Game of the Year
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TheMeInTeam
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So many great games never even made consideration. No HOMM 2 or HOMM 3, no Warlords 2 or Warlords 3 in 1990's is awful, these games were way ahead of civilization as a TBS series in their time 
. Better UI conventions (by miles), deeper strategy, better graphics, arguably better music (more subjective, and HOMM is better than Warlords in that regard).
. Better UI conventions (by miles), deeper strategy, better graphics, arguably better music (more subjective, and HOMM is better than Warlords in that regard).
GoodSarmatian
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Own it, played it, liked it, but it's not game of the year material. It's good for a few weekends, but the random and unfair nature of the game doesn't make want to go back to it.
civvver
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So many great games never even made consideration. No HOMM 2 or HOMM 3, no Warlords 2 or Warlords 3 in 1990's is awful, these games were way ahead of civilization as a TBS series in their time
Oh they got mentioned but they were up against two juggernauts in civ2 and planescape torment. I played homm1, 2 and 3 more recently for the first time. I never had them on release. And yeah, they are still to this day amazing games. 2 is my favorite though. 3 gets a little too complicated for maybe not enough reasons, at least in the first couple campaigns. I'd build up a huge army and a bunch of cities, get all the relics on the map, and then not need even half that to kill of my enemy. Just a lot of busy work for little payoff, but I'm sure multiplayer or other missions are way better. 2 had a really great campaign, even if it was horribly imbalanced difficulty wise.
I never played the warlord games.
I initially thought that, and it was a lot truer with the base game. But the advanced version (which was a free update) gave you so many more options that your paths became a lot more flexible and I can say now that I understand the game and what's needed to win I can win about 90% of the time on easy, given the right ship. Some of the ships it does seem like a total crapshoot though like the one that starts without shields, the Nisos I think. I can probably win on normal I just haven't had the inclination to try since I'm trying to win with all the ships on easy still.
The deciding factor for most fights seems to be do you have enough weapons to get through their shields? So you have to know at what sectors the enemy ships start carrying two and three layers of shielding. Of course you can always run from fights but you get no scrap doing that and won't have enough to kill the final boss. From there it's all about tailoring your ship to beat the final boss. Even before I knew what I was doing I'd reach the last sector in almost every game.
Then the boss you need to be able to bring down his shields and avoid his super weapons, which can be done with the right mix of weapons, drones, boarders or hacking, so odds are you'll find at least a couple ways to do it before you arrive.
Maniacal
the green Napoleon
Crusader Kings II, while certainly much improved upon since, was probably the deepest game that came out in 2012.
Akka
Moody old mage.
AH, so we've moved to 2012. Let's see...
First, the disappointing big ones :
Mass Effect III. Let's be clear : this is for me the game which destroyed and despoiled the ME serie. I have now a hard time playing the previous ones (despite them being among my top favourite games) because I know they will end up in this garbage.
Dialogues are good and characters are excellent - the banter is sometimes truly glorious. But the utterly moronic plot and complete waste of the entire setting is just disgusting. It's dumb, it's throwing away the rather realistic settings, it's crapping all over the rest of the serie and making you doing the same thing again, but worse, and I'm not even including the famous ending debacle, I'm talking about the entire rest of the game and story. It's not just, like Skyrim, about being overrated (though it still is), it's even worse, it's about adding negative value to the entire serie. I utterly despise this game because of that, and even more considering the amount of good material included in it but completely wasted (especially the "renegade" choices, which in the end feel like the only giving a powerful narrative, but which are all subpar by design). So no, it's certainly not going to be on my "best" list. Eugh.
Diablo III : a farce. Let's end it at that.
Now, the actual good ones :
Kingdom of Amalur was a commercial failure, but more because of the high cost than the lack of sales. It also didn't really reach as much as it should have. Nevertheless, it's one of the very best action-RPG I know, with a pretty good fighting system (which I find infinitely superior to all the Diablo clones) and enough dialogues, choices and freedom to actually deserves the "RPG" part. It's also a HUGE game (it sometimes really feels like a solo MMO) which have tons of content, and a very interesting lore. All in all, I'd say it's a very underestimated game, whose main flaw is that it becomes far too easy after awhile. Still one of the very best game of the year, and one allowing you to feel like a BADASS.
