Giant Bomb's Game of the Year Thread: Skyrim? Skyrim? Skyrim? Skyrim? Skylanders!

It's these people making a big list and putting a game at the top of it. I think their reviews have a greater sense of consumer advocacy or whatever to them, or at least they try to write them that way, while GOTYs talk about what games they overall liked the most.

Sure, you can take them as endorsements or purchasing advice, but you have to recognise that these are not opinions that are created in a vacumn; they're affected by the people that they are and the games that they enjoy.
 
In what way are their reviews created in a vacuum?

In fact, consider the reviews have bylines, GotY is even more the collective voice of GiantBomb than anything else is.
 
I'm not saying their games are totally made in a vacumn, but they do attempt to keep their overt personal likes and dislikes out of it.

Sure, GOTY is obviously the collective voice of Giantbomb. But ultimately, as a personality driven site, their more general content is designed to be, well, driven by personality.

Basically what I'm saying is that I think of GB as a slightly less argumentive GAF thread with more video capabilities.
 
Pretty sure they all played quite a lot of it - pretty sure Jeff and Vinny finished it as well as Ryan, and Brad had played some as well. Can't remember the podcasts specifically where those were all discussed as it was spread out over last year.

I only asked about Bayonetta as someone mentioned something about it in a different thread I believe and wanted to verify.

I'm pretty sure even the ones who played it only ran thru it once on Normal and barely scratched the surface of what makes it the best action game of any year.
 
And this is where I'm going to fundamentally disagree. I played Witcher 2 this year on near ultra settings. I've been playing Skyrim on the highest settings on my PC with only one CTD in 65 hours or so because a background program loaded mid-game.

I spent the first two hours with my first explerience with SR3 PC experimenting because the game crashed my PC in the first 15 minutes of starting. I was getting sub 30 FPS in DX10. Even on low settings in DX10, FPS would dip so low to the point where it was nearly like watching a snap shot. Game works great in DX9 on ultra settings. I'm completely retarded when it comes to PC gaming so I'm sure Dennis is going to show up to laugh at my ATI 5870 laptop that I paid $1,200 for last October and tell me I'm trying to play a PC game on an Atari 2600 graphics chip, but my uneducated point stands.

I loved that one of their best trends of the year was better PC ports of console games. Followed by discussion of how shitty PC ports of console games have been in the past. One of the arguments against Dead Island was that it was unplayable out of the gate on PC. SR2, Jeff said, was unplayable on his PC. Yet one of Jeff's points was that he played through SR3 on PS3 and 360 and was "fooling around" with the PC version.

Just from osmosis I'm glad that I was gifted the PS3 version of Batman AC, since I've heard grumblings about the PC performance. Let's not pretend that the PS3 version of Skyrim is the worst port in all of gaming history.

And I honestly feel bad for all the people that got swindled on the PS3 version of Skryim to the point where someone should email their state's attorney general. Seriously? No one remembers the Blockbuster no late fees fiasco? But then again how many years has this generation lasted? How many bad PS3 ports of PC games have their been? For that matter, how many bad Bethesda PS3 ports have their been outside of Oblivion that, correct me if I'm wrong, was handled by somone else?

These aren't $600 and $400 machines anymore.

No other GOTY contender has not worked on all 3 platforms (if it was released on all the platforms to begin with). There may have been many bad ps3 ports, but no GOTY nominated has had this problem, you are just throwing out excuses to excuse Bethesda's incompetence. It is fine you may ignore it and go on with your day, but this shit needs to stop and people need to quit rewarding developers awards when they clearly can not make their games correctly. Im sorry, but if Bayonetta was in the GOTY top 3 I would not award it number one for the same reason, skyrim doesn't deserve the award. If a developer can not make their game work on all platforms released, while promising it would, then they don't deserve an award for failing on that promise.
 
It just depends what standard of journalism you hold yourself to. I'm not sure why GOTY awards are not considered purchasing advice. They certainly are for me. I bought Renegade Ops three days ago after hearing them rave about it the entire week.
I still don't think it should be excluded. They've been extremely transparent about the whole thing and I don't think it's fair to remove the game from a GOTY list.

It's a great game and most other outlets recognize this. It's not a conspiracy here.
 
