Cast Your Vote For The Escapist's Game of the Year 2012

TwoHeadedBoy

New member
Jul 10, 2012
35
0
0
Such a hard decision! Eventually went for Mass Effect 3 after letting my mouse hover over Spec Ops and Walking for a long while.
I hope Spec Ops made its money back, I'd hate to think the developers were punished for taking a risk.
 

Assassin Xaero

New member
Jul 23, 2008
5,392
0
0
Vote Spec Ops: The Line, because it was the best game I played this year, and one of the most moving games I've played in a long time.
 

CrazyCapnMorgan

Is not insane, just crazy >:)
Jan 5, 2011
2,742
0
0
Borderlands 2.

They turned an FPS Skinner Box original game with little to no story to an FPS Skinner Box sequel game with an incredible story AND a memorable villian.

Not many shooters can pull something like that off, if at all. Props to the Gearbox crew for making every multiplayer encounter with Handsome Jack end in the most hilariously awesome way possible - with me 2 micrometers away from Jack's face with the largest and deadliest rocket launcher I have available. (In one of those scenarios, I had a Derp a Nukem. Many thanks, friend of friends!)
 

crimson sickle2

New member
Sep 30, 2009
568
0
0
That one sad year when you haven't had enough time or money to play any of these games. Most of them just haven't appealed to me enough to warrant buying, but I may pick up Spec Ops over steam sales. I would get Journey, but don't have a PS3. Why is Persona 4 Golden on the list, sure its a great game, but should remakes really make game of the year lists?
 
Mar 9, 2012
250
0
0
Voted for Spec Ops: The Line. It hurt a lot to play that game, but it was ultimately the good kind of hurt.

The only award Mass Effect 3 deserves is "Disappointment of the Year."

EDIT: Come to think of it: ME3 would also be worthy of "Biggest PR Disaster."
 

cricket chirps

New member
Apr 15, 2009
467
0
0
Umm, the voting page isn't displaying correctly.

Wanted to Vote for one game and ended up voting for another...Anyone else having this problem?
 

Webb Myers

New member
May 17, 2010
76
0
0
There are a lot of games in this list that provide some tight, intense gaming experiences. But if I were to be honest about voting with my time (i.e. what games I logged the most hours on):

1st place- Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
2nd place- FTL

Some of it is probably just timing. Not much was competing when Amalur came out, and I was traveling and needed a laptop game when FTL came out. Dishonored, XCOM, Halo, and Far Cry will be battling for my time for another few months. But still, I dropped 80+ hours into both of those games and I would still enjoy them if I fired them up now.

FTL gets a lot of points for re-playability (sorry XCOM), but Amalur wins on the sheer quantity of good content. It's just as big as Skyrim or Fallout, but it's better looking than both and the combat is a hell of a lot more fun.
 

sethisjimmy

New member
May 22, 2009
601
0
0
I'm not voting because I haven't played the majority of those games and what I have played I don't consider GOTY material but if Spec Ops aka Ironic Gears of War: The Re-skin wins I'm going to be severely disappointed.
 

Dresos

New member
Jun 17, 2011
124
0
0
This poll was nicely set up and the backgrounds when you voted looked good.

This year I will not write a page long argument why the game of the year poll is bad.
 

Kapol

Watch the spinning tails...
May 2, 2010
1,431
0
0
I went with Mass Effect 3. As much as the ending was... disappointing (though there I still enjoyed the vagueness to a degree), the overall game was a long, expansive journey that allowed us to say goodbye to the characters we'd spent two other games interacting with. And even though the original endings didn't show where they ended up, it was enough to get those final moments with them. Those last bits of character to see who they'd become.

The runner-up for me was Walking Dead. The story was great, the characters were well-rounded, and the atmosphere was pretty excellent. But there were parts that I didn't care for that much. And even though the last episode ended so brilliantly, the gameplay to me was somewhat dull and created a slow pace when things should have been very hurried. The beginning of the last episode comes to mind.

Dishonored would have been on there. But while the gameplay was excellent, I felt the story was somewhat bloated. It was easily most hurt by the fact the main character didn't ever get much of a personality. And that became all the more obvious when Emily was involved. You could make choices on what to do of course, but that didn't say anything about the person doing them.

And finally, I haven't played a lot of the games on there. I'm about halfway through Spec Ops, which is good but not quite GOTY so far. I'd have played P4G if I could afford a Vita, since I never was able to play 3 or 4 before. I've wanted to try Journey, but I haven't gotten on my PS3 in ages. Xcom has been one I actually almost picked up but didn't realize a sale ended that day. And... well, the rest are pretty much all down to not being able to afford them.
 