Crusader Kings II is a rather in-depth niche game from Paradox (medieval dynastic simulator, that's certainly something you don't see elsewhere). Very very unique, with all the good things (complex, gripping, accurate) from Paradox, but also many of the bad (a bit all over the place, dubious design decision, cascade of DLC everywhere). Very good, but TBH it, like EU4, suffers too much of the Paradox policies about said DLC after awhile, which tends to trip the game with constant unrequited changes.
Legend of Grimrock is a symbol of the then-newfound indie movement and low-budget modern games. It's pretty good, but honestly it's more impressive as said symbol than as a game. Nice moment, immersive and an interesting modern take on a (very) old-school design, but while very pleasant I don't think it can claim any kind of "game of the year" title.
Samely, FTL is good, very good, but I'd see it more as a gripping time-killer than a "game of the year".
Borderlands II : following on the same comical-gore-refuge in audacity FPS formula of its predecessor, but with a much improved gameplay (less meatshield, more aiming) and an absolutely dreadful interface which should deserve death penalty, this game is overall even far better than the first one. More content, longer, much more memorable characters and story, funny, full of action. Not deep, but great fun.
Dishonored : a fantastic artistic direction combined with a (very) predictable but good story that proves the power of the narration doesn't need to surprise the player, and one of the most empowering set of ability in a game ever (dat Blink). One of the few games (with Deus Ex) with good enough level and game design to actually really allow you to play how you want, and a superb ambiance immersing you into its world. Too bad it's so short.
Assassin Creed III : I'm very ambivalent on this game. The story is pretty good, with a lot of thought and an INSANE amount of historical research put into it. The game is huge, the characters are quite deep and there is always something more than what it looks like.
But the setting is pretty poor for the gameplay (grid-like US cities made of square buildings are just boring and very limited when it comes to parkour compared to AC2's convoluted architecture), most of the content (the side-quests, the ship, the colonization) is so completely optionnal as to pointless (you don't need anything from it, and you already have more than you need from just doing the MQ), and the main character, despite being well written and being, in fact, more complex than Ezio and very self-consistent, is just boring and annoying. That's a bit of a waste when you'd actually prefer to play the antagonist side - it makes for an interesting grey vs grey world, and a surprising "you might be wrong" narrative, but in the end it just doesn't give you incentive to play as the hero you are given.
So, among these, I'd say my favourites are fighting a three-ways battle between Kingdom of Amalur : Reckoning, Borderlands II and Dishonored.
I'll probably nominate Dishonored in the end.
First, the disappointing big ones :
Mass Effect III. Let's be clear : this is for me the game which destroyed and despoiled the ME serie. I have now a hard time playing the previous ones (despite them being among my top favourite games) because I know they will end up in this garbage.
Dialogues are good and characters are excellent - the banter is sometimes truly glorious. But the utterly moronic plot and complete waste of the entire setting is just disgusting. It's dumb, it's throwing away the rather realistic settings, it's crapping all over the rest of the serie and making you doing the same thing again, but worse, and I'm not even including the famous ending debacle, I'm talking about the entire rest of the game and story. It's not just, like Skyrim, about being overrated (though it still is), it's even worse, it's about adding negative value to the entire serie. I utterly despise this game because of that, and even more considering the amount of good material included in it but completely wasted (especially the "renegade" choices, which in the end feel like the only giving a powerful narrative, but which are all subpar by design). So no, it's certainly not going to be on my "best" list. Eugh.
Diablo III : a farce. Let's end it at that.
Now, the actual good ones :
Kingdom of Amalur was a commercial failure, but more because of the high cost than the lack of sales. It also didn't really reach as much as it should have. Nevertheless, it's one of the very best action-RPG I know, with a pretty good fighting system (which I find infinitely superior to all the Diablo clones) and enough dialogues, choices and freedom to actually deserves the "RPG" part. It's also a HUGE game (it sometimes really feels like a solo MMO) which have tons of content, and a very interesting lore. All in all, I'd say it's a very underestimated game, whose main flaw is that it becomes far too easy after awhile. Still one of the very best game of the year, and one allowing you to feel like a BADASS.
Crusader Kings II is a rather in-depth niche game from Paradox (medieval dynastic simulator, that's certainly something you don't see elsewhere). Very very unique, with all the good things (complex, gripping, accurate) from Paradox, but also many of the bad (a bit all over the place, dubious design decision, cascade of DLC everywhere). Very good, but TBH it, like EU4, suffers too much of the Paradox policies about said DLC after awhile, which tends to trip the game with constant unrequited changes.