Jeff and Brad barely played the game, going by achievements. Vinny finished it on normal, he tends to finish what he starts, but didn't go back to it. Ryan reviewed it so no surprise he finished it. I only remember Ryan ever talking about it, with Vinny throwing in a bit here and there, but no one really loved it. So yeah was never going to be in top ten.

This year the only thing that really annoyed me was neither Brad nor Patrick playing the Witcher 2 at all. Vinny could not have talked up that game more, and they didn't even touch it.

Jeff played Bayonetta enough to put it in his top ten of that year. And I remember him expressing profuse love for it on the podcast. It was right before GOTY 2010, I believe. I remember Jeff Green was on.

Brad, too, said that he liked it a whole lot but just didn't have time to play it. I remember him saying something like "it's too bad I don't have any time, because if I could play more of this game it might make my top ten," or something to that effect.

I would actually say Ryan, who reviewed the game, liked it the least of the four of them. So, yeah, Bayonetta was loved by Giant Bomb.

It's their relative indifference to Vanquish, the best TPS ever, that is truly troubling.
 
I still don't think it should be excluded. They've been extremely transparent about the whole thing and I don't think it's fair to remove the game from a GOTY list.

It's a great game and most other outlets recognize this. It's not a conspiracy here.

I have no issue with it being included, but if that's the case, it should have been reviewed too. If their opinion can't be trusted in a review, it shouldn't be trusted now. They decided they couldn't put out an unbiased review presumably, they know better than anyone if their relationship with the studio clouds their opinion.
 
I have no issue with it being included, but if that's the case, it should have been reviewed too. If their opinion can't be trusted in a review, it shouldn't be trusted now. They decided they couldn't put out an unbiased review presumably, they know better than anyone if their relationship with the studio clouds their opinion.
Regardless, their opinion on the game is right in line with many other sites, so it's hard to call foul.
 
Over/under on Bradley Skyrimaker hating on innocent yet *passionate* gaffers during the podcast today :P

I can't believe they put out like 10 hours of podcast last week and here I am wanting my next Tuesday fix. If this isn't addiction I don't know what is

Did they do a 2011 Prediction show last year? Maybe I should seek that out while I wait... If they did do one I bet Vinny nailed everything. He's got his finger on the pulse of this industry!
 
Well, not everyone posting in this thread was that innocent. There were people saying they hate Brad, one guy saying he should be fired. I mean, most people aren't doing that, but they generally fixate on the crazies.
 
I have no issue with it being included, but if that's the case, it should have been reviewed too. If their opinion can't be trusted in a review, it shouldn't be trusted now. They decided they couldn't put out an unbiased review presumably, they know better than anyone if their relationship with the studio clouds their opinion.

Their reasoning behind it was that a review is considered a purchase recommendation, while the GOTY list is just an opinion piece. I think it's a reasonable place to draw the line and appreciate that they were up front about it.

I personally didn't care for the game as much as they did, but if they thought it belonged on the list, I'm OK with it on the list.

Well, not everyone posting in this thread was that innocent. There were people saying they hate Brad, one guy saying he should be fired. I mean, most people aren't doing that, but they generally fixate on the crazies.

yeah, that guy was definitely over the line. Didn't he even edit his post and acknowledge that he took it too far?
 
No other GOTY contender has not worked on all 3 platforms (if it was released on all the platforms to begin with). There may have been many bad ps3 ports, but no GOTY nominated has had this problem, you are just throwing out excuses to excuse Bethesda's incompetence. It is fine you may ignore it and go on with your day, but this shit needs to stop and people need to quit rewarding developers awards when they clearly can not make their games correctly. Im sorry, but if Bayonetta was in the GOTY top 3 I would not award it number one for the same reason, skyrim doesn't deserve the award. If a developer can not make their game work on all platforms released, while promising it would, then they don't deserve an award for failing on that promise.
I don't think anyone here is excusing Bethesda's incompetence.

People aren't saying that the fact the 360 and PC versions of Skyrim are great makes up for the poorness of the PS3 port. It's more like if you take out the PS3 version from the picture entirely the other 2 are some of the best games this year. That's exactly what Giant Bomb did.

You probably think I have rewarded Bethesda's incompetence by recommending Skyrim, same with everybody else saying buy the 360/PC versions. It's a great game that deserves to be played.
 