Half_Moon

New member
Sep 2, 2012
1
0
0
Caramel Frappe said:
I had to go with The Walking Dead.

What other game got you to care so immensely for the characters, that not only did you actually remember their names but feel really bad if you had to do something that would screw over the other person? Crap, they made me really care for Clementine and she's a kid ... kids tend to be put there so people 'have' to care, but this game makes it where I just want to, and if she's hurting then I really am.

I'll never forget the experience, and each Chapter was not a disappointment but actually heightened up how amazing it is. People argue it's not a game because it's a point and click, but you know ... if Mass Effect didn't have the combat it would just be a dialogue game too, which it's basically solely revolved around dialogue and choices. Except in this game, every choice you make will affect everyone, and WILL come back to haunt you. It just will, and I love it.
I was liking it til the stupid save problems came in. It was mentioned on the podcast as well. Plus the main storyline was a bit of a railroad.

So I think I'll go with Xcom just by the virtue of how much time I sank into it and how it enjoyable it all was.
 

The Lugz

New member
Apr 23, 2011
1,371
0
0
of the games i played this year guild wars 2 was the one that made me smile and enjoy messing around in a fantasy setting again and that itself is an achievement after years of rpg experience
the 'do what you want sandbox' aspect is nice, but there's still structure if you want it the whole game has a certain fluidity to it that others lack partly because it takes drop in drop out events so seriously and lets you do a little or allot of something a day with near equal reward
and partly because combat is exactly what you make of it, equip a shield? be the tank. why not right?

a very close second is dishonored for me, ( mostly out of my bias love of teleporting, stabbing things and sneaking )
but that has it's issues in other areas so it still doesn't win

mass effect 3 looses because it's on origin, the rest take equal mid field
 

Susan Arendt

Nerd Queen
Jan 9, 2007
7,222
0
0
Formica Archonis said:
The day you realize you're visiting a site out of habit:

You look at their X of the year candidates and realize you haven't even seen one of them outside the site.
I'm confused...are you trying to say that you've never heard of games like Mass Effect 3, Xcom, and Spec Ops? I don't quite understand what mean.
 

Knight Captain Kerr

New member
May 27, 2011
1,283
0
0
Haven't played X-Com yet, I'm getting it at Christmas. Mass Effect 3 and Spec Ops: The Line were good sure but I voted for The Walking Dead. Hope Series 2 will be good.
 

Susan Arendt

Nerd Queen
Jan 9, 2007
7,222
0
0
gardian06 said:
Oh no. the Escapist is "learning" from the VGAs, but only letting us vote on Game of the Year. Will they be getting Samual L Jackson to announce it too? the only thing that I can truly give them is that they are giving the option of 20 titles.

OT: the funniest thing is that each of these games would fall into Game of the Year for very different reasons. emotional impact, overall fun, shear comedy...

So it will mostly depend on which one delivered its desired effect to the largest number of readers.
Actually, we just thought we'd do something fun. Last year we did the 12 Games of Christmas. This year, it's GOTY.

Your hostility is really uncalled for.
 

KefkaCultist

New member
Jun 8, 2010
2,120
0
0
Haven't played a single one of the games (except Diablo 3, but, you know...), so I voted P4: Golden since I played/loved the original Persona 4. lol

Susan Arendt said:
gardian06 said:
Oh no. the Escapist is "learning" from the VGAs, but only letting us vote on Game of the Year. Will they be getting Samual L Jackson to announce it too? the only thing that I can truly give them is that they are giving the option of 20 titles.

OT: the funniest thing is that each of these games would fall into Game of the Year for very different reasons. emotional impact, overall fun, shear comedy...

So it will mostly depend on which one delivered its desired effect to the largest number of readers.
Actually, we just thought we'd do something fun. Last year we did the 12 Games of Christmas. This year, it's GOTY.

Your hostility is really uncalled for.
Scrooges be scrooging it up in here.
 

neonsword13-ops

~ Struck by a Smooth Criminal ~
Mar 28, 2011
2,771
0
0
I voted P4: Golden just so I could get the Teddie badge.

...

And because Golden is a really ducking awesome remake.
 

Sonicron

Do the buttwalk!
Mar 11, 2009
5,133
0
0
Halo 4 and a WoW expansion make the list, but Darksiders 2 doesn't. Right. /facepalm
Oh well, Dishonored it is, then.