Poll: Video Game Awards: Game of the Year

[Katana314]

What I'd do with Bioshock...
Beat it.
Beat it again.
Talk for a bit about the plot.

What I'd do with Mass Effect...
Beat it.
Beat it again for alternate endings/conversations.
Do all the side quests.

What I'd do with Halo 3...
Sell it.

What I'd do with Orange Box...
Beat Half-Life 2.
Beat Half-Life 2 Episode 1.
Beat Episode 2.
Beat Portal.
Beat Episode 2 again going for the achievements + gnome, etc.
Play a bunch of Portal custom maps.
Play Team Fortress 2 a lot with friends.
Make a custom map for Team Fortress 2.
Play a single-player mod for Episode 2.
Make a Garry's Mod comic using Team Fortress 2 characters.
Beat the Portal achievement maps.
Play the Team Fortress 2 map that Valve releases in several months.
Record random video ideas from Team Fortress 2, and put them on YouTube.

=/

In my opinion, if you can do more with a game, and you still enjoy it, that makes it better.

GloatingSwine: From what I've seen, UT3 certainly has the most mod-console support of ANY game thus far. (at least on the PS3)

 

[nightfish]

1.) The Orange Box only has such a great rating because it is such a great deal

this is exactly what should happen. we pay lots of our hard earned cash for games so great deals is what we should get

 

[Senor Pantz]

Yea, I am in the orange box camp as well. I'm not sure it counts as a single came but its definitely the best single purchase I made this year (I got it on 360 so I didn't have HL2 already).

 

[soladrin]

i would vote portal, but they only put the entire orange box in there, and i wouldnt vote for a game package because its just plain stupid to put 5 games as one. And btw, Bioshock hardly had any innovation either, go play system shock 2.

 

[PurpleRain]

i would vote portal, but they only put the entire orange box in there, and i wouldnt vote for a game package because its just plain stupid to put 5 games as one. And btw, Bioshock hardly had any innovation either, go play system shock 2.

But Bioshock's shinnier!

I don't like it how people tell me to go play games that my computer probably wouldn't handle. I use my computer for tyhe internet... there isn't alot of games that would work on my pc and that's the reason I bought my 360, so I could play decent games. If I was to by system shock 2 no after playing Bioshock, I would say that system shock 2's very similar to Bioshock. There's no problem if I was just to play Bioshock... it was a fun game with an awesome story and lot's of cool stuff to do.

 

[miawallace]

I voted for Orange Box purely on the basis of Portal. I haven't even played any of the other games in it, and probably won't since I'm not into FPS, but Orange Box would deserve to win even if Portal were the only game in it. It is the most original game I have played in ages, which counts for a lot. Most games that come out, even if they're not sequels, can easily be described as 'like X except set in ancient Greece' or 'like Y but with better graphics and the combat system is a bit different' whereas Portal is not really like anything I've played. Probably the closest would be Myst, because both are basically puzzle solving games, but the way you play is completely different, so is the mood of the game, Portal is funny as hell, you can get killed, etc. It's also challenging in the right kind of way, IMO, in that some of the puzzles are pretty tricky to work out and others involve quite a bit of skill (all the ones where you fly out of a portal and have to land on some little platform or shoot another portal at exactly the right point) but they are all acheivable if you just think them through. There is none of that crap where they expect you to psychicly know what the designers were thinking and you are blocked from doing the obvious thing by an invisible wall or something because it's not 'the right way'.

I liked Bioshock a lot, and it's the only game I've seen that has properly pulled off the 'omg, your guide/mentor is actually working for the other side!' twist that every single game which has a twist uses. I was genuinely shocked, whereas normally I think 'oh... this twist again... that doesn't make a huge amount of sense'. But ultimately it's just a (mostly) better version of what's gone before, whereas Portal is something new, and that's pretty rare.

 

[Renoath]

I'd say the Orange Box, but mainly for Portal as it was the most fun I'd had in a game for a long, long, long time. Its morbid brand of humour, puzzle solving based gameplay, and the art direction of the game really make it standout from the other titles mentioned. It was a breath of fresh air, and stands out as a great experience, with very very few faults (I can only say I wish there were more puzzles but fan made ones are fine anyway ).

I expected more from Bioshock as I felt it could have made me feel more vulnerable and maybe even afraid of running into anything. Instead it felt like Halo for me, where I could run in die, come back and repeat, except I wouldn't get my ammo back, but naturally I'd trip over some and I'd be all set again. There were a few moments where I nearly shat myself only because I'd pissed off a big daddy, had little ammo and about every Splice in the vicinity was after my blood but other than that it was a bit of a let down. But the story was fantastic and that twist was pulled off to a tea. It was atmospheric and well designed, but compared to Portal it just didn't give me that feeling that the FPS genre had progressed too much over the passed 5 years.

 

[Jthom252]

I'd say orange box if not for Portal alone. That said I still haven't played Mass Effect, Mario Galaxy, Drakes Fortune, Call of Duty 4, or Assassins Creed yet so it may not be my final answer.

Other than that I liked most the major games I played this year, to give more insight:
Bioshock - Great atmosphere and storytelling, but the gameplay didn't do much for me. Plus, the fact they called it an RPG when it was pretty much a glorified FPS. The fact that the enemies scale so badly it seems and that the ending just outright sucked was disappointing though.

Halo 3 - I was actually impressed by this one. Mostly because 2 was such a letdown to me, and because I thought the hype was going to ruin it. The single-player was weak, but the co-op was still fun, and the multiplayer is still some of the best I've played on 360 thus far. Doesn't come close to 'game of the year' for me, but still enjoyable.

Rock Band / Guitar Hero 3 - Both fun games with good tracklists, but screw Activision for the crap they caused about the controllers. Asides from the punishing difficulty I thought GH3 was better Single-Player wise, and Rock Band better in the reverse. Neither were revolutionary though, but still fun games.

 

[Smythie]

The three I thought most likely to win it arn't even on the poll.

I hope Call of Duty 4 wins, but I think it will go to Crysis or Super Mario: Galaxy

 

[Zera]

Why does every GotY nominee...have to be...a SHOOTER!?

 

[MacCarth]

I'm still wondering why Galaxy isn't present. With an Average score of 97.425% from 53 Different sites, you'd think that it would gt SOME recognition.

 

[TheKittenStrangler]

Why does every GotY nominee...have to be...a SHOOTER!?

Because thats the most popular game of our society at the moment? The closest thing to being as popular as shooting games these days are fighting games which are just as violent.

 

[laikenf]

Mass Effect is a good game but it's very puzzeling how a game with so many glitches gets even released. As good as it is once you get into it you can't help but notice that it is very unpolished (from the AI to the framerate). It's a shame because this is becoming kind of a trend with developers (rush the release so we can meet the deadline and see if we can release some downloadable patches later). But going back to the GOTY topic: where's SM Galaxy and COD4? (both much more polished than Mass Effect), both have very good ratings (SMG being the highest rated game of the year). Oh well...

 

[Katana314]

Thinking of Portal as a shooter might be a bit broad. A lot of people just believe first-person increases immersion. In fact, the people remaking Yahtzee's "5 Days a Stranger" in Half-Life 2 have chosen to do it in first-person, because of the vast range of visual tricks they can pull off.