnson one-upped himself with a soundtrack as epic and frenetic as The Devil’s Playhouse itself. For Sam & Max’s third season, the usual noir-influenced jazz is joined by a diverse smattering of other themes, from ancient Egyptian fanfare to turn-of-the-century ragtime to “wakka-chikka” jive straight out of a 1970s B-movie. The result is a game that’s every bit as fun to listen to as it is to play.
Runners-Up: The Whispered World, Heavy Rain
Next up: Best Voice Acting... 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.
