The Escapist's Game of the Year 2012

[Doom972]

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.

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.

 

[lechat]

am i the only one who seen mass effect as a generic cover shooter with tacked on superpowers?

 

[IronMit]

very disappointed that ME3 won....but then I looked at the other games visibly readable on the chart and realised I had not played any on them. Not the best year for games. ME3 had an edge because they most people played it, the blend of shooter and rpg attracts many gamers. I'm sure walking dead was great but I never played it so would not vote for it.


2011 games I played this year I loved were skyrim and dark souls. I also replayed deus ex:HR (2010/2011?= doesn't matter). Next year we have last of us & metal gear solid. A year to look forward to!

2012 represents ME3 and Hitman being ruined for me. And also 007 and batman being disappointing. Pretty shite year

 

[Zeraki]

Ooooh, this should be gooood. I'm gonna go get the popcorn.


I'm honestly surprised that it won. What with how much the game is derided on these forums and all.

 

[kortin]

This is just sad. Dishonored was millions of times better than ME3, Spec Ops, and Walking Dead.

 

[GiantRaven]

Mass Effect 3? Meh. It really doesn't hold up on second viewings.

Upon reflection, I feel that it having a catastrophically bad ending ended up being better for the game. People focused on that way more and the general averageness of the rest of the game looked much better by comparison.

 

[-Samurai-]

"Vocal minority" my ass. Exactly how big do you people think this community is?

 

[Lizardon]

Well that makes it a shitty year after reading the whole game selection... really urgh, thats the votes from the escapist users right? what about a top from the people that writes/makes videos/ect in here? i think it would be better than that crap.

Did you look at the article? There was links there for all the Jimquistion awards [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition], Miracle of Sounds [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/misc/10093-Gavins-Top-5-of-Games-of-2012] top games, as well as the 5 favourite games from some of the staff [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/content/FiveFavorites/2012]. Go have a look at that if you want to see some other opinions.

Also go here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/content/GameoftheYear/2012/] to see what games the staff voted for.

I'm pleasantly surprised that ME3 came out on top. I guess this is a case of a silent majority being drowned out by a loud minority.

 

[Link_to_Future]

Walking Dead is still GotY in my mind. It touched my heart and disturbed my mind in ways that a story hasn't done in a very long time.

Congrats to Mass Effect though. I never got around to playing the new one but I've always had fun with the series and the excellent characters in the past.

Glad to see Guild Wars and FTL in the top ten. Both are great games that sucked a lot of hours out of my spare time.

 

[Captain_Dreadmor]

I consider this a victor since my vote of P4 Golden beat out Halo 4, AC 3, Blops 2, MoP, AND Diablo 3.

I'd say that's worthy of praise considering Persona is a comparatively lesser known series.

to be honest i thought persona would score lower but im happy it got mentioned as it is definitely my GOTY

 

[Gearhead mk2]

...no. ME3 was good, but I can't believe it got GOTY when so many other amazing games came out this year. I am glad that stuff like Spec Ops, Walking Dead and XCOM scored pretty high too, but one of THEM deserves GOTY, not the good but deeply flawed ME3.

 

[gphjr14]

ME3 was a great game and took you on a great ride up until it hit a brick wall with the ending. Personally I voted for AC3 but I wish I had voted for Dishonored.

If you haven't played it yet I implore you to...

 

[Tono Makt]

Wait, seriously?

After all that, after the constant threads and complaints about it, Mass Effect 3 gets voted game of the year? I don't even...

I can think of three reasons why it got GOTY here.

1) On the whole, the game deserves the GOTY honour. Yes, the ending of the game was botched to an absurd degree, and the extended ending just Febreezed the giant turd they laid with that ending. But when you take out that ending, you have a hands-down GOTY candidate.

2) Epic trolling by the people who either liked the ending or hated the fans reaction to the ending, deciding to give a "Screw you, hippies!" to end 2012. I'll even mitigate the potential trolling by giving an alternate view of it by theorizing that people couldn't decide between a few games they liked and so they decided to vote for ME3 since it was an awesome game overall (see point 1) and the reaction was so overblown that it deserves to be poked again.

