Poll: Game Of The Year- Let the battle begin...

[BloatedGuppy]

Because it's well-written and brutally honest?

"Bioshock Infinite is Space Invaders with a new coat of paint". Yeah that's some championship level insight.

I do wish that guy would look into getting someone else to narrate his videos. He does not have a good voice for the medium. Nails on chalkboard.

 

[Kyber]

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
Why?
RULES OF NATURE!
Oh, and it's a fantastic game in all other ways too.

 

[Poetic Nova]

Borderlands 2, for the simple reason it made it's hype more then worth it (dispite the code monkey's behind it). It can be summed up by 1 quote: "Play how you want, survive where you can, die where you can't,
loot it all, laugh hard, and have fun. Because that's what it's all about."

That and the Mechromancer is one of the best written and designed characters in gaming imho.

DOn't care for it being from past year, it's still a GOTY in my book, AND I have the excuse that there's still content to be released for it.

 

[Zakarath]

Tomb Raider and Dragon Commander are my GOTYs; I didn't really like infinite (And my dissatisfaction with the game only increased when I got System Shock 2 in the summer sale and saw how much the BioShock series is lacking compared to its predecessors), The Last of Us was okay, and I don't enjoy GTA games (My impulse to be a decent person is too strong or something).
Oh, I would say that the new expansions for Civ V are finally turning it into a game that might be considered GOTY material.

 

[MrBaskerville]

I haven't played a lot of games this year, so i can't say what my favourite is. But i have no interest in GtaV and Tlou and i allready played Bioshock Infinite where i detested both the writing and especially the gameplay. If that's the game of the year, then the bar must be really low this year :/.

Tomb Raider could be my favourite, i played it and i had a lot of fun doing so, but it never really seemed like something i would put on any "best" lists.
Still looking forward to Wonderful 101, Bayonetta 2, Mario 3D(on wiiu), Disgaea D2 and Metal Gear Rising, and i kinda hope that one of those will qualify as my GOTY. ( I could also mention the new Shing Megami Tensei Overclocked game, but i really don't know a lot about it, i just know that Devil Survivor 1 and 2 for the DS looked really cool, so it might be something that would catch my attention).

 

[Zakarath]

snip

snip

I can't comment on the story since I stopped playing. And the reason for that is perfectly explained in the gameplay portion of this video. The gunplay feels terribly flacid and unsatisfying, the enemies don't react to being shot at all untill they die, and enemies spawn so randomly that you have no choice but to just stand there and take massive amounts of damage untill everyone is finally dead. A lot of features feel crowbarred in without considering the rest of the game mechanics, like weapon upgrades in a game that allows only two weapons to be carried at a time. Meaning you either clutch to the same two weapons for the whole duration of the game, or you switch weapons for the sake of variety foregoing your upgrades.

Those are already pretty major problems.

The point of this video was not to outright shit on the game, but to give some counters as to why the massive praise it has gotten might be a bit overblown, seeing as it has so many annoyances.

This game was at its best when it was not trying to be a first-person shooter, which unfortunately was only 20% of the time that I played it. I got to the Chinese weapon smith, and at that point my patience with the abysmal shooting sections had been exhausted.

The second half of the game has an even worse Shooting:Everything Else ratio, and I too got pretty sick of the bland combat. What's worse, all the fights ARE EXACTLY THE SAME: Here's 5-10 mooks! Have at it! Very rarely, there's be a handyman or something, but those were just irritating since because I'd chosen to play it on the hard difficulty, they'd have obnoxiously large health bars and just became an exercise in running around looking for guns to empty at them. And then the ending, where they end the combat and instead give you a ~20 minute cutscene to walk through, left me with serious complaints about the story and especially with the characters breaking with their established personalities.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Because it's well-written and brutally honest?

"Bioshock Infinite is Space Invaders with a new coat of paint". Yeah that's some championship level insight.

That's actually a pretty accurate little jab at a game that is filled with mindless shooting that isn't even any good.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

That's actually a pretty accurate little jab at a game that is filled with mindless shooting that isn't even any good.

What would mindful shooting look like?

I wasn't delighted with the humdrum shooter mechanics in the game either, but "Space Invaders with a new coat of paint" is a lazy, hyperbolic insult. It sounds like the sort of thing I'd write when I'm feeling lazy or churlish. Which, let's face it, is pretty much all the time.

 

[Casual Shinji]

That's actually a pretty accurate little jab at a game that is filled with mindless shooting that isn't even any good.

What would mindful shooting look like?

I wasn't delighted with the humdrum shooter mechanics in the game either, but "Space Invaders with a new coat of paint" is a lazy, hyperbolic insult. It sounds like the sort of thing I'd write when I'm feeling lazy or churlish. Which, let's face it, is pretty much all the time.

A shooter with decent enemy placement for starters.

But seriously, the setting of Infinite rather contridicts the amount of gun violence you get confronted with. I know it's supposed to be a false utopia with a very dark undercurrent, but you wouldn't think a structure such as Columbia could by established if its inhabitants turned into gun-crazy lunatics at the drop of a hat. It just feels like Doom or Serious Sam, with enemy after enemy mindlessly throwing themselves at you. Even the Ganados in Resident Evil 4 seemed to have more thought behind their attacks.

When I say mindless shooter, I mean a shooter that just throws enemies at you without any consideration as to whether you can properly anticipate them. Which Infinite has in spades.

The Space Invaders comparison was just used to cap off the extensive critique that came before. It's not like the whole review has him just comparing Infinte to Space Invaders.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

A shooter with decent enemy placement for starters.

