I feel the same way about CoD. Sure you can go into a multiplayer match, run around mindlessly and get a few killls. Or you can learn every corner of the map, constantly fine-tune your load out, and learn to work with your team to become practically unstoppable. There's a hidden depth to just about any genre if you're willing to take the time to learn.Fighting games that you can button mash and enjoy are good fighting games. It’s your first experience with a fighting game, you don’t know how to play it, but you’re mashing the buttons and you get a good reaction from that, or even win, and it means it’s exciting because you feel the taste of winning. Not everyone is a hardcore tournament player. Seventy percent are just your average player who wants to beat their brother, or their friend, or whoever. So button mashing is very important for having them see that it’s fun, [but] those people, if they continue to be interested in the game, will eventually run into someone they’ll never be able to beat by just button mashing. So they will make the effort to learn how to play. It’s important that they at least feel that they have the chance of winning. If they feel that they can’t beat someone, they’re not even going to try the game at all. There are actually characters in the game designed with that in mind. Those elements are left in the game on purpose because it’s necessary as a whole.
IGN
IGN's most prestigious game of the year award is chosen by all the editors at IGN and unveiled mid-January.
Year Game Genre Platform(s) Developer(s)
2011 Portal 2 (First-Person) Puzzle Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows, Mac OS X Valve Corporation
2010 Mass Effect 2[107] Action RPG: (Third-Person) Shooter Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 BioWare
2009 Uncharted 2: Among Thieves[108] Action-Adventure: (Third-Person) Shooter PlayStation 3 Naughty Dog
2008 Fallout 3[109] Role-Playing Game Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 Bethesda Softworks
2007 Super Mario Galaxy[110] Platformer Wii Nintendo EAD Tokyo Development Group
2006 Ōkami[111] Action-Adventure PlayStation 2, Wii Clover Studio
2005 God of War[112] Action: Hack & Slash PlayStation 2 SCE Studios Santa Monica
2004 Half-Life 2[113] (First-Person) Shooter Windows, Xbox 360, Xbox, PlayStation 3 Valve Corporation
2003 Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic[114] Role-Playing Game Xbox, Windows BioWare
2002 Battlefield 1942[115] (First-Person) Shooter Windows Digital Illusions CE
2001 Halo: Combat Evolved[116] (First-Person) Shooter Xbox, Windows Bungie Studios