Loppan Torkel
Deity
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2004
- Messages
- 4,756
I think there's a thread like that buried somewhere. ..it's only a discussion thread on civfanatics. No prices to win.
GOTY 2014
- Thread starter Loppan Torkel
- Start date
I suppose the other problem with Game of the Year awards is that it's kind of a joke, anyway. Like, if you get a Grammy, it actually means something, since there's one award in each category and it's clearly the most prestigious award. If you see a CD for sale and it won a Grammy, you might still dislike it, but at least it tells you that it really stood out in a certain area that year. Similarly with Oscars for movies - if it won a best actor award, you might still not like the film, but it probably does at least have a pretty good performance from that actor.
Whereas in video games, there's 5000 sites that all give Game of the Year awards, and none of them are predominant. The standards vary tremendously, and what it results in is 4000 games each year that win a Game of the Year award. 3000 of those will come out with some sort of Game of the Year Edition or packaging for retail the next year (if they still sell at retail, anyway), and thus by spring of next year, half the 2014 games you'd see for sale would be "Game of the Year". It dilutes any real meaning from the term, and as a result all it means is "at least one writer from publication with a decent readerbase thought our game was good." Take my Civ3 box. It says "GAME OF THE YEAR" in big letters at the top, with five stars below it, and only below there who it's from - Computer Games Magazine, Computer Gaming World, and Next Generation. Essentially it's handpicked reviews used for marketing purposes, with no real distinguishing factors. Whether any of those sites truly researched all the 2001 games well and came to an unbiased conclusion that Civ3 was the best, I have no idea.
And while Joe Schmoe can make a Best Films of 2014 list and nominate one as Film of the Year, since there's some standard award (the Oscars), at least films don't try to all put Film of the Year on the packaging and make the awards useless in the process. Sure, they might put a few choice clips from reviews on the back, but the awards aren't so watered down as in gaming.
Not to claim that the Oscars and Grammys are perfect - far from it. In many ways it is still a popularity contest, much like most Game of the Year awards are. If the game industry could come up with an even better system, that would really reward good games and not just good-and-popular games, that would be great. But as it is, for all the flaws of the music/film industry's awards system, it's still way better than the haphazard system the games industry has, and as long as the games industry continues to award Game of the Year awards in such a fashion, it's really something that should be taken with a giant grain of salt.
Whereas in video games, there's 5000 sites that all give Game of the Year awards, and none of them are predominant. The standards vary tremendously, and what it results in is 4000 games each year that win a Game of the Year award. 3000 of those will come out with some sort of Game of the Year Edition or packaging for retail the next year (if they still sell at retail, anyway), and thus by spring of next year, half the 2014 games you'd see for sale would be "Game of the Year". It dilutes any real meaning from the term, and as a result all it means is "at least one writer from publication with a decent readerbase thought our game was good." Take my Civ3 box. It says "GAME OF THE YEAR" in big letters at the top, with five stars below it, and only below there who it's from - Computer Games Magazine, Computer Gaming World, and Next Generation. Essentially it's handpicked reviews used for marketing purposes, with no real distinguishing factors. Whether any of those sites truly researched all the 2001 games well and came to an unbiased conclusion that Civ3 was the best, I have no idea.
And while Joe Schmoe can make a Best Films of 2014 list and nominate one as Film of the Year, since there's some standard award (the Oscars), at least films don't try to all put Film of the Year on the packaging and make the awards useless in the process. Sure, they might put a few choice clips from reviews on the back, but the awards aren't so watered down as in gaming.
Not to claim that the Oscars and Grammys are perfect - far from it. In many ways it is still a popularity contest, much like most Game of the Year awards are. If the game industry could come up with an even better system, that would really reward good games and not just good-and-popular games, that would be great. But as it is, for all the flaws of the music/film industry's awards system, it's still way better than the haphazard system the games industry has, and as long as the games industry continues to award Game of the Year awards in such a fashion, it's really something that should be taken with a giant grain of salt.
civvver
Deity
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2007
- Messages
- 5,855
Games are even more subjective than movies and music too I feel cus they require a huge time investment. Anyone can watch a 2 hour movie or listen to an album while driving. A really great game is at least a 10 hour investment and if you don't like it as much as the next guy you are going to argue against it a lot stronger cus it took so much time.
