Game of the Year

cus the skyrim detractors split their vote! It's like voting independent in the US presidentials, your vote is wasted! well that and not hardly any stand out games in 2011, I mean heck I voted for magicka.

Akka said:

All three are superb games, there is nothing wrong with one of them being ahead.

Skyrim winning 2011, THAT is a much more sad

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what did you vote for 2011?

Lohrenswald said:

what did you vote for 2011?

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Funny thing is, I precisely couldn't decide between the said three games ^^

Guess it's time to move on 2014 ?

Where have you been? Arakhos and I voted for 2014 more than a week ago

(So far the vote stands at 1 for Talos Principle and 1 for SSB 4 (in honor of my brother, since I don't think I played any game released in 2014)

Only game from 2014 I've played is sims 4 so I'm voting for that lol

:/

I can't remember what games I've played that came out in 2014 besides This War of Mine, don't have time to check either :/

Oda Nobunaga said:

Where have you been? Arakhos and I voted for 2014 more than a week ago

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I know! Ods Nobanugs and I are on the ball, it seems.

Zack said:

Dragon Age: Inquisition gets my vote

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I also voted for 2014...

Arakhor said:

I know! Ods Nobanugs and I are on the ball, it seems.

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Whatever, Arkantos

EUIV won 2013 and it wasn't close at all. Not surprised by a civ forum though.

Some have voted for 2014. We'll close it up pretty soon I guess. Problem is I'm not even voting, I haven't played anything. I'll see if I can come up with anything for 2015.

So do 2014 and 2015 too if you want. I'll tally sometime next week.

We did it boys, ~25 years of gaming voted for.



Updated with my 2015 thoughts:

There are some good games, witcher 3, undertale, Hotline Miami 2, Mad Max, Metal Gear Solid 5, rise of the tomb raider, fallout 4. Then a couple that don't seem that good, batman arkham knight, ac rogue and syndicate, heroes of the storm (blizzard's moba), total war attila. Stuff that didn't seem as good as the hype. But I haven't played a single one.

So... again I'm not voting. Interested to hear your opinions though, but I suspect witcher 3 will run away with this.

2015 for me was Life is Strange, without question. I'm not someone who normally gets attacks of the feels, but LiS paid no attention to that. I also liked Gone Home, but then the mid-90s was my stomping ground.

2015 is the Witcher 3

Oda Nobunaga said:

Where have you been? Arakhos and I voted for 2014 more than a week ago

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Yeah but you started talking about 2014 when people hadn't even voted for 2013, so I just disreguarded this hasty switch

Then, for 2014 votes :

First, I still haven't played Metal Gear Solid 5, which is too bad because I'm pretty sure I'd rank it rather high (I'm a sucker for sandbox games).
I guess maybe if we do another round at a later year I'll perhaps have finished it by then ^^
And, I'm a bit ashamed to admit it, same for any of the Dark Soul serie. I have some catch-up to do some day.

Second, 2014 was a very unbalanced year, basically offering only RPG, so I don't expect to see a lot of competition. But well... Let's go !


I'll start with Divinity : Original Sin. A dusting of old-school RPG, with a very innovative and rather smart possibility to actually play and ROLEplay several characters at the same time, including how they react to each others. Arguing with yourself is actually pretty fun. Superb tactical depth with a lot of synergy, good eye-candy and a long campaign, it's a deserving heir of the isometric RPG era. I'd only chalk against it the excessive humour which detract a bit from the story, and I have to admit it lacks a bit of rythm. Still probably the best of the "old school RPG revival" titles.

Then, Wasteland 2. The parallel with the previous game are rather striking, they are basically twins whose difference is that one draw from medieval fantasy (like Baldur's Gate) while the other draws from post-apocalyptic world (like Fallout). Except this, they are both callback to uncompromising, player-agency-driven, old-schoold design, with a lot (too much ?) humor and an isometric view.
Wastelands 2 is harder to love, being much harsher and having a less interesting plot, but it's also deeper and meatier.

A surprise for me, but Middle-Earth : Shadow of Mordor, which had all the trapping of the boring AAA garbage, ended up as actually a gripping, extremely fun and empowering, lore-rich and surprisingly knowlegeable and faithful, action game. Even more surprisingly for a game with such financial backing, it's actually pretty original in both concept and story. Didn't expect it, but I actually very much liked it.

Dragon Age : Inquisition was a mixed bag, but with enough good to be noted. It's obvious Bioware tried hard to correct the blemish DA2 was on the franchise, but it's also obvious they just suck at open-world. Interestingly enough, I've noticed that the game actually has some VERY good aspects which are mostly overlooked, while what it's renowned for is in fact pretty mediocre.
Most of the game is a drudge among huge but terribly boring and infuriating to navigate maps, with the bad aspect of a MMO design hovering over the player. The fighting system is terrible, and, a bad point for a Bioware game, the characters are very hit-or-miss. I'm also starting to feel annoyed by the social commentary that is seeping through the game, and it detract from some aspects which would be great without this annoying shadow looming. Conversely, the underlying theme of myths, religion and how History is perceived and twisted, are downright BRILLIANT and treated with a maturity and a depth that stands in stark constrast with the Hollywood dumbness that sadly permeate most of the rest. Overall though, it's still an underwhelming game, dragged down by design flaws and a lack of narrative power.


In the end, to my own surprise, it's actually Shadow of Mordor which ends up as my pick. I'd not have expected it (I'd rather have bet on D:OS if I had to guess what I'd like), but the raw, undiluted fun it has, good pacing, ability to meld lore and gameplay and originality of the concept, simply made it the game I had the most fun to play.

Funnily enough, I wanted to play D:OS, DA:I and ME:SoM, but I never got around to them (or to Pillars of Eternity either).

The correct answer for 2015 is Witcher 3.

Thanks akka, as those are all games I'm interested in. Nice write ups.

I own inqusition but only played it a few hours. The first thing that struck me was combat. It screams console port the way you have to hold down a button to keep attacking and have more active skills. I plugged in my gamepad to play it and it felt a lot better, but then you couldn't control the camera for some stupid reason. And then I put it down and never returned.

Pillars is 2015 release so maybe someone will have something to vote for there. Dark souls 2 is 2014 and 3 is 2016, haven't played either.

Another game I'm really interested in but won't buy til it discounts is Grim Dawn which came out a couple months ago. It kind of flew under the radar despite having a successful kick starter. Basically when the company that made Titan Quest closed its doors a couple employees started a new company to start this Grim Dawn project. And later they hired a guy from blizzard to help with art an lore.

Grim Dawn is the result. It's an action rpg, looks very similar to diablo 3 and torchlight 2, (and of course titan quest is an arpg as well) and of course those influences make sense since it has former blizzard employees and iron lore employees (and former bliz diablo developers made torchlight series so they're all related). The reviews are very good, and since diablo 3 kind of sucked, and torchlight 2 gameplay was fun but the world/lore/plot sucked, this might be just the game I'm looking for. Has anyone played it?

inquisition is a much better game with a controller, the ui and controls work really well (and are pretty mediocre with m+kb)

Pillars of Eternity is a close second for 2015, fantastic game with a cool store, really neat world, and some great characters... but The Witcher 3 just takes the cake no contest.

Haven't played many games from 2014. But I enjoyed Far Cry 4, so I'll go with that. In fact, unlike a lot of peeps, I definitely preferred it over Far Cry 3.