2012 Game of the Year Nominations Thread

Pics or GTFO.

(Feel free to crib images from the "I hate that guy" thread.)

But if you had played it with a controller, it might be your number one pick.

I HAVE played it with a Controller. I went back to mouse and keyboard when that mod was released, haven't looked back since. ME3 gets no1 for its "body of work" as much as its inherent, stand-alone qualities.
(Countdown to the comment YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG in 3...2...1...)

Sorry I am late...

Hammett, you are doing it wrong!

:D

1. Planetside2
2, and 3: Tribes: Ascend

Planetside2, This is my new love, had to edit the post to include it. I'll still give tribes 2 the 2 votes for being my mainstay throughout the year.

Out of all the games released this year that I continue to play regularly. Tribes: Ascend wins. The rest were good, but not near the level and staying power that Tribes has had for me. It's also free to play.

Guild wars 2, Torchlight 2, and Natural Selection 2 all get honorable mention. None of them deserve to win, in my book, asTribes does. Go Tribes!

Buying the game for another platform just so you can vote it as your 2012 GOTY. Now that's dedication. Weird, but dedication.

I have Dark Souls on PC and only PC so suck my nuts

This is probably true.

Really? For me, GOTY's always been 'Game of this year'.

It's not as if 2012's winner is automatically better than 2011's, or 2005's for that matter.

If you played it this year, it was a 'Game of this year.' In terms of a forum, "Game people enjoyed the most this year" does seem more interesting than "Best game released this year." If I played more League of Legends this year than almost any other game (and I did, as did many others here) why shouldn't it be one of my Games of 2012?

Well, now I'll be sure to save my Dark Souls purchase for January so we can have this discussion all over again in 2013.

Because then Star Control 2 is GOTY every year forever and that would be boring. This is not 'Nam, there are rules.

It would be your GOTY every year, but it wouldn't win for the whole forum. And if you cared about having your vote matter, you probably wouldn't vote for it yourself.

Well, if you allowed things like League of Legends and Dota, or WoW (not currently but in the past) you'd get several multiyear repeats I think.

Yes, that's what we need, more tactical voting!

Also, thanks to Steam sales a lot of people don't buy many PC games at release, and games that come out near the end of the year get screwed in the voting.

I thought gamers loved tactics.

1) I'm not sure that's a bad thing if those are really the games that made the biggest impressions on people that year. Just because someone played a lot of League of Legends or whatever, doesn't mean they'd consider it game of the year over something they played for a few hours but that left a strong impression (say, Walking Dead).
2) WoW already gets to be included in the voting by releasing an expansion almost every year. League of Legends doesn't have formal expansions, but it does get updates on a regular basis and now significant updates a couple times a year.

We like calling it strategy.

I've already ruled that Dark Souls is eligible and stated why. I've also changed the first post to reflect that ruling.

Really? I think that 2011 has been the best year in a long while. If it was wine I would declare it a vintage. 2012 has been OK, but 2011 was so great that there are still games from that year on my 'to get' list, while I worked through most of what I wanted out of 2012. Obvious pick for 2011? Dark Souls twice?

On the other hand, games that come out at the start of the year tend to get forgotten by the time GOTY nominations roll around as people have stronger memories of games they've played more recently.

Huh, I feel totally the opposite. I played Skyrim, Portal 2, and Dark Souls in 2011 and was pretty much good. Shogun 2 and Civ 5 were good, but I didn't spend that much time with them. I'd like to get to Anno 2070 at some point, but that's about it. 2012 was at least as good.

Is he nominating a text adventure?

REPORTED.

Reported

I'm pretty sure that isn't actually a game.

Rage, Rage against the dying of the Mowella.

For. I meant "for."

1. XCOM: Enemy Unknown
2. Journey
3. The Walking Dead*

I was going to say Torchlight 2, Mark of the Ninja, or maybe The Unfinished Swan as number 2, but last weekend I watched someone play through Journey again. When I started working in games, I thought it was inevitable that they'd gradually evolve to where your emotional involvement with a game would be just as valued as the mechanics. Journey does that through the anonymous multiplayer mechanic and that ending. Walking Dead managed to do it with dialogue trees and cut-scenes.

*(I kind of worked on the beginning of the game, but it's not cheesy for me to vote for it since everything changed dramatically after I left).

1. Far Cry 3
2. XCOM: Enemy Unknown
3. The Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition

If you Dark Souls nutbars can re-nominate the PC version, I can re-nominate the 360 version of The Witcher 2.

I don't buy many games on release, so I have a hard time coming up with 3 games to nominate. I did pre-order Guild Wars 2 and haven't regretted it at all. We also traded in our second copy of Skyrim for Kingdom of Amalur, and while I didn't finish it I got a good 40 hours of fun out of it. I don't think I'd list it as a GotY though. So for me it's:

1. Guild Wars 2

1. Dark Souls
2. World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria
3. Legend of Grimrock

Whoa, FC3 makes Keil's #1? Now I have to play it.

Same.

Is it too late to edit one of my votes back on page 1? I edited one of my votes on page 1. I just finished Dishonored and swapped it in X-Com's place. Tough call, but I'm super impressed with Dishonored's level design.

Absolutely. I haven't even announced the date that nominations will close. Personally, I'm thinking of trying to find a place for Eador in my top 3.

1. Crusader Kings II by the simple metric of "number of hours poured into it spent relentlessly breeding 14th-century European nobility to produce Ireland's Kwisatz Haderach".

2. XCOM because it took all my naive expectations and then exceeded them. Also shooting sectoids never seems to get old, somehow.

3. Mass Effect 3 despite the ending reducing me to a frothing nerd rage

Runner up: The Secret World, for doing a "classless" system in a way that appealed to my fickle heart, and for sarcastic mummies in silk suits.

Might want to remove the ME3 spoiler, Bleaktea.

Hm, didn't think of that as too revelatory - but you're right, can't be too cautious. It's gone!

See, if you had said "That's not a spoiler. Fuck you!" you could have had a like.

See, I gave him a like for being a reasonable and responsible poster. This makes my like a rare and wonderful thing. Treasure it always Bleaktea! ;-)