Well, not everyone posting in this thread was that innocent. There were people saying they hate Brad, one guy saying he should be fired. I mean, most people aren't doing that, but they generally fixate on the crazies.
Someone went that far? Seriously?

It's an opinion.

Hell, I don't even agree with all the Saint's Row love simply because it's a technical piece of shit that feels horrible to play (despite the fact that they do so much right otherwise).

Brad is an awesome part of the team. I can't imagine why people would want to see him go over something this stupid.
 
I don't understand Ryan's primary knock against Saint's Row.

Everything in it was so good that he finished everything and wanted way more of it. That is, apparently, a bad thing.
 
There's a difference between wanting more, and not feeling like you got a complete experience.
He said they finished making it before he finished playing it, I don't think he just means he wants more of it.

Saying that, I finished the second end earlier, it took 12:40 to finish every mainline mission, I think that's fine.
 
I don't think anyone here is excusing Bethesda's incompetence.

People aren't saying that the fact the 360 and PC versions of Skyrim are great makes up for the poorness of the PS3 port. It's more like if you take out the PS3 version from the picture entirely the other 2 are some of the best games this year. That's exactly what Giant Bomb did.

You probably think I have rewarded Bethesda's incompetence by recommending Skyrim, same with everybody else saying buy the 360/PC versions. It's a great game that deserves to be played.

Yeah it does (I am not a skyrim hater, just pointing out a very big flaw), only if you have 2 other platforms and are not only stuck with a ps3. That is the problem, there are plenty of ps3 only users that can not play the game to its fullest potential. Same with Bayonetta. Its not right to reward a developer that just doesn't care about a good portion of their audience. Not to mention they still have not come out and said when, and how, they are going to fix the ps3 problem. The problem with your scenario is the fact that a portion of their audience got a shoddy port, can not play the game fully without having to jump through hoops, and may not have another avenue to play the game. I use to only be a ps3 owner until I got fed up with the shoddy ports and decided to trade my ps3 in for an xbox and just comply with the bullshit developers are providing to the ps3 audience. I am not a rich gamer, I can not afford all three platforms. Its great that a lot of people can, but when you reward a developer your top nomination of the year and a good portion of bethesda's audience can not play that game fully, then I see a big problem with how ethical this industry has become, and see a big problem with how much shit gamers are willing to take before they say enough is enough.

And yes by giving the game the award they forgave them outright, that's like giving an super bowl ring to only the first string of the team, but not the second or third that did not play. Not the best analogy, but you know what I mean.

To be honest I would have rathered them delay the game and fix the problem before ever releasing it on ps3, would it have sucked? Sure it would have, but at least ps3 only owners would have had a game that could be played fully and enjoyable. Instead that got a crappy port that barely works.
 
Picking MK for anything and then not even considering KOFXIII or MvC3 is just complete insanity. Of course, it's not about me. It's what they like.

It was just so weird to see 5 people all pick games I would never put in a GOTY list, and completely ignore games that I thought were brilliant.

IMO MvC3 gets disqualified from every category because Capcom double dipped in the same year. They just proved it wasn't good enough, and then UMvC3 loses marks because its just the same game with some more characters and balance tweaking.

Also, they didn't have MK almost make the top 10 (and also be a top 3 in best story) by the quality of it's competitive scene. Its about the single player content they put in and the fact that it has a legitimately good/entertaining story.
 
"Hardcore" has completely lost its meaning during this generation. It's not even worth talking about anymore. :p
When did it go from "person that has had a console since childhood, is not fickle and will likely stick around long enough to indoctrinate his children into the hobby" to "hardcore, like hardcore porn"?
 
Yeah it does (I am not a skyrim hater, just pointing out a very big flaw), only if you have 2 other platforms and are not only stuck with a ps3. That is the problem, there are plenty of ps3 only users that can not play the game to its fullest potential. Same with Bayonetta. Its not right to reward a developer that just doesn't care about a good portion of their audience. Not to mention they still have not come out and said when, and how, they are going to fix the ps3 problem. The problem with your scenario is the fact that a portion of their audience got a shoddy port, can not play the game fully without having to jump through hoops, and may not have another avenue to play the game. I use to only be a ps3 owner until I got fed up with the shoddy ports and decided to trade my ps3 in for an xbox and just comply with the bullshit developers are providing to the ps3 audience. I am not a rich gamer, I can not afford all three platforms. Its great that a lot of people can, but when you reward a developer your top nomination of the year and a good portion of bethesda's audience can not play that game fully, then I see a big problem with how ethical this industry has become, and see a big problem with how much shit gamers are willing to take before they say enough is enough.

