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Rock Paper Shotgun's GOTY 2013 [John Walker responds to your deep concerns]

Sianos

Member
gosh why do these video game journalists always peddle these aaa titles they're so biased moneyhats ughhhh

hey this list of opinions written by game journalists doesn't have [popular aaa title], so hipster with their non-games

It's not even a set in stone list of THE BEST VIDEO GAMES OF 2013: its just pc games that some guys writing for a pc-gaming-centric site enjoyed.

I realize that the two divergent opinions most likely come from different people, but the outlining of hypocrisy still stands.
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
Only game I don't know from that list is Hexcells.

Thanks for alerting me to that game, RPS! Looks like a not-random Minesweeper variant with a hexagonal structure.


Gunpoint and Sir, You are Being Hunted most likely omitted due to being developed by RPS editors (John Walker; Jim Rossignol).

Gunpoint was made by Tom Francis who doesn't work for RPS, he used to work for PC Gamer.
 

Ogimachi

Member
The few that actually listed examples included console-exclusive games. That says it all, really.



John Walker is directly responsible for introducing me to several great modern adventure games which is more than Gies has ever done for anyone.

As for the "clickbait feminist articles", I hope you just have a problem with Walker's articles specifically rather than denying that there's a serious problem in the industry.
Yes, I think his articles are a load of crap. As for listing great games missing the list, Path of Exile, Battlefield 4, Dota 2, Gunpoint and Risk of Rain, to mention a few.
 

traveler

Not Wario
How is Dota 2 a 2012 game? Either you count the year it came out as Dota 1- which is not 2012- or you count the year it went into closed beta- which is not 2012- or you count the year it actually, you know, came out- which is also not 2012. There are any number of years you could reasonably say the game qualified if you're not going to take the most reasonable route and go with the actual release date and 2012 isn't a single one of them. The mind, it boggles.
 

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
That list deserves the doge meme. I mean, wow, so brave. So edgy. So indie.


How is the list even remotely trying to be edgy or brave? What a bizarre reaction, I don't get it all all.

But I shouldn't expect any less from someone who's still posting the doge meme at the end of 2013.
 

Skittles

Member
It's telling that the people complaining about the lack of AAA games have not really said what should even be on this list. Hell, most of the people actually bothering to list alternatives are listing other indie games.
It's still missing the big Indie game releases of the year like dayz, rust, starbound, and shadowrun to name a few. Plus other great titles like gunpoint, shadow warrior, and payday 2
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Yes, I think his articles are a load of crap. As for listing great games missing the list, Path of Exile, Battlefield 4, Dota 2, Gunpoint and Risk of Rain, to mention a few.

Battlefield 4 should no where be on any list. And I say this as a DICE fan. It's a buggy mess even two months later and the design choices they made with assignments and other unlocks mean I can't in good faith even say it's "Game of the Year" material.
 
I've only played Gone Home out of all the games on this list and it's a terrible game imo. It does a few things well but it's such an incredibly overrated game. Didn't enjoy it much.
 
It's still missing the big Indie game releases of the year like dayz, rust, starbound, and shadowrun to name a few. Plus other great titles like gunpoint, shadow warrior, and payday 2

Well, I don't think most of the people complaining had those games in mind. And you kinda proved my point about the only people who are offering alternatives are listing other indie games.
 
Possibly the worst post of the year, imo.

I wanna thank my mother, my brother, and the mighty all father for this recognition.


Such an amazing game, it pains me to see it dismissed by someone who apparently judges every book by its cover.

Also, really happy to see almost no "AAA" garbage titles on there, as those rarely interest me due to oftentimes highly generic gameplay

Well I'm not going to call you an hypocrite, because I'm the same. I don't give shit about video games that look like the Mega Drive could render them in full hd, and have nothing else to them aside from some well done gameplay system.

I have the right to my opinion, and you to yours. GOTY lists shouldn't be called GOTY lists if they only serve to throw attention at obscure games that only do 1 thing well.
 

ArjanN

Member
Even if RPS was probably trying to prove a point by having almost no AAA games on their list, I can't really think of many AAA games that I actually would put on there.

Metro Last Light I guess. Maybe Bioshock Infinite.

dont get the comments about the list, I think it's pretty solid and KR0 is awesome

Yeah, the list is fine.

