[HEADING=2]REVIVAL OF A CLASSIC FRANCHISE[/HEADING]
It's Firaxis and 2K Games for XCOM: Enemy Unknown! It's not the *perfect* return to form for turn based tactical shooters. Jagged Alliance 2 probably still holds the crown. But it's a lot better than anyone really had reason to expect, especially in the shadow of the dreadful looking FPS that tried to steal its identity. There are issues with repetition and the first DLC was clueless, but the game sold well and suggests a potentially bright future for a franchise and a genre that had seemed all but dead.
It's Electronic Arts and Mythic Entertainment for this fucking abomination, Ultima4Ever! I hope the coal in your stockings BURNS YOUR HOUSES DOWN YOU MONSTERS.
[HEADING=2]EXTENDED EDITIONS[/HEADING]
It's CD Projekt Red for The Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition! For no charge and with no great fan pressure, CD Projekt Red loaded up a bunch of new content and a polished up ending and gave it to everyone who owned the game at no charge for shits and giggles. Here you go, they said, we hope you enjoy! In this age of nickel and diming people for every hat, it was an uncommonly generous gesture.
It's Electronic Arts and Bioware for the Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut! Bowing to near hysterical levels of fan pressure, Bioware crumbled and addressed the black hole of awfulness that was their ending with some hastily slapped together denouements that corrected some issues whilst raising new ones. That they did it for free would have put this in the Nice category, save for the fact they could not resist slipping in a less than subtle fuck you to the complaining fans in the form of the new "4th ending". You can love and obey our bizarre plot contrivance, they said, or you can suck a dick. It's coal for you, Bioware.
[HEADING=2]FLOGGING AN OVERSATURATED SUB-GENRE[/HEADING]
It's Yager Development and 2K Games for Spec Ops: The Line! By addressing the real consequences of violence, Spec Ops: The Line takes the lead over its fellow military manshoots in originality and social consciousness (if not necessarily quality game play), breathing faint life into a stagnant genre.
It's Danger Close Games and Electronic Arts for Medal of Honor: Snorefighter! Bang! Kaboom! QTE! QTE! Boom! QTE! QTE! Run down the corridor! Boom!
[HEADING=2]LAUNCHING AN MMO[/HEADING]
It's Funcom (and EA, but they had little to do with this one) for The Secret World! The game was buggy, occasionally clunky, didn't deliver on half of its promise, and was bizarrely shackled to some terrible, aging MMO conventions. People stayed away in droves, prompting the company to blame Metacritic for the games poor performance. Barely a few months after release it struggles to maintain a tiny user base and Funcom is writhing in dire financial straights.
It's Arena Net and NCSoft for Guild Wars 2! The game was buggy, occasionally clunky, didn't deliver on half of its promise, and was bizarrely shackled to some terrible, aging MMO conventions. But there was no subscription fee, so everyone said "meh" and bought it anyway.
[HEADING=2]ENDING A FANTASTIC STORY (A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS)[/HEADING]
Do feel free to add your own. You can copy paste my template pretty easily from a quote if you don't want to do the tags yourself.
[HEADING=2]EXTENDED EDITIONS[/HEADING]
[HEADING=2]FLOGGING AN OVERSATURATED SUB-GENRE[/HEADING]
[HEADING=2]LAUNCHING AN MMO[/HEADING]
Diablo 3 you are not an MMO! Why are you always online? What are you doing? Stahp!
[HEADING=2]ENDING A FANTASTIC STORY (A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS)[/HEADING]
Do feel free to add your own. You can copy paste my template pretty easily from a quote if you don't want to do the tags yourself.
