Let's pick-apart people's GOTYs :)

[trjp]

Jeez, Mohorovic. Take a fucking Ambien.

On the bright side - he could cook some cool dishes on that shit...

http://www.imposemagazine.com/bytes/...-kiwi-skyr-pie

My other-half used Zolpidem (the 'drug' name for Ambien) for a while and it's just weird - she appears completely awake/can do things she cannot do as a rule but she's asleep in cognitive terms (remembers nothing the next day at all - moreso even than being REALLY pissed).

We created the immortal snack which is Marinated Anchovies, Cream Cheese and Chilli Jam on Bacon Crisps - try it, it rocks! :)

[internetonsetadd]

she... can do things she cannot do as a rule

We didn't need to know that.

[trjp]

We didn't need to know that.

Cook without burning stuff ....... ;)

[Unaco]

I assumed it was things like flying. Or walking through walls. Travelling without moving, perhaps.

[Velko]

Well this thread went pretty much as I expected judging by the title, except with a little more drug talk.

[Kadayi]

He's like the Jesus of gaming. He suffers for all of us.

*chortles*

[trjp]

I assumed it was things like flying. Or walking through walls. Travelling without moving, perhaps.

If you woke up every day having done things like written code/text, composed music, cooked food etc. - but you have NO memory of doing it or how you do it - you'd probably class that as "Travelling without Moving" I reckon :)

I have no idea what they think that drug does for people but it's not good...

[trjp]

Well this thread went pretty much as I expected judging by the title, except with a little more drug talk.

It's still open to your constructive input rather than just snidey childish shite ;)

[Aphyd]

FTL was well on its way to being my "just one more go" GOTY, but a simple mistake in naming difficulty levels (normal my ass!) made me chuck it in frustration at being incapable of forming a strategy against the final (2nd incarnation) boss. Great game and I hate it and won't play it any more. :P

Far Cry 3 appealed to my inner collectible OCD with repetitive but ridiculously fun gameplay. I can understand why it got quite a mixed reaction but it suited me just great. I hated Far Cry 2 because of the damned respawns!

I wanted to like Dishonored but concluded that stealth games just aren't for me. That feeling of impending discovery eats away at my soul. Now I'm watching Jesse's Let's Play for stress-free enjoyment of the remainder of the game. (Also the only way I can enjoy the Dead Space series.)

GOTY 2012, then, is a wildcard... modded Skyrim! No, it counts! Some really great mods matured in 2012 (I have 20-odd installed) and refreshed my playing experience for another 70 hours on top of the 100 odd I put in last year. Yes, it's still a deeply flawed RPG. The story is still crap and the combat is still clunky, but damnit there's something about waddling around that world white knighting everything in sight that puts me in a happy place. :D

[Kadayi]

It's still open to your constructive input rather than just snidey childish shite ;)

*rings the hospital to arrange a rib transplant*

[Jockie]

My vote goes for Dishonored, the design document is like a checklist of things that should make an awesome game - steampunk, Deus Ex/Thief style action, with Bioshock's power/weapon combinations taken further. But I forget whether there was even a narrative in there, something about some magic dude and killing some guys. I struggle to actually pinpoint why I didn't particularly like the game and when I read the loving essays of others about it, it makes me want to go back and play it again. But I kind of just found myself not particularly caring as I milled about, killing lots of people, using traps and various combinations that brought a brief chuckle.

Maybe I should have stealthed my way through it, but I struggle to see the point of hiding for everything and sneaking about, taking 5 minutes to cross an area that you could quite easily clear in about 12 seconds. Maybe if the city wasn't a squalid shithole full of extremely unsympathetic types I could've cared a bit more.

[Lambchops]

I usually try to be nice (or at least balanced) about things but, sod it, why not take an opportunity to be nit picky. If nit picky means being rather inarticulate about why I dislike things. In fact all I can be articulate about it that demos should make a comeback. I don't know my way around piracy and can't be arsed trying to do it just to try a game out, particularly when I'm living under someone else's roof and at least have the good graces not to commit minor crimes on their internet connection!

So here goes. I'm not even going to allow a smidgen of positivity!:

Dark Souls

Should have had a demo. Even if it was just the tutorial bit because I never even completed that. Was it too hard? Yes! It bloody well was. Could I have learned how to get better. Almost certainly. Why the fuck would I want to though when I know that I'm going to have to wade through a dull corridor with dull fucking generic enemies for the xth time just to get a smidgen better and even then a slight lapse in concentration could fuck me over and subject me to that tedium once again? I prefer it when difficult games threw me right back into the action rather than being forced to repeat the same old section again although I can see [sop to other's tastes redacted] and I did [praise of mechanic removed] but the thought of trudging through even an hour more of that shite in a thoroughly drab [qualifier that it might get better expunged] environment had me reaching for the uninstall button quicker than you could say "You have died."

