The Escapist's Game of the Year

[Museli]

On reflection, my GOTY would have to be New Vegas, just ahead of RDR. New Vegas has its bugs, sure, but RDR has its Mexico Storyline. Whilst the missions and setting in Mexico are great, the story arc really clashes with what comes before and after.

I'd rather reboot New vegas once every hour than watch the excellent John Martson gullibly performing task after task for a clear douchebag, despite repeatedly being promised help and being let down. You're smarter than that, John, we know this from your actions in New Austin, so act like it. The whole arc feels like a section from GTA had been dropped into the middle of the game, with the same effect as a spoonful of salt being dropped into your coffee.

Oops, I seem to be ranting. Let me end with a positive opinion: Cataclysm is also great. I quit WoW once because I knew I couldn't recapture the giddy feeling of discovering the world for the first time. The Shattering brought that feeling back, and brought me back to Azeroth with it.

 

[Embz]

Thank you for choosing RDR! This was definitely my favourite game of 2010

 

[ranger19]

Great choice. The moment when you first enter Mexico, climb above the ridges, and look down on that great valley while the music plays... was just fantastic.

The end left a sour taste in my mouth because I couldn't understand the law enforcement's reasonings for doing what they did, but maybe that was the point: the law was the enemy. The game was a lot of fun, and I know some day soon I'll download undead nightmare, have a blast with that, and then finish up the rest of that amazing game.

 

[Irridium]

Mass effect 2 was robbed.

that game has scale you don't even realise until your third playthrough, and you can't say that of many games that will take you 30+ hours to finish.

Sure as hell didn't feel like it though, considering the tiny hub-worlds and all the linear levels/corridors.

OT: Eh, wasn't too hot with RDR. Yeah its a good game, but honestly, Marston just pissed me off. He was needlessly angry when he didn't need to be. I mean yeah I guess he had a decent reason, but that doesn't mean I have to like him being an ass.

Ah well, my pick for GOTY is New Vegas. Its like Fallout 3, only with a good story, and good tie-ins to the previous games, and choices that actually effect things, and better first-person and third person gameplay(which makes VATS more of a sweet little action scene instead of a crutch for bad gameplay), and better characters, and better companions, and better writing.

Its just better.

Runner up is Kirby's Epic Yarn. Because a)Its one of the best platformers ever made, and b) Its just do damn adorable.

 

[Marowit]

Hear hear. This was the one game from last year I had to force myself to play slowly cause it was so damn good.

Although it's a sequel, it didn't feel like a sequel, and so I am really glad you didn't pick a game with the number two behind it - helps, hopefully, to keep new IPs rolling out and not just rehashed content.

 

[Darth Trethon]

Oh that's just great. After the top 5 picks of the publishers all....well.....were really really horribly bad....now the not so good game wins GOTY? With this the last drop of faith I had in the escapist being able to distinguish an amazing game from a good one or even from one of the worst things plaguing the gaming industry(some of the top 5 picks were just that unfortunately).

Now don't get me wrong RDR is good, great even but you know what it's not? It's not amazing. It's not GOTY material. Not when compared to games like Mass Effect 2(except PS3 version) or Fallout New Vegas.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Oh that's just great. After the top 5 picks of the publishers all....well.....were really really horribly bad....now the not so good game wins GOTY? With this the last drop of faith I had in the escapist being able to distinguish an amazing game from a good one or even from one of the worst things plaguing the gaming industry(some of the top 5 picks were just that unfortunately).

Now don't get me wrong RDR is good, great even but you know what it's not? It's not amazing. It's not GOTY material. Not when compared to games like Mass Effect 2(except PS3 version) or Fallout New Vegas.

So our favorites picks were all "really really horribly bad," yet you name two games that made those lists as being amazing. Sooo...having trouble following your logic here.

 

[Magnatek]

Well, the reasons for this choice were great. Though, in all honesty, apart from up to the first boss in Super Mario Galaxy 2, and up to about Lv. 38 on one character in Cataclysm, I have not played, well, ANY of these games. I may have been interested in some of these games, but since I couldn't actually play them, I don't know why people think they're up to GOTY material for sure, and I'm one of those people who have to see to believe when it comes to games.

 

[AC Medina]

I played and enjoyed Red Dead Redemption, but I wouldn't have gone as far as to name it GotY. While I won't go into a discussion of its pros and cons here, I do wonder about one thing: whether not being from the U.S. and understanding but mostly lacking the preternatural cowboy hero worship and love for the "Old West" mystique somehow dulled my enjoyment of the game and made it seem merely great as opposed to incredible.

Any other non-American gamers have thoughts on this?

 

[TheRealGoochman]

Although I would have loved to see Mass Effect nab it, I am happy to see Red Dead Redemption pick it up. That mofo was a blast to play....yee-haw

 

[DaHero]

I applaud the big E for not selling out, blackops can burn and take it's fanboy noob fest with it for all I care. I was a game! and RDR is right up there with Just Cause 2 (actually take both and pretend Rico is related like in Assassains Creed 2, it makes for an epic dual game experience if you ask me) but RDR really deserves to win...even though I can't swing with a whip or nothing but hey, I can't complain.

 

[toapat]

I honestly dont believe that anything could beat the second most anticipated Sequel of all time.

Red Dead Redemption is good, but its not a game im even willing to restart to get through. Its good, but it is hard to get into, and losing any momentum in it results in missery from the slow movement of horses to the long introduction cutscene you cant skip.

on the other hand, Starcraft 2 is a game that has been expected for a decade, and came out with a great story. the only reason i wasnt completely amazed by the main plot twist is because of shear curiosity. its a game i honestly want to replay, and am only disallowed to by constraints of hardware and life.

WoW: was released in 2003, not 2010

Call of Duty Black ops is a pile of unyielding shit.

