The Escapist's Game of the Year 2012

[Nouw]

Can't say I'm unhappy considering my two favourite games of the year came 2nd and 3rd.

 

[tyriless]

I voted for Mass Effect 3, not because I am troll, but because for the first time since Silent Hill 2 did I get this emotionally invested in a game and its characters.

*spoilers!*

There are just so many great moments: Moridin?s Death (I cried), The Fall of Thesisa (I raged), The Reclamation of Rannoch (I sighed in massive relief(, and the Krogan Rebirth (cried some more). No other game has did that other than The Walking Dead which does have better writing overall.

However, what put Mass Effect 3 over the top was the gameplay. It is really good. The retooled combat and the excellent multiplayer which I still play now and then are what puts it over. While I was more invested by TWD? s story I was annoyed by it?s quicktime events and searching static background for clues which is a common trope of adventure games. I just had more fun playing ME3.

 

[saintdane05]

Your game didn't win? I'm still pissed that Katawa Shoujo wasn't in the running. It's about as much a game as Walking Dead.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I voted for Borderlands 2 but it was tied with ME3 for me. I just voted for the game I thought would have a better chance of winning. Guess I was wrong but I'm still happy with the result.

 

[LoLife]

I'm glad Bioware gets a GOTY, happy that EA was voted "Worst Company In America" & ecstatic that Activision-Blizzard get F all, a good ending to 2012 =)

 

[Aeonxan]

so happy me3 won. its the best game series of all time. even with the endings. people that dont like the ending are just mad they didnt get their perfect conclusion that they hoped for. like shep surviving and having blue babies with liara

 

[feauxx]

I'm glad the silent majority is speaking up so this epic experience can be crowned. 100% deserved, also for the ending. Maybe especially because of the ending, good art will always move a lot in people.

 

[Vault101]

HOLY SHIT.....well color me surprised, I honestly thourght Dishonoured was going to get it

I voted for ME3 and I'm kind of glad to know I'm not in the minority of people who liked it, and now to save my sanity I'm not going to read any of the rage thats probably on thease 4 pages

yay!!

EDIT: and yeah I'm still pissed as hell over the ending (as much as you can reasonably be over a game thats almost a year gone)...but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the good things about this bizarre little trainwreck that was ME3

 

[Metalrocks]

me3 was good alright, and the extended ending did fix it for me at least, but still dint make me love it as much as me2. well, still a good game, even when i dint vote for it.

 

[Murmillos]

ME3 for the most part is a good game, but when you have a horrendously botched ending, that should have excluded it as GOTY.
No, its just not a bad ending, its a horrendously botched ending.

The ending was fine stop whining it was still better than about 95% of games endings. Also if you want to complain what about the side-quests in the citadel or the bugs. The game didn't feel complete in just a technical sense.

Sorry, but I disagree, I think 99% of other games have BETTER endings then ME3. ME3 ending is the only game ending I have never known (and I've been playing and beating games since early 90's) that has physically and mentally caused me to stopped playing an entire series. I've played other games with *quote* bad *unquote* endings, but I've still gladly gone back in for 2nd's and even 3rd's. Hell, even ME2 terminator larva ending is tolerable, despite how bad it really is. I hate it, but it makes some sense based on the narrative of the entire game before battling it.

ME3 on the other hand, it's ending wasn't fine from a literary standpoint. It violates nearly every known understood (written and unwritten) rule of "good story telling".
If the story was just a secondary means for you to go from point A to point B to shoot mooks in the face, while going "BANG BANG SHEPARD SMASH!!!", then sure, I can see how ME3 ending was just fine for you.
The ending of ME3 reminds me of how my 5 year old tries to explain things she doesn't yet grasp or know about the world yet; the ideas she comes up with are nonsensical and random, but I adore her for it. ME3 ending shouldn't sound like it comes from a 5 year old.
Maybe because I still like reading books, it seems like reading books is quickly no longer a thing to do, perhaps kids just aren't understanding enough "good" stories these days. Is that why all of you give ME3 a pass? What was the last 20 books you read because you wanted to read, and not because you were forced to read it for a class?

To be fair, most games in recent years have botched endings. It was just more upsetting in ME's case because it's a story in which the player develops a character and a story over three games and can get very invested in. My 2011 favorite, Deus Ex: Human Revolution also had a botched ending. If you want to see one of the worst endings in recent years, check out Rage's ending - that one made me angry.

I guess AAA studios have problems sticking to the schedule and budget, and since apparantly only 20% of the people who own a game will finish it (I still wonder where that statistic came from), the ending gets botched. At least Bioware fixed ME3's ending post release.