Legend of Grimrock is a symbol of the then-newfound indie movement and low-budget modern games. It's pretty good, but honestly it's more impressive as said symbol than as a game. Nice moment, immersive and an interesting modern take on a (very) old-school design, but while very pleasant I don't think it can claim any kind of "game of the year" title.
Samely, FTL is good, very good, but I'd see it more as a gripping time-killer than a "game of the year".
Borderlands II : following on the same comical-gore-refuge in audacity FPS formula of its predecessor, but with a much improved gameplay (less meatshield, more aiming) and an absolutely dreadful interface which should deserve death penalty, this game is overall even far better than the first one. More content, longer, much more memorable characters and story, funny, full of action. Not deep, but great fun.
Dishonored : a fantastic artistic direction combined with a (very) predictable but good story that proves the power of the narration doesn't need to surprise the player, and one of the most empowering set of ability in a game ever (dat Blink). One of the few games (with Deus Ex) with good enough level and game design to actually really allow you to play how you want, and a superb ambiance immersing you into its world. Too bad it's so short.
Assassin Creed III : I'm very ambivalent on this game. The story is pretty good, with a lot of thought and an INSANE amount of historical research put into it. The game is huge, the characters are quite deep and there is always something more than what it looks like.
But the setting is pretty poor for the gameplay (grid-like US cities made of square buildings are just boring and very limited when it comes to parkour compared to AC2's convoluted architecture), most of the content (the side-quests, the ship, the colonization) is so completely optionnal as to pointless (you don't need anything from it, and you already have more than you need from just doing the MQ), and the main character, despite being well written and being, in fact, more complex than Ezio and very self-consistent, is just boring and annoying. That's a bit of a waste when you'd actually prefer to play the antagonist side - it makes for an interesting grey vs grey world, and a surprising "you might be wrong" narrative, but in the end it just doesn't give you incentive to play as the hero you are given.
So, among these, I'd say my favourites are fighting a three-ways battle between Kingdom of Amalur : Reckoning, Borderlands II and Dishonored.
I'll probably nominate Dishonored in the end.
For me it has to XCOM. Brilliant game. And also has one the best mods ive ever played - the long war. It was not perfect, but then IMO very few strategy games are ever perfect.
An honorable mention goes to mass effect 3 (and i totally disagree with Akka). A brilliant game in its own right with some truly epic moments. Unfortunately though they did kind of ruin it with some very questionable design choices. like having to play multiplayer to get your galactic readiness up. And seeming as the suicide mission in ME2 was so great, why not do another bigger and better one? Instead they went for a pretty un interesting 3 options. It was by no means as bad as many people made out. But it certainly wasnt the best ending i have played through.
An honorable mention goes to mass effect 3 (and i totally disagree with Akka). A brilliant game in its own right with some truly epic moments. Unfortunately though they did kind of ruin it with some very questionable design choices. like having to play multiplayer to get your galactic readiness up. And seeming as the suicide mission in ME2 was so great, why not do another bigger and better one? Instead they went for a pretty un interesting 3 options. It was by no means as bad as many people made out. But it certainly wasnt the best ending i have played through.
civvver
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I agree with Akka just on an extremely smaller scale. What you say is spot on about ME3 and the plot, setting, story line choices. But it wasn't horrible to me, just could've been a ton better, so it didn't ruin the game for me.
Grimrock just get stale unless you really enjoy old school dungeon crawler design. It's fun for a bit and then it hits you why am I crawling through a dungeon using these extremely limiting mechanics when I could play a 3rd person or ARPG crawler?
Interesting thoughts regarding KOA. I'll have to give it another go. I played it for 4-5 hours over a couple nights and then just forgot about it. Not cus it was bad or anything, I just started doing something else I guess.
Grimrock just get stale unless you really enjoy old school dungeon crawler design. It's fun for a bit and then it hits you why am I crawling through a dungeon using these extremely limiting mechanics when I could play a 3rd person or ARPG crawler?
Interesting thoughts regarding KOA. I'll have to give it another go. I played it for 4-5 hours over a couple nights and then just forgot about it. Not cus it was bad or anything, I just started doing something else I guess.
Akka
Moody old mage.
Well, I hate ME3 not strictly speaking because of "how bad" it is (there is plenty of moments very well done in it), but more because of how it totally ruined the potential it had by going for cheap and easy Hollywood antics. It should have been an epic adventure to dig up secrets to find a way to prevent the Reapers from coming, instead it went for "BOOM BOOM EXPLOSIONS ! EMOTIONAL !" with a terrible "save the Earth !" theme and Jesus Shepard solving centuries-long feuds and complex ethical situations with a one-liner and a shotgun.