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood is as Yatzee said, an Xpac, and for the same reason shouldnt even qualify for a 2010 GotY award.

Civ 5: SSDD, this is really just a fun game, its not GotY material, but it is worth playing

Fallout: New Vegas: i cant comment, but it still is just a glorified Expansion pack

Halo: Reach: this series doesnt deserve respect. you shouldnt add content before your prior content is fixed, and halo has just been a parade of less and less balanced games and a blight on the existance of gaming.

Heavy Rain: eh, id give it a play though

Kirby's Epic Yarn: its Kirby, nothing really beats the fun of the pink fluffball, but really the best one they have made is still Kirby 64, for the reason that you get to combine powers

ME2: this is perhaps the closest example to a company doing what it should, except puting the proper time into balancing the game

Rockband 3: See WoW's Disqualification

Super Mario Galaxy 3: Again, see WoW's Disqualification.

really, of the games her, only Mass Effect 2 and Starcraft 2 really should be considered. Red Dead Redemption isnt bad, but i dont feel it actually was good enough to earn it, while a lack of playing Heavy Rain prevents my personal consideration of it.

 

[TheEvilCheese]

Well, I (like many others) can accept that RDR is a technically excellent game, but it just didn't do it for me.

ME2 or Cataclysm would have been my pick, NV for sure if it was actually finished on release day.
But the game that entertained me the most this year and (I believe) has brought the most interesting ideas to the table has to be: Minecraft.

Im sorry, I did a bit of a PCgamer thing there...

 

[AceDefective]

Good this is definitely a deserving game
also hearing about it again reminds me that before i beat it someone tried to spoil the game for me but acidently said jack instead of John. It made the ending actually much more surprising

 

[SamElliot'sMustache]

The one strike I have against Red Dead Redemption is how repetitive it is. A lot of the missions, especially in Mexico, felt like they were designed to pad out the length of the game, and once it's revealed why Marston is hunting down his old posse, he pretty much repeats all of his lines about his family, the posse, and his feelings about the government in every single mission.

It's an otherwise good title, but that got old after a while.

 

[Darth Trethon]

Oh that's just great. After the top 5 picks of the publishers all....well.....were really really horribly bad....now the not so good game wins GOTY? With this the last drop of faith I had in the escapist being able to distinguish an amazing game from a good one or even from one of the worst things plaguing the gaming industry(some of the top 5 picks were just that unfortunately).

Now don't get me wrong RDR is good, great even but you know what it's not? It's not amazing. It's not GOTY material. Not when compared to games like Mass Effect 2(except PS3 version) or Fallout New Vegas.

So our favorites picks were all "really really horribly bad," yet you name two games that made those lists as being amazing. Sooo...having trouble following your logic here.

OK....I meant the top 5 lists were mostly bad. Some of those things really made me cringe in pain.....Mario Galaxy a decade defining game? Pokemon? A whole lot of average and/or poor games and so on and so forth. There was precious little good and amazing in there.

 

[AvsJoe]

Great choice, guys. Very good.

I only got my first PS3 in December, and I only own one game from 2010: Call of Duty: Black Ops. Unfortunately, this means Black Ops is officially my 2010 GOTY, unless I include games I played for 10 hours or less. If I did include those games, however, my vote would instead have gone to Dead Rising 2, a game my friend rented that I played for about 8 or 9 hours.

 

[Xaositect]

Glad to see this game won. Mass Effect 2 is getting far too much unnecessary and over the top praise. All it does is refine the shooter elements, and cut the game into linear shooting levels. Not much else is done better than the first. The story doesnt even form a cohesive overall plot. Its just shooter driven side missions and the occasional railroaded plot mission where Bioware often piss all over the good work the first games story did.

Red Dead Redemption on the other hand. Well let me say that when Rockstar tried a more "serious" protagonist in GTA4, I hated it. It sucked and I thought it was pretentious. In RDR however, I genuinely liked John Marston as a character and as a protagonist.

Also, the landscapes are just plain stunning, and the entire western feel is carried off spectacularly.

Im glad that a game won that tried something other than "improving shooter combat to try and bring in the masses". People talk a lot of crap about ME2, and how its "greater than the sum of its parts", but thats just rubbish. Any objective look at the game shows that all it is is a well polished sum of its parts. You recruit the "badass" team. You run their errands perhaps. You endure the crappy upgrade system perhaps. Most of the time however, its just about using the new refined "visceral" shooter combat, or if youre feeling masochistic, trying to get some use out of the dried husks of RPG combat, character customisation and gameworld exploration.

I compare that to a genuinely compelling experience of the end of the Wild West in a stunning, non-linear landscape, and I think its obvious the best game won. Im biased of course, since ME2 chucked out lots of what I liked about the original, didnt advance what was left, and generally coveted a new fanbase over giving time for my preferences as a gamer as well. But still, they only add to my discontent with the game, as every criticism I have of the game I would have regardless, poor attempt at a supposed "mass effect sequel" or not.

Thank god for RDR. It and Fallout: New Vegas saved my year from the crushing disappointment of a dumbed down, disconnected and linear ME2 that I had anticipated for so long, only to be snubbed in favour of creating the game around shooter combat.

 

[Rorschach II]

I loved RDR. It was one of the best games Ive played in ages and the whole experience took over my life for a good couple of weeks.

I nearly got 100% (First game ive ever spent the time to try and achieve) but my PS3 YLOD'd and I lost all my saves ;_;

 

[Danish rage]

So many games to pick from, and you pick THIS buggy cliche for game of the year?

I´ll admit the singelplayer was way better than most games, but that was all it was.

Why have a open world when you not use it? And no endgame? It´s ripe with oppetunities, and not just more cliche´s like zombies. Multiplayer was empty, confusing and a greifers paradise.