The Escapist's Game of the Year 2012

[Eric the Orange]

When the hell were we supposed to vote? Why did no one tell me about this?

It was on the front page for a week.

 

[Frezzato]

It's okay, Journey, we all still love you. There were just other games that were amazing as well.

Sixth place. Not bad considering the top five are all cross platform.

 

[Fijiman]

When the hell were we supposed to vote? Why did no one tell me about this?

It was on the front page for a week.

Well that would explain why I didn't see anything about it. I rarely am on the front page long enough to see anything like that. Although one would think that a general message would have been sent out or something.

 

[krellen]

There is an obvious flaw with this poll, and there would inevitably be one no matter what game "won".

Fundamentally, 86.52% of your community decided on something other than the top choice, and their votes all seem to count for nothing. Naming anything "Game of the Year" based on less than a fifth of your audience's support will never end well.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

I hated the ending even after the Extended Cut but the rest of the game was nothing short of amazing. It was the only game on that list (of the ones I played I mean) thatmade me feel sad, angry, desperate, excited, etc.

Sure the ending disappointed me but the rest of the game kept me on such an emotional high and had such good gameplay that it was my only real choice for game of the year. Happy to see many others agreed with me.

 

[tyriless]

14% is not much of a win. That means 86% of the people voted for something else. I knew there would be an issue like this, with so many options they threw into this thing, it was far too spread out. If it had been something like over 50% of the votes, then I'd say ME3 truly won, but this isn't a win at all.

It's a minority that enjoyed the game.

By your account, only a minority enjoyed any of these games. This is rather a look at who enjoyed each game more, and a narrow lead goes to ME3.

 

[crono738]

Quick, someone get Zeel back!



I've got to say, though I voted for Far Cry 3, I'm pleased ME3 won. I enjoyed the hell out of that game.
Plus now that I've got X-Com, I really want someone to make a ME version.

This thread would be on page 5 by now if Zeel was still around. I'm actually surprised ME3 came out on top in this community.

It'll be on his little rant of a blog soon enough. Kind of surprised that ME3 won, given all the complaints it had.

 

[tyriless]

On this forum, the ME 3 haters response has been either one of the first three things and each has failed to do the forth.

1) Attempt to discredit Escapist
2) Attempt to discredit the method of polling
3) Accuse the voters of cheating
4) Realize this is a game that people actually enjoy and still play.

 

[Carrots_macduff]

a win for mass effect definitely surprises me because you would think the people who want to discuss such things on the boards are probably the same folks who are participating in the polls. those who enjoyed it and kept their opinions to themselves are probably less likely to actually vote aswell.

or maybe this community is just full of masochists. who knows, but im glad the walking dead found itself in such a respectable position. excellent game that. (didnt play me3 btw)

 

[cerebus23]

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.

I tend to let people choose what they want, and i think i like many other forget how great a game me3 was up until the very end, so if 90 95% of the game is brilliant imo, and the last 15 minutes is omfg bad, it still should be considered. Yes the ending was so bad not played any of the dlc sofar.....shoot me. but i do recall up until the death run how awesome that game was, especially for mordrin and grunt and wrex.

 

[Hyper-space]

People often tend to forget that it was mostly a very, very vocal minority that whined over ME3. I remember when people were making polls, during the shitstorm, on whether people liked the game or or not, the majority opinion was always very positive, despite the campaign of some people to prove otherwise.

Proof please. Otherwise, dispense with this "silent majority" nonsense.

Just because someone couldn't be arsed to ***** about it online doesn't mean they were fine with it.

Again, the polls made during the controversy proved that there was a majority of people that did not mind the ending, which if you compare it to the number of people who commented (that hated the ending) shows that the people who hated it felt much more compelled to express their outrage than those who didn't.

 

[pandorum]

Ha boooyyaaa I voted for mass effect shame I never get noticed that often, I will just float in the background (call me Dexter).

 

[cerebus23]

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.

I tend to let people choose what they want, and i think i like many other forget how great a game me3 was up until the very end, so if 90 95% of the game is brilliant imo, and the last 15 minutes is omfg bad, it still should be considered. Yes the ending was so bad not played any of the dlc sofar.....shoot me. but i do recall up until the death run how awesome that game was, especially for mordrin and grunt and wrex.

The problem isn't just the ending itself. If the ending was a 15 minute side-plot that had no bearing on the main jist of the main narrative arc, then yes you would be correct.