The entire story is full of idiotic deus ex machina, plot holes, nonsensical storylines (there were entire threads full of them), Cerberus potential completely wasted by making them cartoon villains and destroying all the grey built during the previous game. There is convenient "secrets" pulled from the butts of the writers so everything can magically be resolved ("oooh we just found a superweapon in archives we spent the last 70 years perusing ! We don't even know what it does but we'll win the war with it !" ; "ooooh look, we just found convenient evidences that contradict 1000 years of past history and that we didn't found until know, to shoehorn the Krogan into redemption !" ; "oooh in fact the entire genocidal war was just a big misunderstanding !"), which completely kills all the dilemma built in the setting.
In fact, magic replaces hard sci-fi (the more I read about it, the more I think that the true genius in all the ME serie was Chris L'Etoile, who uncoincenditally left after ME2) and this switch from "epic space opera" to "dumbed down Lord of the Ring in space" is probably why the serie crash and burn there.
I never heard about KoA until I tried it purely by chance at one of my friend's place (was waiting for him to wake up, so I killed time by trying the game, thought "hey, it's actually pretty good" and then got it for myself and was blown away), and it was one of the best surprise I had (with M&B when I actually decided to play it seriously).
Maniacal
the green Napoleon
I'm still shocked that Akka actually likes KoA. It's the kind of game I'd have expected you to hate
I played the demo, hated the gameplay and solo-MMORPG design and feel. Though yes from most accounts the main story and world building are pretty decent for the most part and fairly interesting.
I played the demo, hated the gameplay and solo-MMORPG design and feel. Though yes from most accounts the main story and world building are pretty decent for the most part and fairly interesting.
Akka
Moody old mage.
Why so ?I'm still shocked that Akka actually likes KoA. It's the kind of game I'd have expected you to hate
Thorgalaeg
Deity
OMG!, we already are in 2012 and i didnt vote for 2011 yet!
You all naive people would think i will vote for Skyrim...
Wrong!
For 2011 i have not the slightiest doubt. KERBAL SPACE PROGRAM, which for the way is my favourite game of all times.
For 2012, pfff. I dont know/care. I was busy playing KSP. Lets say Crusader Kings II for saying something.
You all naive people would think i will vote for Skyrim...
Wrong!For 2011 i have not the slightiest doubt. KERBAL SPACE PROGRAM, which for the way is my favourite game of all times.
For 2012, pfff. I dont know/care. I was busy playing KSP. Lets say Crusader Kings II for saying something.
Maniacal
the green Napoleon
While it did come out in alpha/beta then, KSP wasn't released until 2015
Yeah, but millions of people already had it... kind of a tough call there. If it's moved to 2015 it won't get my vote despite being one of my favorite games ever, because Rocket League. Since we haven't tallied 2011 yet (we haven't tallied in years?!) I'm changing my vote for KSP, since I started playing 0.13.0 which was indeed 2011 and my forum profile reflects that (all other versions including 13.1 were 2012+).
2012? Yeah I'm gonna have to go with my boy CK2.
2012? Yeah I'm gonna have to go with my boy CK2.
Maniacal
the green Napoleon
Early Access Game of the Year could work
Thorgalaeg
Deity
KSP is absolutely wonderful but is the eternal early access game. It was as buggy and "unfinished" in 2011 as it was in 2015 or it is now, it is the Sagrada Familia of videogamesEarly Access Game of the Year could work
and was already famous much before 2015, so in this case the oficial release was only a formality.
civvver
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CK is runaway winner for 2012, and despite some rousing conversation from its critics, skyrim still wins 2011. I think the detractors split their votes between too many games. So onto 2013. I have to check my lists and get back to you! Only thing offhand I'm thinking of is Dead Space 3, hence why I have to check some release date lists.
Update: Oh look guys Omerta City of Gangsters and Aliens Colonial Marines came in 2013! Gonna be some stiff competition
Seriously though I just figured out when the official Dota 2 release date was and it's 2013. Easy vote for me. It's a weird one cus it was in open beta for like two years. I started playing it a ton in 2012. And nothing actually changed from beta to release, they still put out content patches the same way, they've released a new UI and so on.