And yes by giving the game the award they forgave them outright, that's like giving an super bowl ring to only the first string of the team, but not the second or third that did not play. Not the best analogy, but you know what I mean.

To be honest I would have rathered them delay the game and fix the problem before ever releasing it on ps3, would it have sucked? Sure it would have, but at least ps3 only owners would have had a game that could be played fully and enjoyable. Instead that got a crappy port that barely works.

What does any of this have to do with Giantbomb's top 10 games of the year list?
 
Jeff played Bayonetta enough to put it in his top ten of that year. And I remember him expressing profuse love for it on the podcast. It was right before GOTY 2010, I believe. I remember Jeff Green was on.

Profuse love is overstating it, and he seemed to like it more for the crazy factor than for the genre-best mechanics.
 
Profuse love is overstating it, and he seemed to like it more for the crazy factor than for the genre-best mechanics.

I remember somebody (Ryan maybe?) outright saying that people played Bayonetta for the "crazy" rather than the gameplay, which made Bayo-GAF furious.
 
Because giantbomb is a huge outlier, revealing their bias for the game in a year when nobody else thought it was good. It makes them lose all credibility as professional game journalists.
This list was referring to all the accolades Bastion received...

Associated Press – Top 10 Games of the Year
Entertainment Weekly – Best Videogames of 2011
TIME – Top 10 Games of 2011
USA Today – Top 10 Games of 2011
NPR – Ten Best Video Games of 2011
CNN – Top 10 Video Games
Wired – Top 20 Best Games of the Year
Paste Magazine – Game of the Year
Boston Herald – Best Game of 2011
A.V. Club – 10 Best Games of 2011
ScienceFiction.com – Top 10 Best Sci-Fi Video Games of 2011
Spike VGAs – Best Downloadable Game, Best Original Score, Best Song
Inside Gaming Awards – Best Downloadable Game, Best Indie Game, Best Original Score
IGN.com – Best XBLA Game
VentureBeat – Best Indie Games of 2011
Giant Bomb – Best Music, Best Debut Game, Best Downloadable Game, Top 10
TotalBiscuit – #1 Game of 2011
UGO – Best Downloadable Game of the Year
Yahoo – Best Downloadable Game
MSNBC – 5 Great Games for the Art Lover
Game Informer – Best RPG Innovation (The Narrator)
Official Xbox Magazine – Best Music
GameSpot – Song of the Year
Team Xbox – XBLA Game of the Year
Quartertothree – Game of the Year
XBLA Fans – Best Audio, Best Visuals
Xbox 360 Achievements – Best Arcade Game
Rock Paper Shotgun – The Games of Christmas
IndieDB – Worldly Award for Best Gameworld, Players Choice Top 10
HorribleNight – Best Downloadable Game, Best Soundtrack, Indie Developer of the Year
IndieGames.com – Top 10 Indie Games of the Year
The Escapist – 12 Games of Christmas
Reaction Time – Best Downloadable, Best Voice Acting, Best Soundtrack
TrendyGamers – Downloadable GOTY
Gamezebo.com – Best PC Game of 2011
XBLARatings – XBLA Game of the Year
Press X or Die – Game of the Year
Unwinnable.com – Best Surprise Indie Darling
Ripten – Best Downloadable Game, Biggest Surprise
Reviews on the Run – Best Downloadable Game
Capsule Computers – Best Downloadable Game
IndieGameReviewer.com – Best Indie Game of the Year
gamrFeed – Best XBLA Game
Media Kick – Readers Choice, Best Downloadable Game
Kotaku Australia – Readers Choice, Indie Downloadable GOTY
Level Save – Game of the Year Pick
Click Online – Top 7 Pleasant Surprises
Piki Geek – Top 10 Best of the Year
nJoystic – Best Soundtrack
Press2Reset – Best Soundtrack, Best Song
The Sixth Axis – Best Downloadable Game
MiddleEast Gamers – Best Indie Game
Kotaku – Pick, Best Game Music of 2011
GamerCrash – Best Soundtrack
Gamercast – Top Downloadable Game
Bishop’s Gaming World – Best Soundtrack, Top 10 Games of the Year
Tom’s Hardware Turkey – Most Original Game, Best Narrative, Best Original Score


I completely disagree. GiantBomb said Skyrim is the best game released last year. How much more of an endorsement can they possibly give? It's way beyond giving it a 5/5 because it's saying it's better than any 5/5 last year.

