Game of the Year 2011

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Phlakes

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Mar 25, 2010
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...Are people really complaining that their choice was predictable? Would you rather them lie to keep you on your toes?
 

Negatempest

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Ah Dragon Age 2. The only game in my library that I regret ever buying. I LOVED the characters. I loved the plot. (though it was odd). I loved the aesthetics as well. The combat was nice and fast.....but everything else just sucked.....

The waves of enemies got tiring quickly. The teleporting enemies got annoying fast. The constant ambushes got old. Aggro was broken. Difficulty level was too easy or too hard. Dungeons re-used to the point that I even wonder why only certain paths are blocked off. Killed so many "citizens" that the city should of been a ghost town by the end of the "10" years. When the game makes it painful to face the next battle...there is something wrong.

Oh, I can really go into a nerd rage about how painful the game was for me, but that would ruin what I am trying to say. Games like DA2 should not get praise for such a lack of completion in so many areas. That is like praising Madden next year for "improving" their gameplay.
 

Jodah

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Aug 2, 2008
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Freechoice said:
Goddammit, why is there so little bitching about Bastion not getting it?
Because nobody expects an indie title to win GOTY unless it is called Minecraft. I'm not bashing indie games in any way, I play them all the time and enjoy them. But lets face it, 9.5 times out of 10 a AAA title is going to win GOTY.
 

Braedan

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Sep 14, 2010
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The only thing more predictable than Skyrim winning this award, is the bitching and whining in the comment section.

Skyrim was the game I played the most, and enjoyed the most. I honestly can't remember any one game holding my attention for a long period of time besides Skyrim. 102 Hours, and just starting a new char.
 

Orekoya

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Sep 24, 2008
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So Dragon Age 2 made honorable mentions but Terraria seems to have fallen to the waste side. I played Terraria 108 hours and Skyrim for 20, after having grown tired of the constant waves of Draugr which made up roughly 70% of my combatants.
 

nyysjan

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Mar 12, 2010
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This list makes me want to cry.
And the fact that someone put Dragon Age 2 in it makes me want to throw up.
 

Magnicon

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Nov 25, 2011
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Honorable mention for Dragon Age 2.
Portal 2 wasn't nominated.
Minecraft WAS nominated.
Skyrim wins.

I played through all 4 of these games, and put over 300 hours into Minecraft, and around 150 hours in Skyrim.

This article has zero credibility in my eyes. I could write books on how many things are wrong with both Minecraft and Skyrim.

Are there any credible sites that review games anymore? Ones with standards for quality, creativity, and originality? Ones that don't let lazy greedy companies get away with releasing unfinished games that are filled with bugs and unplayable on entire consoles?
 

Carnagath

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Hurray, all aboard the hype wagon. Let's all hand out game of the year awards to a product that, on the PS3 is completely unplayable, and on the PC players spend more time on the command console and trying to configure stability mods than ingame, because it's big and has dragons, instead of taking a stand against developers who disrespect their customers by releasing pre-alpha versions for 60$. It's funny, I remember last year people criticizing Red Dead Redemption for its bugs, while I doubt Skyrim will reach RDR's level of polish even 2 years from now (especially considering Bethesda's history of releasing a few patches and then going "we're done, fuck it, next game" and leaving behind broken games that people paid for). Thanks for lowering our standards. No wonder nobody gives a shit about "game journalism".
 

RedDeadFred

Illusions, Michael!
May 13, 2009
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Couldn't agree more. Skyrim is my personal GOTY with Arkham City as the distant runner up.
 

FamoFunk

Dad, I'm in space.
Mar 10, 2010
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Definitely disagree with this no surprise choice of GoTY.

If it was for the most buggy and broken with a crap port for the PS3 (and I think PC?), this would wins hands down. Really, things like this *should* be taking in to consideration when picking a GoTY, not just, "This game is kewl."
 

Woem

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May 28, 2009
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Looking at everyone's Top 5 I expected to see Skyrim as GOTY, and sadly so. The main reason I believe Skyrim doesn't deserve the title is because of the story and the quests. The main quests is the worst storyline I've seen in a very long time, especially in an RPG. And there are so many fetch quests it's unacceptable. Even when you're doing important quests like becoming Guild Master, there are literally 20 fetch quests you need to do.

I've heard the argument a countless times that you don't need to do the main quest to enjoy the game, but it's the main quest for a reason! Either don't put a main quest in there at all, or at least make it a good one. Fallout: New Vegas is a good example of an open world game with a strong story and multiple paths depending on your choices and actions. You can ignore the main story but if you do follow it, you're in for a treat.

And dragons really are far from memorable and far from well executed. Remember that these dragons are feared throughout Skyrim because they're bringing total destruction and the end of the world with it. As Susan points out: bears are to be feared more than dragons!
 

Sonic Doctor

Time Lord / Whack-A-Newbie!
Jan 9, 2010
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Assassin Xaero said:
This is the reason why I never cared much for GOTY awards popularity contests. Dragon Age 2, the sequel to the worst game I ever had to force myself to finish (which from play the demo and what I've heard, DA2 is even worse than DA:O) gets "honorable mention", while my three favorite games of the year (Rage, Duke Nukem Forever, and Bulletstorm) are no where on the list. Oh well, not like the awards make the games better or anything, I still get to have my fun with games that I actually enjoy.
You might like Dragon Age 2 better. The reason I say this is that after I pre-ordered it, I went online and got the Dragon Age Origins: Ultimate Edition.

