Submit Your Bracket for The Escapist's Reader's Choice Game of the Year 2014

[Encaen]

Submit Your Bracket for The Escapist's Reader's Choice Game of the Year 2014

[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/global/tournaments/mybracket/20-Readers-Choice-Game-of-the-Year-2014]

Make your voice heard in our second annual Reader's Choice Game of the Year competition, where 16 games go head to head, bracket-style, until only one game remains.

We here at The Escapist love games. We love playing them, we love writing about them, and we love arguing about them. While there are still intense debates going on about what our Game of the Year might be, it's time for you, our lovely readers, to make your own voices heard on the topic. It's time for Reader's Choice Game of the Year 2014! We're happy to say that we've got some awfully fancy gaming gear for the best brackets this year from our partners at Roccat. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tournaments/prizes/20]

Last year, The Escapist held its first Reader's Choice Game of the Year competition, and it was intense. Underdog and indie gem, Papers, Please tore through the competition for three consecutive rounds of voting, and nearly took down Naughty Dog's narrative-driven adventure, The Last of Us in the final round. It was incredibly close throughout the final round of voting, but The Last of Us eked out a win by a .17% margin at the last minute.

The time has come once again for you to sound off on what you think should be Game of the Year. Sure, there were some awfully slow months, but there's been no shortage of amazing games in 2014, so we're anxious to see what The Escapist community thinks deserves recognition.

Starting right about now, you'll be able to make your bracket predictions. The objective here is not to push your favorite game to the top spot, rather to guess what the community at large will vote for in each matchup. Everybody that fills out a bracket will earn a fancy new badge, but there are bonus badges available for the top three bracket scores, as well as anybody that guesses the ultimate winner correctly. Also, those prizes I mentioned earlier? [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tournaments/prizes/20] Yeah, those are on the line, too. You'll need to fill out your bracket before 10am Eastern on December 2 to be in the running, so get to it!

Once you've filled out your bracket, you'll have a few days to stew on your choices before voting begins for Round One at 12pm Eastern time on December 2. Once the voting begins for Round One, you'll have a week to make your case in the forums, recruit your friends to vote for your favorite games, and try to push your own picks into Round Two. Check out the full schedule below!


November 19th - Start filling out your bracket
December 2nd - 10:00 am ET - Deadline to submit your bracket predicting the Reader's Choice Game of the Year 2014
December 2nd - 12:00 pm ET - Voting begins for the first round
December 9th - 10:00 am ET - Voting ends for the first round
December 9th - The 8 winners announced. Voting begins for the next 4 matchups.
December 16th - 10:00 am ET - Voting ends for the second round
December 16th - The 4 winners announced. Voting begins for the next 2 matchups.
December 23rd - 10:00 am ET - Voting ends for the third round
December 23rd - The 2 winners announced. Voting begins for the final matchup
December 30th - 10:00 am ET - Voting ends for the final matchup
December 30th - The Escapist Reader's Choice Game of the Year 2014 announced!


Click here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tournaments/mybracket/20] to fill out your bracket. Note the tabs, which will take you to the Rules, How-to, Prize information, and more helpful pages!


Permalink

 

[Story]

I looked at the first round and went "Nope, I don't think I can just do this on a whim".
There are some pretty hard choices here. I want Transistor to win personally, but I don't see it happening.

Also 3DS version of Smash Bros.? Even as a die-hard fan I'll admit that that version is completely inferior from the WiiU version. Yes, I haven't even played the WiiU version yet but I still feel pretty comfortable saying that.

 

[Aerosteam]

Why is it the 3DS version of Smash and not the clearly superior version?

Out of all these games I've only played Destiny's Beta. Eh, I'm rooting for Dragon Age: Jimquisition.

Edit: Thanks, Greg!

 

[Greg Tito]

Hey guys,

We chose the 3DS version because we thought more people would have played it by now and formed an opinion, but it doesn't really matter. You're voting for Smash Bros. the 2014 game. On the back end, we're trying to make the contender non-platform specific.

 

[Andy Shandy]

So I've ended up with Bayonetta 2 vs Transistor, so there goes my hopes in this competition.

[sub]I do love both games, but not a chance is that going to be the final xD[/sub]

 

[Tanis]

I figure what my bracket looks like won't be the 'winning' one, but I had to go with what I know and enjoy.
Not what I know The Escapists' 'Steam Is GAWD' crowd would be voting for.

 

[silversnake4133]

Not much to choose from this year, even with some indie inclusions.

 

[shadowmagus]

South Park all the way.

 

[themyrmidon]

I'm still burned by the lack of Wolfenstein, so I don't count on much from my bracket.