GotY awards do attract people to games.

It's GiantBomb's GotY, not Jeff's or Ryan's or anyone else. They decided to put out an institutional opinion.
Except they specifically said during one of the discussion they felt a "top list" was different enough from review that they didn't feel their "bias" was an issue.
 
Except they specifically said during one of the discussion they felt a "top list" was different enough from review that they didn't feel their "bias" was an issue.

That's right as the only thing they are able to control is their intent. They can't dictate how people will use the information they give.

Their intent with reviews is to function as a buyers guide so reviewing Bastion went over the conflict of interest line. Their intent with the game of the year rankings is to enlighten users as to what the GB site personalities thought were their favorite games of the year, therefore Bastion should obviously be included or else the process would be dishonest. Users may use their top 10 lists as a buyers guide, but that is not their intent and if a user wants to use it that way it's up to the user to make their own judgement concerning the validity of Bastion.
 
I remember somebody (Ryan maybe?) outright saying that people played Bayonetta for the "crazy" rather than the gameplay, which made Bayo-GAF furious.

This is true for more than Bayonetta. If you replace "crazy" with some other superficial aesthetic quality("cinematic", "noir", "wackiness", etc) you cover most of why they like the games they do. Which makes their opinion pretty superficial to me. It just becomes more obvious when you throw a beast like Bayonetta into it. Another example of this is Patrick on Catherine.
 
I'm a few days behind listening to the podcasts so I just listened to the "Best Story" deliberations. It's a shame that Ghost Trick didn't even get a mention.
 
It might not have been Game of the Year material, but I'm just astounded that throughout probably 8+ hours of Game of the Year discussion, Little Big Planet 2 wasn't mentioned a single time.

How is that possible? Even if it didn't have legs, it did get 5/5 stars from Giant Bomb, and they talked for a long time about You Don't Know Jack of all things, in multiple categories too!
 
How is that possible? Even if it didn't have legs, it did get 5/5 stars from Giant Bomb, and they talked for a long time about You Don't Know Jack of all things, in multiple categories too!

Don't you talk bad about You Don't Know Jack. I will cut you.

But yes, I don't think anyone actually remembers that LBP2 came out this year.
 
listened to best story and patrick gains some respect for calling out Ryan on La Noire.

That story twist isnt Noire.... its just shit.




And yeah its kind of disappointing for all the "this award is for BEST ____ and not MOST ____" that skyrim basically wins GOTY for having the Most game and not the best game.


Giantbomb GOTY 2011 sure is full of questionable choices but its nice they but these podcasts out there so we know how they made them.... I for one would love to see gametrailers do the same because I dont have any idea what kind of group of people would choice most of there winners each year.
 
listened to best story and patrick gains some respect for calling out Ryan on La Noire.

That story twist isnt Noire.... its just shit.




And yeah its kind of disappointing for all the "this award is for BEST ____ and not MOST ____" that skyrim basically wins GOTY for having the Most game and not the best game.


Giantbomb GOTY 2011 sure is full of questionable choices but its nice they but these podcasts out there so we know how they made them.... I for one would love to see gametrailers do the same because I dont have any idea what kind of group of people would choice most of there winners each year.
Do you listen/watch to GT's podcast, Invisible Walls? They usually explain their decisions for what you see on GT there.
 
What does any of this have to do with Giantbomb's top 10 games of the year list?

Oh I dont know, maybe the fact they gave the most prestigious award to a game that doesn't work on one of the platforms it was intended for. Which makes it not GOTY.

Next year we will give it to game that doesn't even run past the title screen!
 
There's a difference between wanting more, and not feeling like you got a complete experience.
He said they finished making it before he finished playing it, I don't think he just means he wants more of it.

Saying that, I finished the second end earlier, it took 12:40 to finish every mainline mission, I think that's fine.

