Game of the Year Thread (2011) | CAG picks

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HD upgrades and re-releases will be frowned upon as choices :shame:

Personal GOTY: Skyrim

Legitimate GOTY: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Honorable Mention: Saints Row 3

So basically, your favorite game of the year, and what game you actually feel deserves the award. Remember, it's not about "Is Portal 2 better than Red Dead Remption?" No. It's about what game made the biggest strides in quality for its respective genre in the year 2011. Feel free to throw in an honorable mention, genre based picks, etc...

And by all means, add some hearty discussion to the thread regarding your picks as well.
 
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GOTY: Dark Souls.

Why? Because you can become the Dark Wraith Troll or maybe you are the one that is always up for some jolly co-operation! The game is not hard, just unforgiving. Majority of games today are made to hold your hand (or at least give you the 'easy' option), well Dark Souls tag line is "Welcome to Die."

Plus having an awesome trailer that actually portrays the game perfectly, made this game that much more for me :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93LFz_j5fQA

Granted there were some things that did not pan out correctly (namely online, which was done better in Demon's Souls) but Dark Souls' endless desire to become perfect made sure I was able to put 150+ hours into the game.

As always I am up for some jolly co-operation!


Honorable Mention: SWTOR

The only game that is taking me away from Dark Souls. Granted MMOs are crack and Star Wars is awesome, so combing both is not good for someone who has an addictive personality.


Honorable honorable mention: Yakuza 4

Sequel to the Yakuza series? Check. Three new bad ass characters? Check. IT'S ANOTHER GOD DAMN YAKUZA GAME! IT'S AWESOME! The game play is more of the awesome over the top beat 'em up fun with new ways to play the game.


There has been a ton of great games this year, but all them took a Dark Soul to the knee!
 
im not going to complain, because i dont have the game or have even played it yet, but uncharted 3 is missing

as for that list of games, ive only played through and completed 2 of them. arkham city and skyward sword. batman gets the nod from me. it kept me engaged for many weekends, ususally all weekend.

zelda was great too though. probably the best story of any zelda game, fun new boss fights. but it had its downfalls with too much waggle, boss keys being dumb, and a few portions of the game that were just there to prolong gameplay and added nothing

finally, i just got around to playing red dead redemption this year, and i can see why it won multiple goty awards last year. fantastic game
 
I've only played three games that came out this year. Out of those three, Pokemon Black/White gets my GOTY nod. It's a great step forward for the franchise in terms of story, characterization, and quest structure, and on top of that is yet another high-quality main-series Pokemon experience. Currently up to five gym badges, and looking forward to the rest of the game.

The other games were/are Portal 2 and Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny. Portal 2 was great, but as an overall experience, pales in comparison to its predecessor (I haven't done any of the co-op stuff yet, but I'm not sure that'll change my opinion of it). I love Rune Factory, and ToD is decent so far, but it's a radical departure from the standard formula, and in general, a step back from RF3.

Out of all the games I played this year, the one I enjoyed the most was Picross 3D. To say I was addicted to that game is an understatement. For an honorable mention: Kirby's Epic Yarn, which is the best Kirby I've ever played.
 
...

I don't think any game this year has really stood out to me. Lots of great games? Sure, especially in this last little stretch. But nothing that I'll be looking back on as an all-time great ten years from now. Dunno; still have to play Arkham City and Skyward Sword.

...

But if we take "Game of the Year" in a slightly different way? Game 7 of MMA vs DongRaeGu in the Starcraft 2 Blizzard Cup finals. Shit was so cash. Too bad Gom doesn't give out free VODs. Just when you think the finals are going to be a total walk-over and not worth staying up for, BAM! Take that, JangBi Vs Fantasy.
 
My GOTY is definitely Dead Space 2. Honorable Mention probably goes to Duke Nukem Forever instead of the second or third games on the list because it took me completely by surprise.
 
Only games I played were Dead Space 2,Rayman,Portal 2,and Deus EX:HR from that list.I probably go with Deus Ex.It was an excellent mix of stealth and cover shooting,and it was an excellent sequel to the first one(2 never happened).My other choice would be Dead Space 2.It was nothing special,but it was just a great deal of fun.Had a couple of little impovements,and cool new necromorphs.

Also why is Amnesia on the list,that game was on Steam last year.
 