 

[shintakie10]

Hey guys,

We chose the 3DS version because we thought more people would have played it by now and formed an opinion, but it doesn't really matter. You're voting for Smash Bros. the 2014 game. On the back end, we're trying to make the contender non-platform specific.

I figured that was the case. If it was simply the 3DS version it wouldnt have made it near the finals in my bracket, as such finals. Lost to Wolf Among Us for me.

Related to brackets though. Where's Assassins Creed Unity? I thought that had a guaranteed spot?

 

[schtingah]

Related to brackets though. Where's Assassins Creed Unity? I thought that had a guaranteed spot?

I'm assuming it's god awful launch put it out of contention.

OT: And I'm rooting for Transitor here, even though I'm confident it doesn't stand a chance.

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

all of these seem like tough choice excepted Mario Kart 8 vs Watch Dogs. why did that get on the list and not Wolfenstein

 

[balladbird]

Boy, reading the list of entries this year reminded me how underwhelming 2014 was for the gaming scene.

Eh, I put my stake on Dark Souls 2 going all the way. Not my personal opinion, but it's a community poll, and that's the only game on the list that the entire community seemed to love. XD

 

[crazygameguy4ever]

um.. where are the good games from this year at? like Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution, Legend of Korra and BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma?.. the only 2 games on the list that could be considered good are Watch Dogs (which is just ok and made me want to play the superior Sleeping Dogs again) and Dragon Age Inquisition which i haven't played yet.. so.. a list of REAL game of the year contenders should be made.. in fact. i'm going to make a forum topic for readers to list their top games of the year which should be considered for game of the year

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Probably the only brackets I'm not sure of are the Dark Souls/Alien bracket (I think Alien is a better contender because of what it brought to the table whereas DS2 isn't quite as good as the first) and my last round bracket of Smash Bros./Wolf Among Us. I've heard a lot of people say good things about Smash, but Wolf Among Us seems to have the more universally loved following. I also don't see South Park beating Wolf nor Shadow of Mordor, as good of a game I feel SP is (which was absolutely surprising). Bayonetta seems to be a contender on the lower left quadrant up until its pitted against Smash Bros. Dragon Age may have burned too much goodwill to win and Destiny (hah!). Hearthstone is too niche, though solid and fun.
So overall: Alien over Dark Souls, Smash over Far Cry, DA over Hearthstone, Bayonetta Over Destiny, SoM over Titanfall (easily), Wolf over Sunset Overdrive, Mario Kart over Watch_dogs, South Park over Transistor - Round 1
Smash over Alien, Bayonetta over DA, Wolf over SoM, South Park over Mario Kart. - R2
Smash over Bayonetta (possibly close battle) and Wolf over South Park - Semi-finals
Wolf over Smash - Final Round
Winner - WOLF
XD

Sucks though that even if I'm right I can't win... why does Florida have to be excluded? =P

 

[Teoes]

Eh, I've played none of these games and this year has been rather underwhelming on the releases front. I just clicked my way through the brackets picking games with little thought, so I'm probably going to crash and burn this year!

I took part and that's what counts. I give myself a gold star. I think I've got Alien Isolation to win, but my choices in the lower brackets are questionable at best.

 

[Metalrocks]

i think my vote will be south park. but yeah, there are some games i do enjoy as well. titanfall is one of them and watch dogs. despite the constant freezing, it is a fun game never the less.
but there are also some nice indie titles which deserve to be on the list as well. mine still would be child of light.

 

[Lightknight]

Boy, reading the list of entries this year reminded me how underwhelming 2014 was for the gaming scene.

Eh, I put my stake on Dark Souls 2 going all the way. Not my personal opinion, but it's a community poll, and that's the only game on the list that the entire community seemed to love. XD

Ugh, sad to see someone beat me to this (only because that implies that I'm not the only unhappy schmuck).

There are a couple games that I thought made the year a bit brighter. Games like inFamous, Bravely Default, and a number of indie titles did make things more interesting.

But yeah, this was a year of "remasters" before anything else really.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

This computer isn't letting me vote. Are they hiding it somewhere or this PC just giving me a hard time?

 

[C.TYR]

Dark Souls 2 won't go all the way...
Dark 1 should've beat out Skyrim, but in this case, Dark 2 is just too shallow compared to all of this.
Honestly, I feel like Bayo 2 will be the game to win just based on how much entertainment you can get out of it...
Either that or... far sigh 4...
(CTYR would like to present his bias for Far Cry games being all very pretty and the like, but eventually end up being games like GTA where you don't care about missions and just goof off, getting bored with the story and characters)