Hotline Miami

Should have had a demo. While I [note that there was no crashes stricken from record], I just found the whole thing a bit . . . well . . . dull. Maybe I'm just not inventive enough in my attempts to kill these guys that I had to kill for, some reason or other but I just found it an exercise in throwing something at someone then kicking them while they were done, rinse and repeat ad nauseum. It just wasn't compelling in the slightest. I'd complain about the violence but that would make me a touch hypocritical having enjoyed some of the GTA games. I can't really explain this one it just didn't sit well with me. Though [praise of soundtrack muted].

1000 Amps

Curse you John for persuading me to buy this (it does have a demo so it's my own bloody fault for listening). It is [praise of concept and art style darkened out] but it's let down by some baffling design decisions and loose controls. From the annoying enemies that were nigh on impossible to avoid to the terrible idea of having areas where if you messed up the platforming (which, due to the aforementioned loose controls was all too easy to do) you'd fall through into another area requiring you to tediously backtrack through several rooms to get back to the puzzle you were actually trying to tackle (so much the same reason I dislike Dark Souls except at least [favourable comparison to Dark Souls scribbled out]), which clearly was great fucking fun. Except, no wait, it wasn't.

[HappyStreet]

Mark of the ninja was my GOTY. Guess i just put a lot of emphasis on mechanics and gameplay.

[Kadayi]

My vote goes for Dishonored, the design document is like a checklist of things that should make an awesome game - steampunk, Deus Ex/Thief style action, with Bioshock's power/weapon combinations taken further. But I forget whether there was even a narrative in there, something about some magic dude and killing some guys. I struggle to actually pinpoint why I didn't particularly like the game and when I read the loving essays of others about it, it makes me want to go back and play it again. But I kind of just found myself not particularly caring as I milled about, killing lots of people, using traps and various combinations that brought a brief chuckle.

Seconded. For all the hype and build up I found Dishonored rather uneven in terms of the game play and kind of shallow and soulless to put it bluntly (bar Emily none of the characters were particularly likable in truth). Bit of Deus Ex, bit of Bioshock, bit of half-life but no real passion to it at the end of the day. Everything was serviceable down to the ad-nauseum repetition of the limited amount of art work the developers made for the game, and the predictable nature of the challenge. Certainly a game to be played if nothing more than to enjoy the mechanics, but not one I feel inclined to replay or revisit in truth.

[c-Row]

Mohorovicic, but which was YOUR favourite?

Most of this year's candidates probably had been in development for more than two years, so I guess none.


;)

[trjp]

1000 Amps

Curse you John for persuading me to buy this (it does have a demo so it's my own bloody fault for listening). It is [praise of concept and art style darkened out] but it's let down by some baffling design decisions and loose controls. From the annoying enemies that were nigh on impossible to avoid to the terrible idea of having areas where if you messed up the platforming (which, due to the aforementioned loose controls was all too easy to do) you'd fall through into another area requiring you to tediously backtrack through several rooms to get back to the puzzle you were actually trying to tackle (so much the same reason I dislike Dark Souls except at least [favourable comparison to Dark Souls scribbled out]), which clearly was great fucking fun. Except, no wait, it wasn't.

Funny you should mention 1000 Amps, it's in my own shortlist of 2012 possibles BUT I did run into it's 2 biggest issues

1 - being Flash, saves are fragile things and performance can be crap
2 - after a while you get utterly and totally lost - and the map (patched in later) isn't helpful

The developer recently re-released the game rewritten into a 'proper language' tho - so I decided to give it a 2nd run. You have to start from scratch (saves not being compatible even if you still have one) but there is some good news in that

1 - saves are stable and performance is fine
2 - there's a new map which is - well - not really much better, sadly...

You're still stuck with a game played in a window the size of a postage stamp too - you can go fullscreen but it's a postage stamp on a black background. I know showing more of the world would make it easier but people coming in (esp if you have a 1920x1080 or bigger screen) will think you're some sort of voyeur ;)

I'm sure some of the rooms are actually harder than before too (the jump-teleport stuff esp.) - I got through about 33% of the game before hitting anything hard the last time - this time I'm hitting stuff I've not seen before which is bloody hard and I'm not even at 20%!!