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GOTY: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

While the plot does feel a bit like an Ace Attorney game at times the gameplay and graphics felt totally fresh and fun for an adventure game (and the plot did have plenty of surprises too). It's a shame this game seems to have only a small following though (more people should seriously play this game especially if they like the Ace Attorney series), because it really shows that companies can still make modern day adventure games which feel fresh and enjoyable.

Honorable Mention: (Ultimate) Marvel vs. Capcom 3

Probably one of my favorite fighting games that I've ever played, because it's just fun to pick up and play (I still have fun even when I'm losing most of my matches, which is most of the time, hehe). Add to that all the matches I played with other people on CAG (even back in vanilla when there weren't replays), and this is probably my favorite multiplayer and game to socialize with for the year.
 
A tie between Dead Space 2 and Skyrim, but ultimately voted for the latter because RPGs of its kind are becoming an endangered species. Plus the amount of content they packed in is simply ridiculous. Regardless DS2 remains one of my all time favorite sequels of any genre of any generation. It's f*cking perfect. The only other game I've ever felt that way about was FFT.

Honorable mention to Deus Ex for obvious reasons. One of the few purchases this year I'll never regret.
 
[quote name='The Crotch']...

I don't think any game this year has really stood out to me. Lots of great games? Sure, especially in this last little stretch. But nothing that I'll be looking back on as an all-time great ten years from now. Dunno; still have to play Arkham City and Skyward Sword.

...

But if we take "Game of the Year" in a slightly different way? Game 7 of MMA vs DongRaeGu in the Starcraft 2 Blizzard Cup finals. Shit was so cash. Too bad Gom doesn't give out free VODs. Just when you think the finals are going to be a total walk-over and not worth staying up for, BAM! Take that, JangBi Vs Fantasy.[/QUOTE]

My brother plays SC2 a lot and like I've heard from many, he finds the game quite dull to watch compared to Broodwar. He did say, however, that those finals were nuts, so maybe I'll have to check them out.

--

And yes I did forget Uncharted 3, at least no one was going to pick that anyways ;)
 
Gears of War 3 for me. 4 player co-op is awesome, the improvements to horde mode are great and being able to play as the locust in beast mode is so fun. Also I appreciate Epic sticking to their guns and not adding some stupid gimmicks to multiplayer. They know that you don’t need perks or weapon unlocks to keep gamers playing your game, all you need is good gameplay.

Honorable Mention: Dead Rising 2 Off the Record.
It’s Dead Rising 2 for all the haters who don’t understand Dead Rising. I loved Dead Rising 2 and Off the Record is just more of what I love with a few fixes here and there.
 
I'm going tobe the only asshole voting for it, but whatever.

Forza 4. The definitive racing experience. Lots of cars/races to choose from, it's a never ending joyride.

Honorable Mention

Saints Row 3. I had an absolute blast playing this.
 
My pick for game of the year (out of what I've played so far) is Skyward Sword. It's amazing to me that after so many games in the franchise, a Zelda game can still feel fresh and blow me away. Not to mention it is one of the few games that has legitimized motion controls for me.

Honorable Mention to Deus Ex: Human Revolution. If it weren't for those boss fights it would have probably been my pick for GOTY. The satisfaction of my stealth pacifist playthrough was unmatched this year, and I really think it's story/setting was one of the most mature this gen. The world just felt very real, with the questions about the morality of technology being believable.
 
[quote name='panzerfaust']My brother plays SC2 a lot and like I've heard from many, he finds the game quite dull to watch compared to Broodwar. He did say, however, that those finals were nuts, so maybe I'll have to check them out.[/QUOTE]
It's undoubtedly worse watching than Brood War on the whole. Excessive unit clumping (armies look very unimpressive and it's hard to tell units apart in the "ball"), attack animations that cover up the battle (get a lot of colossus firing at once and you can't actually tell who's winning until the fight is nearly over), and the protoss race in general all hurt the game's watchability. Add in to that that the tournament with the best players - Korea's GSL - runs at an unwatchable time for normal people and has a nasty habit of producing totally underwhelming blowouts in its finals? Yeah, it's not ideal spectatin'.

But fuck man, that game seven. Like, the six games that preceded them were nothing special, but they built so well towards that game. But if you are gonna watch it, you either have to pay Gom (they only release the first game of a series for free) or find it from some outside source (which... I've never actually tried to do).

And yeah, there are some players who make protoss interesting to watch. White-Ra and Hero come to mind. But they're the creative, entertaining minority. It's still way too standard for protoss to turtle until they think they have a big enough army to win the game and then just go for one massive, kill-everything-now attack.
 
