Giant Bomb GOTY 2014 - Destiny Has Brought Us Here
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Tainted
Member
Uncharted
MGS5
Batman
Bloodborne
Witcher 3
No Man's Sky
Order 1886
Already sounds better, although must not succumb to hype...that was our problem in 2014 (at least for the AAA games)
Tainted
Member
If that was true, than Dragon Age would have made the final 10. Mordor has been out for a few months...so I dont think so
South park came out early in the year and still figured in the overall and personal lists.
XANDER CAGE
Member
I'm not sure this is true. Wolfenstein, while very good (and perhaps overall a more consistent package than Mordor), doesn't have anything as new and exciting as the Nemesis system.
Mordor is a lot like the first Assassin's Creed in that regard, in that the full game is a little thin, but it has a really attractive shiny new thing that works really well. Mordor is pretty squarely in the "pretty good games that will likely have amazing follow-ups" category, which is more exciting to a lot of people. People will likely talk up the whole Nemesis thing until for a while.
I don't think it would've mattered much. Brad only cares about the raid really so as long as that's still in the game, he will probably defend it.
But it didn't. And that's disappointing because that's never, ever happened before.
Unity was saved by the expectation portion of the category. Since there have been so many inconsistent or flawed entries in the Assassin's Creed series (at least in the opinion of the GB staff), you don't expect the same sort of pedigree from the franchise that you did back in the days of Brotherhood.
Halo's online has always worked very well. It's Microsoft's flagship franchise for their consoles. The idea it would come out, be broken, then rebroken, then rebroken, etc is just so surprising it trumps the reveal that this year AC is on the downward slump again.
ShockingAlberto
Member
I really, really liked Mordor, I just wish more of it was, well, designed.
Like, I wanted designed missions and stuff. All the missions you got in the main game were "Here's your target, do it however you want." I feel like there should have been some more to it than that.
Like, I wanted designed missions and stuff. All the missions you got in the main game were "Here's your target, do it however you want." I feel like there should have been some more to it than that.
I think a really interesting hypothetical is how much bigger Wolfenstein would have been if it had gotten The Evil Within's marketing push. It seems to have been carried by word of mouth while the other retail release at the time had two years of Ubisoft bullshit going for it. I think it is a game more people will come to appreciate over time.
DontBeThatGuy
Member
I certainly agree with that. I was into it for awhile but by the time the endgame rolled around, I was underwhelmed.
I think that is charm of it. A group of avarage guys trying to do a well produced funny skit. It's far from perfect and in the hand of professionals it would be way better. But I, like many others, want it to be awkward and kinda clumsy because it feels real. That is really the charm of most online personalities. It's why I stopped watching tv completely because all that stuff comes of as fake and corny.
HappenstanceUK
Member
I know people tend to get annoyed with Brad every year but I think Alex is so much worse, especially this year. I miss when they would just Skype him in for a section and then we'd be done with him.
call_kotaku
Member
Don't corner Brad Shoemaker. RIP Wolfenstein and Divinity, they died so Destiny could live.
Atleast 2 of those games will probably end on up on the "most disappointing" list, and I don't think enough members of the crew care enough about MGS or the Witcher for it to get much traction.
Atleast 2 of those games will probably end on up on the "most disappointing" list, and I don't think enough members of the crew care enough about MGS or the Witcher for it to get much traction.
I'm the opposite. I think Alex is MVP because he's the one who makes the most cogent, logical points.
Alex for Most Improved of the Year.
meanspartan
Member
So, Destiny is in the top 10 but not Dragon Age.
Mordor is top game. Wut. It was good and Nemesis system rules and will be imitated for years to come, but it's not in my top 5. Prob in top 10 though. Then again, the Batman style combat never did it for me, I've always found it too simplistic.
Banner Saga got cut early.
Horrible this year. A game that was contending for "most disappointing" should not make the top ten. Ever.
Bahahah I totally forgot about that. What a fucking joke. Destiny should not be on this list especially if it replaced those two and Dragon Age.