OT: I voted for X-COM but I don't mind ME3 being GOTY. I think more people should play FTL though.

I think there is a very different, notion of botched and bad. I may find many endings bad, but if I can at least get a sense of where the ending was coming from, while I may not like it, it isn't botched. ME3 is botched because its a last minute ass pull that throws good writing out the window. Did they point themselves into a corner, oh hell yes the fuck they did, and I recognize that, but really, setting the house on fire was the best answer?
The ME development team was never good on making good choices.

Personally, I am fine with DE:HR endings, because each ending was foreshadowed in the final mission zone. Yes it was bad for the selection was a choose your ending at the very end, but at least the choices, for the ending, was clearly addressed before hand by the NPC's that gave you that ending option. Also, the reason behind the delivery method for the ending choices was also clearly indicated before hand in the previous missions before the final mission. Yes, the endings may have been, and most likely are bad, but they weren't random ass-pulls.

And I still have serious issues with ME3 post release extended cut ending. It goes from your choice fucks everything over (or you are to be believed that that because they don't tell you anything), to everybody is now shitting rainbows and lollipops and are bestest of best friends because you kill the Reapers; Well Done!, despite being dead.


Point being, you can always look back on a game and go, the ending could have been better, it could have satisfied me better. But to call an ending a botched ending I think should only be saved for such endings such as ME3 (doesn't maintain theme or narrative and introduces a last minute magical plot device as the "answer".)


And I think you are correct on your %, depending on the game, it will be somewhere between 10%-20% I think a good place to look is Steam. Find the achievement you get for completing the story line for games 2+ years old, and the number of people who earn that achievement is staggeringly low.

 

[Zhukov]

...

Okaaaaaay.

I'm not complaining, but, uh... as a frequent reader of the forums I did not see this coming.

Nice to see TWD get the recognition it so richly deserves.

 

[Shalok]

Awesome, voted for ME3, haven't played the walking dead so can't comment there but ME3 was easily the game i enjoyed most this year, and while the final five minutes were disappointing sure (and extended cut fixed that) the rest was one of the best games of all time, not ME2 standard but still awesome

 

[Ympulse]

Words and rage

You -really- wanted blue babies, didn't you?

The ending was as good as it could have been, given the ridiculously branched plotlines that were possible. Deus Ex Machina was the only solution that could have been done without another ten or twenty million being spent on the game's development.

Fucking reality, how does it work?

 

[Vault101]

Maybe because I still like reading books, it seems like reading books is quickly no longer a thing to do, perhaps kids just aren't understanding enough "good" stories these days. Is that why all of you give ME3 a pass? What was the last 20 books you read because you wanted to read, and not because you were forced to read it for a class?
.

hahaha...what?

oh I see, you read books so you must be soo enlighted.....I read books too, I liked ME3 all the way up to the ending, I have som issues with the story but overall I thourght the story was great

The ending was fine stop whining it was still better than about 95% of games endings. Also if you want to complain what about the side-quests in the citadel or the bugs. The game didn't feel complete in just a technical sense.

as much as it pains me to say I'm going to have to agree with murmillos in that no....the ending WAS fucking diabolical,logically, lore wise, from the veiw of what makes a good story it failed so hard it caused a blackhole which retroactivly sucked in the previous series

[rant/]see the thing is that its generally accepted that TRUE ART IS ANGSTY and that the more depressed me make ourselfs the "better" somthing is, and while getting an emotioanl raction is great and all just being depressing on its own doesnt make it better....thats just lazy, also throwing incoherant shit together to be "symbolic" is fine IF IT IS but no...no ME3 your not fooling anyone with this bullshit, this is not arty

oh and keeping us confused and in the dark is also not "deep" and "arty" its fucking stupid..tell me...please why would you do that at the END of a long running series? tell me whoever wrote that WHAT THE FUCK HAPPNED!!?? I NEED TO KNOW, THATS ACTUALLY PRETTY FUCKING IMPORTANT[/rant]

I havnt played the extended cut yet so no spoilers blah blah blah thanks...

 

[Alandoril]

Well to be honest ME3 was a great game, the only thing that let it down was the "one writer throws caution to the wind, locks himself in a room and has a fit, then ignores all criticism from the other writing staff" cobbled-together ending.

 

[Vault101]

Words and rage

You -really- wanted blue babies, didn't you?

The ending was as good as it could have been, given the ridiculously branched plotlines that were possible. Deus Ex Machina was the only solution that could have been done without another ten or twenty million being spent on the game's development.