As it stands, however, the last 10-15 minutes of ME3 is where Casey Hudson and Mac Walters tried to explain everything that happened regarding the Reapers across the previous 3 games. This is the Bioware revealed the canonical explanation for why everything has happened thus far. And it sucks. The explanation is absolutely terrible. So not only does that undermine Mass Effect 3, it undermines every single part of the Mass Effect story which is dependent on the Reapers as a plot device.

Remember during Mass Effect 1, when it's starting to become clear to everyone that the Reapers are a threat, and they need to try and figure out what it is they're planning?

Spoiler

Remember the speech with Harbinger in ME1, where he's all "You cannot comprehend what it is we're doing, because we're so far above you, mwa ha ha!"?

Spoiler

Remember at the start of Mass Effect 2, where the Illusive Man shanghais you into joining Cerberus because they're the ones who stand the best chance of finding out what the Reapers are after?

Spoiler

The basic reasoning for the entire story of the trilogy was revealed in ME3, and it was beyond terrible. Therefore, the shitty quality of ME3's ending does go beyond the mere 10-15 minute timespace it occupies, and actually negatively impacts the rest of the series. Because whenever you play any of the games in the series now, you're going to know that the entire reason for anything happening in any of the games is:

Spoiler

well the og plot was that dark energy was destroying the universe and somehow all the gate travel and etc was run on dark energy and etc, either way the original story plot fell apart the minute people started digging through the codex and saying hey everything in me is run on dark energy how the hell does destroying everyone solve that if all the gates and etc ran on it?

I still think a team of monkeys could have done better with the ending than the ending by committee retcon they did.

 

[Warachia]

I'm not sure what your sayin ghere

He's saying if suddenly, right when Luke confronts the emperor, the emperor shows him that the empire created several utopias and the darkside was a necessary evil, and he'll stop using it once the rebels are gone, you know, things that make no sense and don't hold up when put into context.
That aside I really liked the extended cut, you should try it if you hated the original ending.

Thanks lol.. I know the post wasn't directed at me but i feel like replying

I watched the endings and additional scenes on youtube myself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NNUImNL9Ok

This video sums up what some people think of the endings

I will add;

1.My assets still didn't directly affect the battle- apart from 2x2 different mini cutscenes
2.My assets only affected what I could select at the end
3.Deus ex machina throughout the entire game...no ending re-do could fix this
4.The order-chaos explanation was not changed. It couldn't be..they would have to undo the cut and paste forshadowing of this from ME3. (rannoch reaper and vendetta)
5.citadel was still captured and got to earth off screen
6. They spent 3games changing my opinion about synthetics just to tell me they were right the first time...something tells me they made up this ending out of the blue- you don't even have to read the Drew interviews and haestrom sun forshadowing

All the new ending did for me was to explain exactly what they meant by something that is lore breaking

yh i'm still bitter! lol

Fair enough there are more things in game that the extended cut changes though, two things that I have a problem with are:
3.The duex ex machina was billed as a duex ex machina throughout the entire game, it's not as if it only shows up at the end.
6.The original intent was to use the dark matter they foreshadowed in the second game, but something came up and from what I found they decided to change it due to several story leaks, for example, in one of the leaked scripts you were supposed to chase the robot that would later become EDI's body across several planets, after the leak they altered it, and I'm sure it was a legitimate leak because that was the script I read (partially) before the game came out, and the game still follows very closely to what was in that script, I'd bet you the reason the ending sucked was because they ran out of time and money, which is why the one guy very quickly slapped together something and he didn't care how bad it was. I'm not giving them a pass for this though, if the story's leaked, you don't have to change as much as they did.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

It's what I voted for, ending or no ending it was a hell of a trip.

 

[Fuzzed]

I was gonna say somethin that made sense but after looking at that convoluted pie graph thing Escapist crafted up just for the Game of the Year award, I thought I'd just release some gas instead.

 

[drisky]

This is pretty shocking, I haven't played it yet but I heard pretty much nothing about this game other then the ending from this community. In the hundreds of threads on Mass Effect 3 pretty much all of them were on that topic, no body ever talked about anything else. I guess being the most talked about game of the year has merit in itself.

 

[OneOfTheMichael's]

Far Cry 3 was awesome and my personal GOTY yet I'm glad Walking dead got 2nd. ME3 though, Really?