I only got a little over 20 hours into it and I couldn't continue, it was just too broken, outdated, boring and cliche.

I decided to keep my pre-order in place, and when I got DA2, I found it so awesome, it was the only game I played until I finished it, 54 hours in less then a month period. I also went back and started up and played a bit as the other two classes.

I willing to bet what you heard about the game has been bile out of the mouths of people that trash the game because, "It isn't like Origins".

Everything that was broken about Origins, they fixed, controls, more fine tuned inventory, much better and rewarding level and ability tree system, dialogue is much cleaner and better executed with the edition of dialogue wheel, the story is more personal to the player character and the party members actually feel like real people but unique from each other. The only problem the game had was the sort of small amount of dungeons that get reused, though since the rest of the game is phenomenal, that can easily be overlooked. I know I didn't notice it until I was almost finished with the game and somebody had to point it out.

Now about one point of the rest of your comment, how could you ever think Duke Nukem Forever would be on any critic site's game of the year list. If it was, it would most likely have been a joke. DNF was critically panned across the board. Heck, it was so critically fire-blasted that the guy that was head of the PR group that represented the game, in desperate attempt to make the ratings better, he actually threatened reviewers/review sites that they would never get another pre-release copy of games that they represent if they didn't stop saying DNF was a horrible game.

I was glad I waited for the reviews to make my decision, and since the consensus is that it is nothing like previous DN games, I'm definitely will never play it. I mean come on, DN3D had open explorable levels, you could carry all ten weapons at once, and it had health packs. DNF had linear levels, a two gun limit, and silly, suck thumb behind rock, regen health. And to top it off the sexual themes and jokes were at least 20 times over done compared to DN3D. The game is a travesty, it could have been so much more, but Gearbox was just so lazy when the got it and apparently didn't know thing one about what made a great DN game.
 

Amaror

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leet_x1337 said:
Before I opened the article, I just knew you were going to keep praising Skyrim as the best game ever made, despite its numerous flaws (among them not one but two bad ports and the bugs in all three versions.) Either I'm psychic or every single game critic ever thinks that Plan 9 from Outer Space couldn't possibly be a better movie.
Yeah. course every other game they praised was flawless.
*hust* Dragon Age 2 *hust*
 

Jailbird408

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Jan 19, 2011
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Am I seriously the only one who thinks Skyward Sword should have gotten GOTY?
Either way, at least I'm not the only one who thinks Elder Scrolls Filled-To-The-Skyrim-With-Bugs should have lost.
 

Sonic Doctor

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Jan 9, 2010
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Carnagath said:
Hurray, all aboard the hype wagon. Let's all hand out game of the year awards to a product that, on the PS3 is completely unplayable, and on the PC players spend more time on the command console and trying to configure stability mods than ingame, because it's big and has dragons, instead of taking a stand against developers who disrespect their customers by releasing pre-alpha versions for 60$. It's funny, I remember last year people criticizing Red Dead Redemption for its bugs, while I doubt Skyrim will reach RDR's level of polish even 2 years from now (especially considering Bethesda's history of releasing a few patches and then going "we're done, fuck it, next game" and leaving behind broken games that people paid for). Thanks for lowering our standards. No wonder nobody gives a shit about "game journalism".
Pre-Alpha? These glitches and bugs have been minor annoyances at best. Plus, a GOTY is about the overall experience, and many times the overall experience far overshadows bugs and glitches.

It was no surprise that the Escapist picked it as the GOTY. Especially so if you ever regularly listen to the Escapist Podcast. I remember that in at least four of them in a row, the group discussed their experiences with the game for at least 25 to 30 minutes of the podcast. Occasionally bugs got mentioned, but the praise far outweighed them.

My brother got me the 360 version for Christmas. I've played for almost 80 hours and I barely scratched the surface of the content in the game. I've done maybe five of the main storyline quests, heck, I haven't even picked a side(Empire or Stormcloaks) yet. In my play time I have encounter a couple frame rate slow downs/pauses and my 360 has froze up twice while playing it, but the awesomeness of the game makes those problems meaningless. Skyrim is definitely my game of the year.

My brother has the PC version, and if he has encountered any of the bugs, he hasn't mentioned them to me in his stories of his times playing the game. So it is all about experiences and how they weigh against the bugs. If the bugs feel meaningless to most people, then the bugs will be overlooked when considering it for the GOTY.
 

Proverbial Jon

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Nov 10, 2009
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Well I must say I'm surprised to see Batman Arkham City and Portal 2 only got Honorable Mentions and not a full on Nomination for GOTY.

Skyrim is both predictable as GOTY and highly deserving. I'm still playing it now, can't say that for some of the other choices.
 

NerfedFalcon

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Amaror said:
leet_x1337 said:
Before I opened the article, I just knew you were going to keep praising Skyrim as the best game ever made, despite its numerous flaws (among them not one but two bad ports and the bugs in all three versions.) Either I'm psychic or every single game critic ever thinks that Plan 9 from Outer Space couldn't possibly be a better movie.
Yeah. course every other game they praised was flawless.
*hust* Dragon Age 2 *hust*
I've already repented on this one; just read my incredibly long argument with omicron1 on the first page.