Fucking reality, how does it work?

excuses....they could have done better, not "good" perhaps but better

 

[IronMit]

so happy me3 won. its the best game series of all time. even with the endings. people that dont like the ending are just mad they didnt get their perfect conclusion that they hoped for. like shep surviving and having blue babies with liara

The conclusion I hoped for was something that made sense and didn't ignore the lore. But yh, just say it's 'cos of happy blue babies...much simpler.

 

[Murmillos]

Words and rage

You -really- wanted blue babies, didn't you?

The ending was as good as it could have been, given the ridiculously branched plotlines that were possible. Deus Ex Machina was the only solution that could have been done without another ten or twenty million being spent on the game's development.

Fucking reality, how does it work?

No, the writing was on the wall, and I was totally prepared to sacrifice Shepard to the greater cause of defeating the Reapers.

And really, they could have done it all without introducing the space god and even doing it on the Citadel.

--

Hell, we had all the plot devices already in play - begging to be used. With the Geth help (friendship or forced) we've have Reaper code from Nazara (Sovereign), but to use it, we have to hijack the biggest baddest Reaper in town, because once the other Reapers know whats up, they will attempt to stop it. So Shepard and team head to Earth, drawing out Harbinger.

Using a surgical strike (a plot point in ME3), we blast a hole into him [Harbinger] which Shepard team is able to land into (we already have the internal reaper assets from ME2 to reuse). After blasting thru a bunch of husks (also while attempting to resist his mind control affects), we reach the creamy core center of Harbinger (his larva terminator - a nice ME2 throw back - yes it was full retard in ME2, but if you are going to sell a story, if you introduce full retard, you keep full retard, or people know your game is long up).

After another "Sovereign-isk" conversation (a ME1 throw back) (which may or not introduce the ME "midichlorians" [we kill organics to protect them from being killed by AI's in the future]), we infect his larva core using the Geth\Reaper code.

Then using Harbinger as the vessel (the only ship that can withstand attacks from other reapers while docked too the Crucible docked to the Citadel in able to activate the Crucible). And then with your fleet acting as interference (your EMS score matters here, because reapers will attempt to destroy the Crucible now, so a higher EMS means more ships to prevent that). So the better the EMS score, the less relays get damaged and/or destroyed (including Earth/Citadel) when the blast does go off. But still, the activation of the Crucible at its power point kills Shepard and his team in Harbinger.

The end choices are still [control/destroy/*anything else other then merge DNA/machine choice*].

--

End result, the long running themes of the game are clearly kept intact, we get to use the plot devices introduced ME2/ME3 (reaper code/EMS score), we re-used game artwork\assets (internal Reaper). And the best part, we don't introduce a last minute space magic space god that gives us our ultimate choices; those choices are still firmly left up to Shepard and his team (player agency is kept intact).

Now tell me that hijacking a Reaper isn't cooler, over speaking with the nonsensical space magic god that we got?

 

[IronMit]

hahaha...what?

...I liked ME3 all the way up to the ending, I have som issues with the story but overall I thourght the story was great

Isn't the ending part of the story. I don't mean good or bad ending I mean the ending revealing bad guy motivations and how and why etc etc, consistent to the lore etc.

So if the ending makes no sense doesn't most of the story make no sense.
All this '99%' of the story was great, it's all about the journey stuff people say about ME3 does not apply here.

An example...if Frodo or luke skywalker failed at the end of their stories...it doesn't undo the journey...but if when they got to the end, an out-of-the-blue explanation of the another reason for the ring existing or the darkside is kind-of-good explanation is thrown at the audience then that ruins half of everything before it

 

[Vault101]

Isn't the ending part of the story. I don't mean good or bad ending I mean the ending revealing bad guy motivations and how and why etc etc, consistent to the lore etc.

thats the thing..the ending (orginal, I havnt played extended cut) doesnt make sense when you think about...or if it is taken at face value then everything is so fucked that no one could have thourght it was a good idea..unless it was porly thourght out..which seems to be the case

[quote/]So if the ending makes no sense doesn't most of the story make no sense.[/quote]
"liked the story untill the ending" better wording? the ending is so sily that you could cut it out and add somthing else, its not essential to the whole movie (unlike somthing like the original ending to I am ledgend)

[quote/]An example...if Frodo or luke skywalker failed at the end of their stories...it doesn't undo the journey...but if when they got to the end, an out-of-the-blue explanation of the another reason for the ring existing or the darkside is kind-of-good explanation is thrown at the audience then that ruins half of everything before it[/quote]
I'm not sure what your sayin ghere