But nothing he said indicated in any way that he got an incomplete experience. I'm pretty sure he specifically said otherwise. He just wanted to keep playing for as long as possible. When Jeff was saying that SR3 did a good job at having the right number of side activites and not going overboard, Ryan wasn't exactly protesting.

I think 40 hours with a game of that type is pretty significant.
 
But nothing he said indicated in any way that he got an incomplete experience. I'm pretty sure he specifically said otherwise. He just wanted to keep playing for as long as possible. When Jeff was saying that SR3 did a good job at having the right number of side activites and not going overboard, Ryan wasn't exactly protesting.

I think 40 hours with a game of that type is pretty significant.

If he did say otherwise, then my mistake, but I took that comment to mean basically that he wasn't satisfied with the games amount of content generally, if he was then indeed, a bizarre complaint.
 
It might not have been Game of the Year material, but I'm just astounded that throughout probably 8+ hours of Game of the Year discussion, Little Big Planet 2 wasn't mentioned a single time.

How is that possible? Even if it didn't have legs, it did get 5/5 stars from Giant Bomb, and they talked for a long time about You Don't Know Jack of all things, in multiple categories too!
It's a PS3 game.
 
If he did say otherwise, then my mistake, but I took that comment to mean basically that he wasn't satisfied with the games amount of content generally, if he was then indeed, a bizarre complaint.

He did all of the side missions, I think, and put in like 20-30 hours.
 
"Killzone 3, Resistance 3?"

"Eh, scratch those two."

I love the GB guys, though. :p

come to think if it Infamous 2 was mentioned ether as far as I can tell.



Yah know.... I know GB didnt do a best platform exclusive game this year because the 360 didnt have much other then Gears but the ps3 had a pretty decent line up of great exclusive games that where not quite as great as the previous game in the franchise" that probably could have been its own award.
 
I can't believe Brad tried to argue that Renegade Ops isn't shallow. It's fun, the explosions look rad, but it's a shallow arcade experience.

Level-ups and the associated powers did NOT change the way I played in any real sense. The life-based power ups just made me die less. The special weapon power-ups didn't change the way I used those weapons. I just continued to use them when I had them and when an enemy had a lot of health/armor. And the special ability power-up just mildly changes how often you can airstrike or how strong it is. Yes I'm ignoring all the other characters, just like they jokingly advocated.

The upgrade tree only creates the illusion of depth.

All that said, the game is rad, but disposable. Meets my definition of a shallow experience.
 
"Killzone 3, Resistance 3?"

"Eh, scratch those two."

I love the GB guys, though. :p

I think Resistance deserved deserved to be mentioned for Best Graphics (it may have been, I can't quite remember) but Killzone 3 and LBP2 were disappointing to me. You Don't Know Jack was better than either of those games and that was also a PS3 game.
 
Oh I dont know, maybe the fact they gave the most prestigious award to a game that doesn't work on one of the platforms it was intended for. Which makes it not GOTY.

They said (twice, I believe) that the PS3 version isn't included or considered for their choice.
 
I think Resistance deserved deserved to be mentioned for Best Graphics (it may have been, I can't quite remember) but Killzone 3 and LBP2 were disappointing to me. You Don't Know Jack was better than either of those games and that was also a PS3 game.
I think Resistance 3 deserved consideration for a number of categories, but I like that game more than most it seems. I think the competitive MP (post-patch) was much better than a lot of the games they talked about for example, especially stuff like Uncharted 3. I thought Killzone 3 was a fairly good game but it was definitely disappointing in some aspects after the excellent Killzone 2.

I was kind of just remarking on a trend that I noticed in a few of the discussions. There was rarely more than a sentence or two thrown the way of those two games, and while they weren't spectacular by any means I definitely think they deserved more attention than that.

I'm not really complaining though, I don't listen to Giant Bomb because my gaming tastes match up with the GB crew's, I just really like the chemistry and personalities of the guys.
 
The idea they're anti-PS3 is absurd.
I don't think they're anti-PS3, I just don't think they pay as much attention to it since it isn't their console of choice. I think a by-product of that is them giving less attention to PS3 exclusives that aren't "huge" (like Uncharted 3).

I should also say I have no problem with that other than my personal belief that it occasionally causes some of their conversations to seem a bit narrow in focus. Their general disinterest regarding handheld gaming causes similar holes in their discussions from time to time.
 
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