Anyway, I can't vote, only game I've played from 2014 was walking dead season 2. I finished a couple good ones from 2013 in tomb raider and dead space 3. There's a lot of games from this year I will get eventually like divinity original sin, probably civ beyond earth, wolf among us, dragon age 3, defense grid 2, transistor. But waiting for those price drops!
Anyway, I can't vote, only game I've played from 2014 was walking dead season 2. I finished a couple good ones from 2013 in tomb raider and dead space 3. There's a lot of games from this year I will get eventually like divinity original sin, probably civ beyond earth, wolf among us, dragon age 3, defense grid 2, transistor. But waiting for those price drops!
I kind of agree here. You could say the same about books. You invest a lot in a book - usually a good few days at least (although not all at once, obviously). With games its no different. they also have more of a lasting impression than any movie can (at least for me). You feel more involved in them as well. best example of this i think is Mass Effect 3. IMO its a brilliant game and certainly doesnt deserve the bad ratings it did get. But the reason for those ratings, i think, is because people got so swept up in the story of shephard that they felt utterly betrayed by the ending.
Zack
99% hot gas
Yeah. I can think of other games (Deus Ex: HR, Fallout 3, Mass Effect 2) that had terrible endings (or even just terrible stories in general, e.g. Tomb Raider) without hurting their metacritic scores. I had more problems with the plot leading up to ME3's ending than the ending itself, although I won't pretend that the ending was good or anything. That said, it's still one of my favorite games ever and probably my GOTY for 2012.
civvver
Deity
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2007
- Messages
- 5,855
Walking dead season 1 was 2012 though!
ME2 I only beat twice but made a dozen different characters, some only progressing through a few missions, some all the way past the collector ship. It's a difference of around 30 hours on ME3 and probably 150 on ME2.
The biggest reason I didn't like ME3 as much as ME2 and the reason I played it through once and haven't replayed any of it is I didn't feel a connection to the characters. Miranda is gone. Jack is gone. Garrus gone. You meet up with them temporarily in some of the missions but it's not the same. I didn't feel the same connection with Ashley and Liara and the other grunt dude, I can't think of his name now. It's probably cus I didn't play ME1 so they were new characters to me. It's hard to put my finger on it, but I know I wasn't as emotionally invested in ME3, even well before we got to the end.
Also something about the scale and finality and darkness of it was off putting to me. Literally every scene is how the world is ending and everything's such a massive scale of battles and stuff. I liked the smaller feel of ME2 better, like hey we're landing on this world to catch an assassin, cool! Felt more meaningful in some way though I know that doesn't make sense.
I was hoping in that old thread to eventually vote all the way through now but I got too lazy to edit it and the voting method was painful.
ME2 I only beat twice but made a dozen different characters, some only progressing through a few missions, some all the way past the collector ship. It's a difference of around 30 hours on ME3 and probably 150 on ME2.
The biggest reason I didn't like ME3 as much as ME2 and the reason I played it through once and haven't replayed any of it is I didn't feel a connection to the characters. Miranda is gone. Jack is gone. Garrus gone. You meet up with them temporarily in some of the missions but it's not the same. I didn't feel the same connection with Ashley and Liara and the other grunt dude, I can't think of his name now. It's probably cus I didn't play ME1 so they were new characters to me. It's hard to put my finger on it, but I know I wasn't as emotionally invested in ME3, even well before we got to the end.
Also something about the scale and finality and darkness of it was off putting to me. Literally every scene is how the world is ending and everything's such a massive scale of battles and stuff. I liked the smaller feel of ME2 better, like hey we're landing on this world to catch an assassin, cool! Felt more meaningful in some way though I know that doesn't make sense.
I was hoping in that old thread to eventually vote all the way through now but I got too lazy to edit it and the voting method was painful.
Zack
99% hot gas
What? Garrus is a squadmate almost the whole game.
ME2 made me realize how much I wanted a game where I just roam around the galaxy, picking up crew members and doing cool stuff. Kind of like a season of Star Trek, now that I think about it.