Mordor is top game. Wut. It was good and Nemesis system rules and will be imitated for years to come, but it's not in my top 5. Prob in top 10 though. Then again, the Batman style combat never did it for me, I've always found it too simplistic.
Banner Saga got cut early.
Horrible this year. A game that was contending for "most disappointing" should not make the top ten. Ever.
Bahahah I totally forgot about that. What a fucking joke. Destiny should not be on this list especially if it replaced those two and Dragon Age.
Did we play the same game? Every single mission so far has been, "go to this exact point, do this exact thing, mission ends." I would have killed for a more unstructured game built around the nemesis system. The main missions never let the nemesis system breathe, and they never let you experiment with anything. Instead of letting the player mess around with the brand ability they tell you exactly which captain to brand. The Golum and Slave-guy missions were particularly bad about this.
meanspartan
Member
Ya it felt like they didn't feel quite confident enough in Nemesis to take the next step with it, perhaps too scared to break away from traditional Ass Creed design. Hopefully the fact that it was so well received means that they or the next studio to do something like Nemesis goes all the way with it. Emergent gameplay as core gameplay please.
I agree, there were multiple times in every podcast that he wanted to make sure a game got the recognition it deserved. The only points I disagreed with were how much he didn't care about Luftrausers. While I do think it got it's due for best music, him trying to argue that it shouldn't be in the top ten was weird to me. But he got smash on there, and destiny off which I thought was pretty great.
Askherserenity
Member
Yeah. If this year was kinda bad, I can't even imagine next year. All we'll have is Dan and Vinny.
call_kotaku
Member
Brad has the ruthlessness and determination that you'd want to champion your game. He doesn't listen to criticisms or bother trying to convince others, if he feels pressured he'll just start tearing other games off the list in order to make room for his. He understands that you're either in the top 10 or you might has well have not existed at all, the fact that Patrick didn't have that determination for Divinity and Alex/Drew couldn't muster it for Wolfenstein just means that they failed as champions for those games. God help whoever keeps Brad's 2015 game from the top 10.
> Good Game, Well Played Brad Shoemaker
> Good Game, Well Played Brad Shoemaker
PinkCrayon
Member
What? Alex was mvp this year. He was killed on that hill by Brad's Destiny nonsense, fighting the good fight. Rip never forget.
DontBeThatGuy
Member
I kind of agree with this.
But "All we'll have is Dan and Vinny" is pretty much saying we're going to show up to a knife fight and "All we'll have is a machine gun and a rocket launcher".
meanspartan
Member
It's just fucking attrition lol. He knows that people get tired and want to wrap it up, but he just holds out and holds out.
Destiny is on the list but no Dragon Age? No Banner Saga? No Wolfenstein? Come the fuck on.
He needs his own commemorative day the day he was killed on that hill. December 30th, Day of Navarro.
Dragon Age and Banner Saga were never getting on the list; nobody cared enough about them to fight for them.
Wolfenstein probably should have been on the list given it was the preferred game of Dan, Drew, Jason, Patrick and Alex.
PinkCrayon
Member
I eagerly await the short film "Guns of Navarro" to release on this day next year to commemorate his heroic fall.
Auto-Reply
Member
There is only one (ex)-StarCraft player on the team, Dan and Vinny are brute force while Brad is the master strategist...
meanspartan
Member
I get that for Banner Saga being a smaller game and releasing very early in the year (it seems pretty clear that releasing later in the year helps by keeping a game fresh in their memory) but Dragon Age Inquisition not cracking top ten seems like bullshit to me.
And if they ever did a "GOTY Champions" contest for like the last 10 GOTY winners, you all know Shadows of Mordor would not make the first cut.
It's a good game, solid 8/10 for me, but the fact that it won GOTY speaks more about how poor a year this was for AAA than how good the game actually was. For indie games 2014 was pretty good, but they rarely win the big prize.
I mean, I'd put it on my top ten list, yeah, but none of them liked it enough to fight for it likewise. I wouldn't call that "bullshit" myself, it's just that we have a difference of opinions.
