It's a tie! 'Angry Fire Chozo' and 'Project Base'. Let's delve into these two nominees and find out why they made the cut.

Deep Space Observer's 'Angry Fire Chozo' was inspired by a glitch he found while messing around with a boostball patch made by Insomnia. He didn't intend to make much of it, but his once small project ended up sprouting - it became an outlet for him to level design around a rather unique gameply concept. The glitch in question involved a rather floaty jump, so much that his terrain doesn?t just ignore said glitch, but rather works around it, creating some very inventive movement puzzles. What we have in finished product form is a creative glitch with stunning level design - that manages to look very beautiful at times! - to revolve around it. Good qualifier for a creative gameplay contender, eh?

Grime's 'Project Base' is a conceptual hack and a damn fine one. The concept? Same game, beefed up backgrounds - aesthetically stunning backgrounds! The hack also incorporates some physics changes and a few graphical nuances which make the original game oh so much better. People seldom care for half hacks these days; most of them want a full hack, an entirely new world to explore and map out. Yet here we have the same alien planet we grew up with. So then why is it garnishing such attention? The answer is simple. Grime took the original game and made it feel new. No easy feat. People have been trying this with palette changes and random spikes for years. The new backgrounds are so lush that you instantly grow immersed, playing the same game yet re-imagining it's architecture even though it hasn't been touched. Yes, that is what a good background can do to a room. The physics modifications are icing on the cake, as are the palette changes of tilesets and enemies. So charge up, outrun your shot and take the enemy behind it. Believe me, the changes in gameplay are as creative as the concept itself. Welcome to Super Metroid: Layer Two and its revamped gameplay.
- Digital_Mantra