3) An intentionally weighted poll to ensure that ME3 won, thereby ensuring a great deal of page views and unintentional clicks on advertisers banners.

Most likely it's #1 with a healthy does of #2.

/Voted for Spec Ops: The Line, since I don't like anything about the ME3 ending, even when the turd has been polished and Febreezed so it doesn't stink anymore.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Meanwhile, receiving the honors for least-voted-for-game is Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, which received all of 15 votes over the course of the week.

So it seems Mass Effect 3 gets the title. All that whining and you guys still love it over everything else.

I voted for The Walking Dead, mostly because I like the graphic novel. I actually don't have any 2012 releases in my game library because my money is going elsewhere. :/

[sub][sub]Still laughing at Black Ops 2.[/sub][/sub]

 

[Baldr]

After all that, after the constant threads and complaints about it, Mass Effect 3 gets voted game of the year? I don't even...

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.

Like most games, it's likely that most people who played it never finished the game. And out of those that did, there's a chance that a lot of them didn't care in light of the rest of the game (or reached the end post patch). The many people posting about how terrible the whole game is (due to the last few minutes) are likely still a "vocal minority" compared to the people who otherwise enjoyed the game.

People who enjoyed things rarely bother to post on forums about it, unless they have something unusual or unknown to discuss. People who have a few minutes of lag connecting to a server, or something poke their video card the wrong way once will sometimes post with great emotion about their lost time/etc. The occasional negative posting (some percentage of people with a specific problem) ends up seeming much higher because the typical response a person with a good experience has to offer is "it worked for me"/"I enjoyed the game throughout" - which doesn't hold up against paragraphs of vitriol. That is, if that person even cares enough to respond rather then just playing the game/haven't encountered the problem and aren't looking to talk about such things.

Go back and take out all the votes from users registered in December 2012 and I bet there is a much different result.

 

[Frission]

You are kidding me. This is the game that the industry should copy?

Anyway I voted for the walking dead.

Well, it was a vote by majority.

EDIT: It's a good enough game, I suppose. It's unfair to completely blame the fiasco on the game itself.

 

[AldUK]

Y'know what? When I first saw this in the morning, my reaction was like; "WHAT THE F*** MAN?!" I threw tables, ranted to Zeus and Quetzalcoatl and threw ALL the toys from my pram.

Then I went and did something else and moved on with my life.

At the end of the day, it's no big deal what gets voted for, everyone has an opinion and that's great, cause how damn boring would it be if we all agreed, huh?

I still hold to my belief that EA/BioWare's recent crop of games are actually harmful to the industry and should not be celebrated in any way, but that's just the gamer nerd in me, the fact that an indie adventure game was a pretty close 2nd is awesome.

 

[Grey_Focks]

Huh. Missed the vote, myself, and I really don't know what I would've voted for, anyway. Toss up between Guild Wars 2, Xcom, Farcry 3 and Mass Effect 3, I suppose. The Walking Dead told an excellent story, but a story alone does not a game make. Easily the first adventure game I've really given a damn about, and waaaaaaaaaay better than the last one I played (fuck you, Indigo Prophecy! FUCK YOU!), but it really felt more like I was watching a show, or reading a pick your own adventure book then playing a game. That being said, I'm still excited for the next season, and am getting that shit on release.

Eh, on second thought, fuck it. I think Mass Effect 3 was my GOTY.

 

[TK421]

I voted for x-com because it was one of the few games played this year pity id didn't win.

Me too. It and Dishonored were pretty much the only games that were kind of different from everything else this year, and I haven't tried Dishonored yet.

I really wish ME3 wouldn't have won. It's not because I hate it, but I really really don't want other devs to copy anything about that game. From the day-one DLC to the bad writing and botched ending, there are just too many scary things there that could really take a bad toll on gaming in general, if they haven't already.