Actually it would by virtue of there only being 6 previous GOTY awards
meanspartan
Member
Actually it would by virtue of there only being 6 previous GOTY awards
Hahah ya I guess so but I meant more generally on past GOTY winners from the main outlets not just Giant Bomb.
Mordor won theirs and might even win some others, but I just don't think it hangs with Mario Galaxy, Last of Us, God of War, Shadow of the Colossus, Bioshock, Mass Effect 2, etc.
2014 was weak for AAA (aka the only games that are defacto allowed to win the GOTY prize)
Jeff is the only one of them that beat it and he didn't really like it. The others weren't that far into it and even then seemed to have problems with it too.
I'm not sure how it missing the list is surprising in that regard.
Which is kind of a shame. I really, really liked the epilogue reveal in Dragon Age Inquisition.
I went into this 5 day deliberation just grating my teeth at how pissed Brad was going to make me.
Called it!
The end result aside (some arbitrary list doesn't make me lose sleep): Fuck that nonsense. His arguments are infuriating.
Edit: Oh yeah, Call of Duty on there. For fuck's sake..
Called it!
The end result aside (some arbitrary list doesn't make me lose sleep): Fuck that nonsense. His arguments are infuriating.
Edit: Oh yeah, Call of Duty on there. For fuck's sake..
funkystudent
Member
I wish they didnt kill off the Best 2013 game of 2014 award.
Best Old Game is not a replacement.
Best Old Game is not a replacement.
AnthonypUK
Member
Man jeff missed an opportunity to put a massive hole in brads destiny argument, when he started to bring Diablo 3 comparison's in. Even trying to compare Destiny's shitty loot to Diablo 3 "it has flavour text..unique weapons.." yeah diablo 3 did that all back in 2013, its has far more loot,- with flavour text, far more interesting loot, actual full unique item sets that change how your character is played.
And he kept repeating "the only thing wrong is people want more of it" Alex blew holes in that argument too . having some modifers change in nightfall and weekly strikes donest wipe out all the horrible press quare for dinklebot protection dross i had to sit through to get to 18
And he kept repeating "the only thing wrong is people want more of it" Alex blew holes in that argument too . having some modifers change in nightfall and weekly strikes donest wipe out all the horrible press quare for dinklebot protection dross i had to sit through to get to 18
Tainted
Member
Yep, they were bad arguments but the main problem is less with Brad but the others for not challenging him on them as you said. If Jeff had been more anti-Destiny (which he should have been), he could have easily ripped that game to shreds and it would have got nowhere near the top 10. It was only really Alex opposing him but Jeff with his massive backflip confirmed its spot
"Theres no way the runner up of most disappointing game for 2014 can make it into the top 10 list"
Couple of hours later...
"Destiny is better than half the games left on this list"
*Sigh*
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
Problem is that Jeff did not like enough of the others that are in contention to fight for them.
call_kotaku
Member
The thing about the Destiny fanbase is that I've never seen a group of people need their experience validated so badly, I think it's because they need to convince themselves that it somehow what they invested in it wasn't a complete waste of time. Brad seems oblivious to the fact that what he's describing is a skinner box and not much else, and that isn't an argument for a good game, much less a game on a GOTY list.
Everyone on the panel agreed that Brad enjoyed his time with it and that was okay, but for Brad it wasn't enough, it all had to mean something.
Everyone on the panel agreed that Brad enjoyed his time with it and that was okay, but for Brad it wasn't enough, it all had to mean something.
Not sure what you're trying to say with that link. I know Jeff gave it a bad score, the game wasn't looking too hot back then but you could tell from the tone of his review that he had already decided he didn't like the game before playing it.
However, the game is completely fixed now and has loads more free additional content yet they continue to dismiss it as broken or a mess despite it being one of the best games of the year.
benicillin
Banned
I am so tired of people talking down to anyone who really enjoys Destiny. It's fine if you didn't like it or it didn't live up to the initial hype for a lot of people, but that doesn't somehow invalidate the fact that a lot of people (myself included) genuinely enjoy the game.