My top three in no order, of the games on the list I've played:

Skyrim - epic, the world feels much more real and populated than Oblivion, and I don't feel like I'm overwhelmed with piddly stuff, but I do have a lot to do;
Saints Row the Third - just crazy fun
Dragon Age II (I liked some things about II better than in the first)

Bulletstorm might get an honorable mention for being intense pretty much all the way throughout. I can only play a level or two at a time.

I played Batman for about an hour and traded it away. I'm not saying it was bad, but it's too stealthy for me and I just couldn't get into it.
 
Personal GOTY: Saints Row 3

Definitely not the best game of the year, but I had so much fun with it I had to make it my GOTY. Somehow I managed to beat the game in like 11 hours, so when it ended I didn't know the game was over. I wish there were more main missions, but this is one of the few games where I actually feel compelled to do all the side missions and take over all the territories.

Legitimate GOTY: Skyrim

The better game, but I just haven't felt the need to play it like I did with Mass Effect 2, LA Noire, and Saints Row 3. I've already played around 40 hrs and haven't run into any issues (a few freezes) but it sucks that a lot of people are having major problems.

Honorable Mention: LA Noire

A lot of people seemed to not like this game... I did. I loved the era the game was set in and walking around investigating was a lot of fun. The worst part of the game was the shootouts, but those were few and far between, so I'll give it a pass. I hope somehow a sequel gets made, but at this point its not looking very likely.
 
Skyrim will win this by far, no doubt. I cant stand the gameplay in it so unfortunately its not for me.

By default I have to pick Mortal Kombat.. for a game I never intended to buy it was just nonstop fun, more than I could have ever imagined from a fighting game.

All of the big games I was drooling in anticipation over ended up being big disappointments. Arkham City was just way too short, I swear AA was longer. AS:R was just more of the same with an annoying castle defense game thrown in to piss me off. DAII was just incomplete which is sad.

I may pick up Dark Souls and see if j-cart is on the money with it. If so I may change my vote after the fact.
 
My top 5 would probably be:

1. Skyward Sword (GotY, best Wii game, best action/adventure game, best artistic graphics) - Easily the stand out game of the year. Sure, it has some persistent problems (slow/repetitive text, annoying sidekick) and some new ones (mostly due to the hardware, like non-HD visuals and crappy Motion+ accuracy outside of combat), but the story, gameplay, combat, puzzles, and music really put it over the top for me.

2. Skyrim (Best PS3/PC/360 game, best gameplay) - On one hand, to me, this game is just Fallout 3 in Dragon Age's world. On the other, it's damn addictive. I never cared ES due to them being glitch prone and having convoluted item/skill systems but this one is vastly better than its predecessor. Glitches are still present but minimal, and the inventory is about as streamlined as possible. But maybe get more than 5 voice actors next time?

3. Uncharted 3 (Best technical graphics, best sound, best voice work) - Was my expected GotY but alas, it was not to be. The stunning graphics, eardrum popping sound quality, perfect voice work and amazing physics exceeded expectations. The melee system and MP are both vastly improved. There are so many holy shit moments and lots of great new characters to compliment a great story. But... this game simply lacks the charm of the last game. There's too much of focus on Hollywood-esque action and not enough on the characters and story, and relational subtleties between the two.

4. Arkham City - The game perfectly captures how I imagine Batman: zipping around the city, striking fear into bad guy's hearts and bring justice in the night. It's basically a much larger and more varied version of Arkham City, but it some of the magic here was lost. The controls are rather busy and the combat never felt as seamless as it did in the last game.

5. Radiant Historia (best DS game, best RPG, best music) - A grossly overlooked RPG that emanates that same charm that Chrono Trigger did. Fantastic story, great characters, beautiful music, and probably one of the best RPG combat systems ever... too bad it was so short though.

Other notables: Deus Ex (a great game, but not the game changer it could have been), Portal 2 (for some reason, it just did seem as fun this time around) and Mortal Kombat (though I suck at fighting games and generally avoid the genre, I actually enjoyed this one).
 
[quote name='icebeast']GOTY: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

While the plot does feel a bit like an Ace Attorney game at times the gameplay and graphics felt totally fresh and fun for an adventure game (and the plot did have plenty of surprises too). It's a shame this game seems to have only a small following though (more people should seriously play this game especially if they like the Ace Attorney series), because it really shows that companies can still make modern day adventure games which feel fresh and enjoyable.[/QUOTE]

I voted for Arkham City because I love Batman and Grey DeLisle is one of my favorite voice actresses. But if Ghost Trick was a choice on the poll, that'd be my top pick. I love an engaging story.
 
