Your Game of the Year - 2010

Even though 2010 is quite done yet and there are still two big name releases left (Call of Duty:Black Ops and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood), I'm curious as to see what all of you consider "Game of the Year" material, if only on a personal level.

For me, it's an easy choice. It has to be Deadly Premonition.

There are a lot of metrics by which one can judge a game, and while Deadly Premonition fails on most of them, no other game this year, and ever perhaps, has had as large an impact on me. Halo: Reach and Castlevania: Lords of Shadows are both technically superior games and fine experiences, but they failed to fully and totally engross me the way Deadly Premonition did, and I guarantee you that I won't be thinking about either of them on an almost daily basis months from now.

And besides, Deadly Premonition gave the world this:



And you just can't compete with that.

So what are your guy's picks? Or will you be holding out for Call of Duty:Black Ops and Assassin's Creed:Brotherhood before you decide?

Honestly, I'd have to wait for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood considering I loved the second game. Although I can pretty much make it my favorite game this year considering I didn't really love any other game. I'm not a HUGE fan of Call of Duty or Halo, although I do play Halo often at my friends and I admit it is a great game, I'm just not into it.

I've had a great time with Halo Reach but I wouldn't give it GOTY.

Mass Effect 2 deserves it much more.

For something that's not a sequel, I'd say Alan Wake.

so... I was saying Little Big Planet 2 but after I posted this I found out it's been delayed into next year -_-. With it now out of the running for this year... of the new games I played I would say it would be Heavy Rain. It was just an awesome experience and should be played by everyone at least once I think.

easy choice for me too, Starcraft 2

Heavy Rain was amazing, but I don't care about overall quality when I choose a game for a title like this.

The game that brought me the most pleasure to play this year was Resonance of Fate, so, regardless of its flaws, or the fact that it's a JRPG, which makes it automatic anathema for official video game reviewers, I gotta go with that one. XD

Did any of you watch the 2010 Video Game Awards, or Inside Gaming Awards? From what i heard, Red Dead: Redemption won a LOT of awards, namely Game of the Year from IG.

I don't put a lot of stock into those. It's really just a marketing gimmick. Fans were supposed to be able to vote but from what I understand, the voting site never worked. So how were these things decided if not by the fans?

I haven't played RDR so I can't really say, but I was hoping Mass Effect 2 would get GOTY.

Yeah, you can't really trust gaming events that receive sponsorship from game development companies. XD

Honestly, you can't even trust online polls of gamers, since it's easy to hack them, or stuff the vote. These contests are all about ego stroking. ^^

I can say this with a more or less bias-free viewpoint, since none of the games I love will EVER be mainstream enough to win awards at any of these shows. XD (Valkyria Chronicles not withstanding)

the only awards that you, as a gamer, should really pay attention to are the AIAS awards and the GDC awards.

AIAS(Academy of Interactive Arts and Science) awards have no sponsorships from development or publishing companies and are not voted on by the general public. Games are chosen mostly on technical merit and pushing the medium forward. Development/publishing companies do, however, have to be part of the AIAS in order to even have their games looked at for an award. Capcom comes to mind as being one of the few that has yet to join(only reason I know this is because when Resident Evil 4 came out, it should have dominated the awards but instead wasn't even nominated for anything).

GDC(Game Developers Conference) awards are, in my opinion, the gaming industry's highest honor. Once again, no sponsorships and no public votes. The only people who vote for the GDC awards are the game developers themselves. It's basically getting recognition from your peers for having done something truly outstanding that year with your game. Could be graphically, with the sound, gameplay mechanics, or just overall.

The only gaming "awards" I care about are the ones from communities that I am already invested it. Hearing and reading various commentators playing so many games through the year, one begins to get curious as to what they though was the best of the bunch. Also, I want to hear what you people think. Hence the inclusion of the word "your" in the the thread title.

I feel like there is an inherent danger in the peer-review awards that you mentioned above, Dr. Tom. Just like the Spike VGA's tend to boil down to which action game made the most money, which open-world game had the fewest glitches, which RPG had the moraliest choices, and which FPS is the brownest, the peer-review awards have a tendency to become, if not now then down the road, very much up their own asses. They become the complete opposite of what is being done in the mainstream just for the sake of it, to the point that "games" such as Flower and The Undergarden get the awards just because they are artsy, regardless of how much game there actually is in them. Eventually you end up with two diometrically opposed award systems that leave a chasm of unrecognizedgames in between them.

I think Mass Effect 2 did end up winning awards at the GDC, but I'm not sure. Either way, it was my GOTY for 2010.