It's an amazing game. Really steep learning curve but it's easily the cream of the crop for mobas. So much depth. And I love watching the pro play too. The last chinese major was a joke, tons of broadcast quality issues but the thailand major was incredible. Very professional. I have like 3000 hours on this game, easily my goty. Probably my favorite game ever, or at least in my top 4 beside WoW, Civ4 and Dragon Age Origins.
Dead Space 3 I also really enjoyed but it has some big flaws. For one it really tries to push DLC on you, the craft interface is super confusing, and the combat changes a lot with less focus on fighting necromorphs and a lot fighting the human fanatics who shoot back. It almost turns into a mass effect style shooter at times. Which isn't bad, but it's a big departure from what it does. Also the save system SUCKS. It only has auto saving features while the previous game you'd go to a save spot and choose when to save and what slots and stuff. The problem with the new system is you never know how far you have to go to get it to save and it doesn't save at all on side quests which can be quite long.
Overall though the game was pretty good and I liked the resolution of the story. And once you figure out how to craft weapons right it's pretty sweet trying out different stuff. Definitely worth playing.
The 2013 Tomb Raider is also pretty freakin' amazing. A lot of people complain it's too many cutscenes and QTEs but I don't care, and other people didn't like the supernatural aspects of the story, but I still loved it. It's not exactly an open world, more like an adventure action game. It hearkens back to old zelda style games for me, explore an area, then proceed to the next dungeon, though of course it's more linear than that. Idk, I just really, really liked it. Would be my goty if not for my default of Dota2.
I'm not seeing a lot of other games I've played much.
-Saint's Row 4, but I played that like 3 hours.
-Spelunky gets a face lift but not really sure when it's actually released, plus I think it's way too hard.
-Fez came out, really interesting concept of a game and fun for a bit, but I sidescrollers aren't my favorite thing, and the map interface sucks and the world is hard to navigate. -GTA5 I haven't played.
-Bioshock infinite and
-The Last of Us have great reviews but I haven't played either.
Update: Oh look guys Omerta City of Gangsters and Aliens Colonial Marines came in 2013! Gonna be some stiff competition
Seriously though I just figured out when the official Dota 2 release date was and it's 2013. Easy vote for me. It's a weird one cus it was in open beta for like two years. I started playing it a ton in 2012. And nothing actually changed from beta to release, they still put out content patches the same way, they've released a new UI and so on.
It's an amazing game. Really steep learning curve but it's easily the cream of the crop for mobas. So much depth. And I love watching the pro play too. The last chinese major was a joke, tons of broadcast quality issues but the thailand major was incredible. Very professional. I have like 3000 hours on this game, easily my goty. Probably my favorite game ever, or at least in my top 4 beside WoW, Civ4 and Dragon Age Origins.
Dead Space 3 I also really enjoyed but it has some big flaws. For one it really tries to push DLC on you, the craft interface is super confusing, and the combat changes a lot with less focus on fighting necromorphs and a lot fighting the human fanatics who shoot back. It almost turns into a mass effect style shooter at times. Which isn't bad, but it's a big departure from what it does. Also the save system SUCKS. It only has auto saving features while the previous game you'd go to a save spot and choose when to save and what slots and stuff. The problem with the new system is you never know how far you have to go to get it to save and it doesn't save at all on side quests which can be quite long.
Overall though the game was pretty good and I liked the resolution of the story. And once you figure out how to craft weapons right it's pretty sweet trying out different stuff. Definitely worth playing.
The 2013 Tomb Raider is also pretty freakin' amazing. A lot of people complain it's too many cutscenes and QTEs but I don't care, and other people didn't like the supernatural aspects of the story, but I still loved it. It's not exactly an open world, more like an adventure action game. It hearkens back to old zelda style games for me, explore an area, then proceed to the next dungeon, though of course it's more linear than that. Idk, I just really, really liked it. Would be my goty if not for my default of Dota2.
I'm not seeing a lot of other games I've played much.
-Saint's Row 4, but I played that like 3 hours.
-Spelunky gets a face lift but not really sure when it's actually released, plus I think it's way too hard.
-Fez came out, really interesting concept of a game and fun for a bit, but I sidescrollers aren't my favorite thing, and the map interface sucks and the world is hard to navigate. -GTA5 I haven't played.
-Bioshock infinite and
-The Last of Us have great reviews but I haven't played either.
For me it's a choice between Europa Universalis IV, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and UFO: Enemy Within (the expansion to Enemy Unknown that was literally a separate game if you played it on X360 rather than PC). It probably has to be EU IV, but it's a close run between that and Black Flag.
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