But seriously, the setting of Infinite rather contridicts the amount of gun violence you get confronted with. I know it's supposed to be a false utopia with a very dark undercurrent, but you wouldn't think a structure such as Columbia could by established if its inhabitants turned into gun-crazy lunatics at the drop of a hat. It just feels like Doom or Serious Sam, with enemy after enemy mindlessly throwing themselves at you. Even the Ganados in Resident Evil 4 seemed to have more thought behind their attacks.

When I say mindless shooter, I mean a shooter that just throws enemies at you without any consideration as to whether you can properly anticipate them. Which Infinite has in spades.

Well, fair enough. I'm certainly not going to queue up to champion the shooting in that game. It was sluggishly tolerable at best. I also found it almost entirely incidental to the game's strengths, to the point where...like many people...I found myself wondering why it wasn't an adventure or RPG instead. Wait, sorry, I know the answer to that question already, and it begins and ends with symbols that look like this: $

The Space Invaders comparison was just used to cap off the extensive critique that came before. It's not like the whole review has him just comparing Infinte to Space Invaders.

Your concluding statements are usually the focal point of your argument. It's probably the WORST time to engage in creative hyperbole unless your entire goal is to do a comedy piece.

 

[DanielBrown]

Haven't played all that many new games this year. Tomb Raider was one of the few games that actually got me somewhat invested in the story while also having a blast with the game play. Not a shining beacon of a game, however I really liked it.
It's also one of the first games I played on my brand new monster computer(á la mid-2012 standard), so I'm sure I'm totally unbiased.

Bioshock Infinite(the only one from the list I've played) was pretty crappy imo. Just wanted it to be over with, but the game kept dragging on. Not saying Tomb Raider didn't suffer from this as well, but compared to it I found Bioshock Infinites gameplay really dull - so it just became a chore to beat it. The colors were nice, but going through the same, boring envieroments all the time sucked.

So yeah, Tomb Raider takes the cake for me until I've actually played more 2013 games. Borderlands 2 and Metro: Last Light on a close tie. Itching to try The Last of Us.

 

[Erik Kesa]

Id actually go with Remember Me for trying something new. But as David Cage's Beyond: Two Souls is yet to be released, I wouldn't rush with making my choice just yet.

Sidenotes: GTA never fascinated me. And The Last of Us was good, but I don't see any replay value, as it was very linear.

 

[Yopaz]

Realistically I think GTA V will be awarded at least one Game of The Year Award. However my personal favourite would be Tales of Xillia... possibly Monster Hunter 3.

 

[teebeeohh]

dota2
because it was technically released this year.

 

[KungFuJazzHands]

I know I'm in the minority here, but so far Tomb Raider is my favorite game of 2013. I went into it fully expecting to hate it, and now I can't stop playing it. Good times.

 

[Raikas]

I'll add to the chorus saying that it's way too early to even speculate - there's just too much of the year left (all all the holiday releases).

In terms of just personal entertainment, I suppose the game that I had the most fun playing way Saints Row 4, but I don't think it was "great" in any kind of important sense, so *shrug*.

 

[FPLOON]

Although I do see those games mentioned in the poll alongside games like Metro, Saints, Watch Dogs, and Batman competing for GOTY... I probably not going to play them anytime soon, so I can't say which one would take the cake in my opinion...

HOWEVER, I'm still going to stand by the notion that Rayman: Legends was the best platformer this year hands down... It's bad (in a good way) enough that its a game I would gladly buy again for the WiiU (have the PS3 version), but also showed how to enhance the platforming experience without making it easier or harder on the player itself... as well as a high replay value in my books...

(Oh golly! I've gone fanboy for Rayman once again... I LOVE IT!!)

 

[Hazy]

Because it's well-written and brutally honest?

"Bioshock Infinite is Space Invaders with a new coat of paint". Yeah that's some championship level insight.

Because BioShock Infinite is clearly more than a mindless shooter right?

Edit: Dammit, Shinji.

 

[Ruzinus]

Why does everyone post that stupid Infinite critique? It's just a bunch of nitpicks about the game like Yahtzee doing a 30 minute review but with no humor.

Because it's well-written and brutally honest?

The story is a mess. Plain and simple. The game is good, but the story is not.

Honest, perhaps. Brutal or well-written, no.

I'll admit that I only watched six minutes of the video, but, as he did not say a single intelligent thing in that time and has a voice that literally hurts to hear (and yes, I do mean that I experienced physical pain in my ears listening to him), I think that's justified.

"I expected the main focus of the story to be on the racism and the flaws in the society, and then the main focus turned out to be Elizabeth! Also, the look into the racism and the flaws of that society wasn't even very good!"

"The food at this restaurant is terrible, and such small portions!"

The flaws in that society don't need to be belabored on, nor are they the thrust of the story. Stop ****ing looking for every story to boil down to a simple hermeneutic.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Because BioShock Infinite is clearly more than a mindless shooter right?

Edit: Dammit, Shinji.

Well, yeah. It is. Attempting to reduce it to just a shooter so you can hand wave the entire exercise is...poor argumentation, to say the least. And that's not even getting into ACTUAL comparisons between modern shooters and fixed screen Atari-era games such as Space Invaders.

It's like saying Jagged Alliance had poor writing, therefore a fair comparison is Donkey Kong, which also had poor writing.

GENIUS.

I'll admit that I only watched six minutes of the video, but, as he did not say a single intelligent thing in that time and has a voice that literally hurts to hear (and yes, I do mean that I experienced physical pain in my ears listening to him), I think that's justified.

Thank you. I'm glad it's not just me. Of course it's utterly irrelevant to the quality of his argument, but dude WTF is wrong with your VOICE?! It's like Gilbert Gottfried, but without the tonal inflection for variety.