I looked at that list and realized I didn't really actually play any games that came out in 2011 except Portal 2 and Forza 4. I think that makes me a hardcore CAG :). Anyway while I immensely enjoyed Portal 2 I don't think it should win my GOTY vote by default, because I haven't played enough 2011 releases to really judge. For the same reason I can't vote for Forza 4 either but also Turn 10 wasn't able to include Porsche, which while was not really their fault, still greatly decreases my enjoyment/interest in the game. I blame EA squarely for this.

However, the game that really takes the cake and wins my 2011 DIShonorable mention award is Star Trek Online. 2011 was totally the year of fail for this game. It started out strong with some great new missions released in Jan/Feb, but was followed by an unprecedented 9-month gap in new content and broken promises. All the while Cryptic (the developer) misled, lied to, cheated, and even scammed their players in the disaster that is the F2P conversion. Cryptic time after time failed to deliver on their promises and even when they did manage to get something released, it was always buggy and broken. They have pulled a Netflix and totally alienated their playerbase, the core of supporters who floated the company through rough financial times.

I've really never seen such incompetence and mismanagement come from a developer and while it will make me sad that I won't be able to play Star Trek anymore, I truly hope the game dies in a disastrous and humiliating fashion, since as a gamer I don't support game companies this bad to continue in the marketplace.

Even though I never played any of the above games, I would still give personal honorable mention to L.A. Noire. I recently picked it up during the BB DOTD and based on my personal gaming preferences and what I have read/heard about the game I think I will enjoy it a lot. It gets honorable mention because Rockstar dared to do something different, and this kind of thing should be supported in the games industry, which is rapidly mirroring the big business pattern of Hollywood. Stagnation and sequels throughout. I mean how many of the listed games are actually new and original IP? We should as a gaming community should support bold new gameplay from big name development houses and not rely on indie developers to innovate on low-budget titles to move gameplay forward.
 
Damn. Hard choices. Nothing really grabbed me this year like previous years.

Skyrim is glorious but holy shit how frustrated have I been with the glitches and bugs? I don't think I can vote for it given the shaky nature of the initial release.

Gears 3 is fun but someone (very correctly) pointed out that unless you're playing on the highest difficulty, it's almost impossible to actually die. So that's frustrating.

Forza 4 is jaw-dropping but sadly, I haven't put as much time into it as I need to.

Batman AC was a blast until... well, I don't want to spoil anything but when the credits started rolling, I believe my first words were, "Are you fucking kidding me?" I had a blast up until then.
 
[quote name='Halo05']

Batman AC was a blast until... well, I don't want to spoil anything but when the credits started rolling, I believe my first words were, "Are you fucking kidding me?" I had a blast up until then.[/QUOTE]

Haha Those were my exact words. I was expecting at least another 10-15 hours of gameplay. Well with the Catwoman stuff you get another 10 minutes after that. Oh well.
 
This was probably my favorite year in gaming, I don't think I could even try to list favorites. I can however, list my least favorite game of the year: Two Worlds II. It was poop, even worse it was poop masquerading as a type of game I was very interested in. I guess it deserves some credit for ambition, but I was quite disappointing on the whole.
 
I wouldn't even consider Skyrim a nominee, personally. It is my favorite game this year, but there have been so many outstanding titles that really overshadow Skyrim and all of its faults.
 
I voted for Dead Space 2, mostly because I value narrative and atmosphere more than anything else in a game, and it seemed to be the clear winner in that regard this year.

I likewise can't understand why people would vote for Skyrim when it's been pretty seriously broken in one way or another since release, particularly on PS3. *shrug*
 
[quote name='gbpackers94']Personal GOTY: Saints Row 3

Definitely not the best game of the year, but I had so much fun with it I had to make it my GOTY. Somehow I managed to beat the game in like 11 hours, so when it ended I didn't know the game was over. I wish there were more main missions, but this is one of the few games where I actually feel compelled to do all the side missions and take over all the territories.[/QUOTE]
I just finished the game myself last week or so and I worked on finishing the side missions(Trail Blazing was a major league pita on the hard setting, especially the 'Tron' version of it:bomb:).

I only have the challenges really left and then I'll be truly done with the game.
 