Overall I still reckon it stands as one of the year's better efforts - it's true to it's format of minimalistic Metroid - it's charmingly original in presentation and the developer went to the trouble of COMPLETELY rewriting it, which deserves some kudos.

It's not GOTY material anyway is it tho? It's just not quite 'BOOOM!" enough for that sort of an award?

That said, my front runners atm are Drox Operative or Waveform so...

[agentorange]

Seconded. For all the hype and build up I found Dishonored rather uneven in terms of the game play and kind of shallow and soulless to put it bluntly (bar Emily none of the characters were particularly likable in truth).

The story centers on back stabbing, incestuous, power hungry nobles, I should hope that you didn't find most of them "likeable". Plenty of flaws in the game, but I fail to see how not having every character be a virtuous soul could be used as a slight against that game.

[The JG Man]

Borderlands 2 - Whilst it is mechanically a lot tighter and in many respects better than the original, I found its lasting appeal to be minimal. Everything seemed to be amped up, from story to characters, humour, 'amounts' of guns, but in doing so I think broke the fragile balance the first had well. A lot of the locales were instantly forgettable or just plain not fun to navigate and I found the variety in weapons to be shallow, made up for only in quantity. Not to say it wasn't fun, but it just lacked something special the first had. I also really missed the dust bowl.

Mass Effect 3 - putting aside its redeeming co-op, the campaign had some really iffy moments. The beginning felt really ham-fisted and the less said about the ending the better. The gameplay was probably the best it's been, but the reduction in conversation options and the lack of any real meaningful choice (binary, previous ones making minimal or out-right no impact and just no lasting impact) really brought it down. Some good set-pieces though.

PlanetSide 2 - The complete lack of tutorial and poor optimisation means it can take ages for the game to maybe make sense to you, in between its highly questionable running. The lack of a substantial meta-game means actions have no real purpose, having to accept that to maintain interest. The F2P element is mostly done well, although some items are over-priced and not balanced amazingly well.

I think they were the biggest titles I played this year that could be considered GOTY worthy.

Now with that in mind, I'd like to see if people could do it to Super Hexagon.

[Voon]

Dayum. A lotta games this year and so far, most of the late-year releases have had me impressed. I'll bite.

Dishonored
While not up to my expectations, it's much, much better compared to the other releases this year. I always thought that I would play as a political assassin, going through missions relying purely on stealth. Sorta like Hitman with a steampunk setting in first-person. What I got is magical powers and a short revenge quest. Not that I'm complaining about the magical powers, really. It's a welcoming addition to the game. The problem is that the game felt that it could be longer, not on playtime but levels, missions. I felt that the devs need to put some more meat into this game to be truly amazing. That said, Arkane really did manage to do most of whatever they planned for this game and it works.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Sure it has some design hiccups and shortcomings here and there, especially in the management part of the game but, when I think of XCOM, I think of it's unforgiving combat situations that I need to be extremely careful when I order my squad around. One bad move, there's a chance for even a Sectoid to take out my prized unit with a critical hit or get blown up by a burning vehicle set to explode in the next turn. But, I also have a chance to turn it around. I once had this Assault unit, only two HP remaining, I ordered her to stay inside the building when three Floaters try to take her out. I wouldn't take any chances like always do in situations like this, so once a Floater went inside, *BOOM!* Shotgun to the face. Dead. Two more, still outside and they're not coming in. I let her get closer, using the backdoor and two of them just right at the back. Run&Gun and then, another one dead. She hides at the back of a dumpster and this may be a better chance for the last Floater to take her out. "That's it," I thought. "She's finished." Then, it just went to overwatch. With her skill, Lighting Reflexes, that Floater is just good as dead. She dashed up to it and let it eat pellets. Dead. Three casualties. 10 dead aliens. Mission accomplished. This is why I love XCOM.

Sleeping Dogs

There's something that makes me feel that this game is better than GTA. The engine? Nope. The story? Hah! The location? Maybe. But really, it's the combat. I have never played a game that allows me to live my badass Kung Fu fantasies in a beautifully realized Hong Kong and it has done pretty well, so far. Not the best of this year but if anything that keeps me going back to it, it's the combat. Nothing else.

[Mohorovicic]

I'm just amazed at the amount of money spent on games he hated. Might be time for a new hobby- that's a lot of hours and a lot of currency.

*chortles*