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
Eventually, they'll release Fallout: Space Edition, and thus it'll be the only game Man will ever need.
Personally I was massively disappointed in Fallout 3. Its not that its a bad game, its just that its very very poorly ported. I am fed up with suffering sub standard ports because game companies just cant be bothered to port something correctly. Bethesda is pretty much the worst of the lot. I can think of very few games publishers\developers who actually do a decent job. My list of the worst, with the games responsible, is:
Bethesda Fallout (doesnt even work); Skyrim (needs mods); Oblivion (same as skyrim)
Bioware Dragon age 2; dragon age 3 (so I hear); Knights of the old republic - (all this is made worse by the fact they started out in PC only format, then sold their soul to the gaming console whore)
Rockstar GTA (I have yet to see a decent port yet, which is astounding considering how much money they must make from the franchise)
However some honourable mentions should be made for when its done right, and these go to:
2K Many games published by 2k are actually done well IMO, with perhaps the best being Bioshock 2.
Warner bros Batman is IMO a decent port
Maniacal
the green Napoleon
Max Payne 3, which was ported to PC by the now defunct (and merged into Rockstar Toronto) Rockstar Vancouver, was an excellent PC port. They really did a great job of it, even included a VRAM counter in the video settings (these settings will use approx X amount of VRAM out of the Y you have available).
I don't recall much if anything in Fallout 3 that screamed poor port. It was pretty much a modified Oblivion, it wasn't anymore buggy or CTD prone than Oblivion was (which was a lot).
Skyrim though, yeah, it suffered horribly from being designed as an Xbox 360 game first and foremost. And the "next gen" consoles are already way behind gaming PCs.
I don't recall much if anything in Fallout 3 that screamed poor port. It was pretty much a modified Oblivion, it wasn't anymore buggy or CTD prone than Oblivion was (which was a lot).
Skyrim though, yeah, it suffered horribly from being designed as an Xbox 360 game first and foremost. And the "next gen" consoles are already way behind gaming PCs.
Zack
99% hot gas
BioWare redid their games' UIs for the PC. Their ports are really good, I haven't had any problems with them.
Maniacal
the green Napoleon
Yeah not so much for DAI, and KotOR has clear influences in the controls that it was designed for consoles (although it is still very much playable on PC).
DAI is still a very good port overall from what I've read though. I'll probably pick it up once it goes on sale.
I would agree on dragon age origins and Mass effect. But they messed it up on everything else. Admittedly though, im going on hearsay for DAI.
Maniacal said:
Fall Out 3 doesnt even work without a heavy, community built patch. It just smacks of laziness by developers who cant even be bothered to tune their software to suit PC hardware.
Next Gen consoles offer a new opportunity for game developers. Because much of the software is now proper PC hardware (even if it is already behind the technology curb).
One port that will almost certainly prove interesting is GTA5s. After the relative disaster of GTA IV, it seems they have been spending a hell of a lot of time upgrading the interface and adding in a first person mode. So that looks to be an interesting idea that will pan out over 2015, which is when it is due for release.
Maniacal
the green Napoleon
Fallout 3 worked as well as Oblivion did when I first played it in 2009 without the community patches, I agree that Bethesda has serious problems with leaving a very long list of bugs and glitches and CTDs unfixed but the game was playable.
It isn't quite proper PC hardware, Ubisoft has already shown how it does not guarantee a good port at all.
I guess you could say the moral of the story is to play games on PC if anything. At least then people in the community can patch the game for you.
It just annoys me that you pay £30-£40 for a title and it just seems shoddy to leave them in such a state. If they really want to make money out of people, for gods sake invest some time and money in the title and make sure it works properly.
Ok rant over.
FriendlyFire
Codex WMDicanious
World of Tanks again for me.
WarThunder ground forces didnt do anything for me
Marvel Puzzle Quest changes ruined the game
Robocraft was damm good but really short on content
Hex - shards of fate: very nice but still in closed beta
WarThunder ground forces didnt do anything for me
Marvel Puzzle Quest changes ruined the game
Robocraft was damm good but really short on content
Hex - shards of fate: very nice but still in closed beta