[quote name='panzerfaust']I wouldn't even consider Skyrim a nominee, personally. It is my favorite game this year, but there have been so many outstanding titles that really overshadow Skyrim and all of its faults.[/QUOTE]
I guess whether or not Skyrim belongs depends on if you're choosing based on favoritism or quality. Personally, I think both approaches are valid :)
 
Personal- Pokemon Black; never has the campaign of a Pokemon game been this fun and thrilling. The Pokemon are excellent, no matter what nostalgia-glasses make people say. If only there was more engaging content after the campaign and better legendaries, it would be the best Pokemon game instead of the 3rd Gen games.
Runner-Up- Deus Ex: Human Revolution- I'm not even done with this game yet and I know it belongs here. Sure, the beginning drags on slightly in drab environments, but even then, it gives you an incredible amount of freedom I wish every game had. Best thing I learned from this incredible game- linearity is a bitch.
3rd- Killzone 3- really good game, but I doubt it'd be here if I played more 2011 games.
Most disappointing- Uncharted 3- big pile of turd. I'm someone who always will believe the first one was the best and the second was a slight disappointment, but this one blew incredible chunks.

Note: I don't even think I played too many 2011 games as I'm catching up on my backlog of games like Gears 1&2, and all the God of War games.

Potential GOTYs I haven't played:
Skyrim
Batman
Portal 2
Driver San Fran
Battlefield 3
MW3
Dark Souls
Gears 3
Resistance 3
Many more
 
I have only beaten 2 of these games (batman AC & portal 2) played a little of deus ex and uncharted 3 as well just started skyrim (and it is quite good so far)
 
GOTY - Zelda: Skyward Sword
Runner Up - Uncharted 3, DW Gundam 3, Portal 2
Best Downloadable Game - Back to the Future: The Game
 
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Game of the Year: Super Mario 3D Land

The fact that you have Dragon Age 2 in the poll listing is laughable.
 
I kind of just made the list off the top of my head and based it on well known titles. By the time I remembered UC3 and Super Mario, I was already too far down the list =p.

And DAII was pretty fun, certainly not a nominee though.
 
I wonder how many people that voted played all, or at least most, of the games listed. Me personally, I've played 10 of the games listed and 3 or 4 of those games I put in maybe a few hours here and there.

My personal Favorite game of the year is Batman Arkham City which just narrowly edged out Saints Row The Third for victory. And that has more to do with the overall time spent with each game. Batman AC I've sunk in quite a bit of time on and off since day 1, where as SR3 I played exclusively for the last 4 days of the year. When you look at just how much playing 10 hours of SR3 impacted me, versus 40+ on Batman, SR3 really comes out the winner.

It's also a testament to how important word of mouth is to a games sales. If the Giant Bomb people haven't been so aggressively behind the game in their podcasts, I would've completely skipped over what is definitely my most pleasant surprise of the year 2012.

The OP list looks a little incomplete and out of whack. Bastion is missing, yet Pokemon B/W and a host of other good, but not great and certainly not GAME OF THE YEAR worthy. Probably should've just scouted Metacritic and came up with the 30-50 highest ranked games of the year.
 
I think I'm a bigger fan of Bastion than most here, and yet I wouldn't consider it a nominee. The split ending was off target and the combat felt like white noise more than anything. I wrote an entire review on it =[

Although that's not why it isn't up there. I put this together in a bit of a rush, and the poll maxes out at 30 choices. I forgot some great picks, and settled for the more known ones off the top of my head.
 
Personal GOTY: Gears of War 3. I've played it for many hours already and will enjoy many more hours to come. Just can't get enough of Horde mode and the entire game just oozes polish and quality.

Legitimate GOTY: Portal 2. Amazing experience, some of the best and funniest writing ever, and the co-op was great. In terms of artistry it can't be beat. Only thing is, once you beat the story and co-op once there's nothing more to do and very little incentive to replay.

Honorable Mention: Dead Space 2. I wish this series got more attention. While I do think that Dead Space 1 was the superior game, this series just has it all, top-notch graphics, intriguing story, and amazing gameplay (the plasma cutter is my all-time favorite weapon in a game).

Honorable Mention 2: Dragon Age II. I loved the hell out of this game. No idea why it gets so much abuse.
 
For me it is Portal 2 beating out Batman:AC. There wasn't one minute playing Portal 2 that I didn't have a smile on my face - the most pure fun I've probably ever had with a video game. It was simply perfect.
 
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