The funny thing is if you add some of the console exclusives like The Last Of Us, it probably would look very similar to GAF's GOTY list.
 

partyboy

Member
It's still missing the big Indie game releases of the year like dayz, rust, starbound, and shadowrun to name a few. Plus other great titles like gunpoint, shadow warrior, and payday 2

you should email them to let them know they forgot to put payday 2 on -their- list of best games, since obviously that is the only reason why they left it out.
 

epmode

Member
you should email them to let them know they forgot to put payday 2 on -their- list of best games, since obviously that is the only reason why they left it out.

Forced chromatic aberration automatically disqualifies Payday 2.

Even if RPS was probably trying to prove a point by having almost no AAA games on their list, I can't really think of many AAA that I actually would put on there.

Metro Last Light I guess. Maybe Bioshock Infinite.

Yeah, I'm also barely interested in megabudget games these days. Guess I'm just a hipster doofus.
 
Didn't they pick Far Cry 3 last year?

edit: Just checked and they did. So why are we giving importance to what they say?

You really have a problem with the opinions of others. Someone(in your mind)loses credibility because their opinion differs from that of your own. That's um...idk how put it other than to say pretty pathetic :(

Especially when Derrick himself had Far Cry 3 on his list last year as an honorable mention.
 

Skittles

Member
Well, I don't think most of the people complaining had those games in mind. And you kinda proved my point about the only people who are offering alternatives are listing other indie games.
I just listed indies because if they were focusing on that, they missed quite a few huge ones. Even for non-indie there's no dota 2, metro, and arma III.
 
D

Deleted member 1235

Unconfirmed Member
a lot of this list contains games I love (yay don't starve) which makes me want to check out more items on the list.
 

Ogimachi

Member
BF4? Hahahahaahahahahaehahaehahahaha.

You lost all credibility there.
If you say so.
Battlefield 4 should no where be on any list. And I say this as a DICE fan. It's a buggy mess even two months later and the design choices they made with assignments and other unlocks mean I can't in good faith even say it's "Game of the Year" material.
As someone who experienced crashes every time I tried to play in the first week, it works fine for me now.
It's not in my top 10, but the list has 24 games, and that's a big enough list for BF4 to be in. Hell, even Monaco is there.
 

BennyBlanco

aka IMurRIVAL69
To you people whining about hipsters, I'm going to say once again they picked fucking Far Cry 3 last year. That game is as generic, shallow and AAA as it gets. So stop it.

edit: And they picked Skyrim in 2011, one of the worst AAA games of last generation.

.

FC3 and Skyrim were both a fun time.
 
I just listed indies because if they were focusing on that, they missed quite a few huge ones. Even for non-indie there's no dota 2, metro, and arma III.

...and I'm saying my main point was that 90% of the people complaining about there being too many indie games didn't bother to offer alternatives in addition to the moaning. Not saying it's a perfect list or anything.
 
If everyone in this thread who didnt recognise the majority of titles in the list went and read up on them, or - better yet - played some of them, instead of posting inane shit like "hipste choice" this forum would be a significantly better place.
 

Ionic

Member
The only big omissions I'm seeing are Volgarr the Viking and Shadow Warrior but otherwise this list is made up of some of the most enjoyable games I've played this year. And I don't know what big AAA games people expected to see on here (maybe with the exception of Metro). Rome 2? Sim City? CoH2? Over all this year has been pretty painful for AAA PC games, so the list is dominated by where the platform shined brightest which is the indie scene.
 

Derrick01

Banned
The list is pretty represantative of site's editorial quality.

Try harder: The site.

BCI1JXM.gif

Really?

pete_townshend said:
Especially when Derrick himself had Far Cry 3 on his list last year as an honorable mention.

Honorable mention in the worst year of gaming I had ever experienced, meaning it still could not crack my top 10 which I really struggled to make. It was ok for the first few hours but after that the Ubisoft repetitiveness was too much.
 
Careful bro, he might ignore you with extreme prejudice.

a lot of this list contains games I love (yay don't starve) which makes me want to check out more items on the list.

For sure. Teleglitch, Card Hunter and Hexcells now have my attention. I actually own Teleglitch but haven't got around to playing it yet, now it's on the list.
 

Burt

Member
Someone make a better list. I dare you.

What are you going to put on it? Battlefield 4?

There are a few arguable omissions just going from the games' overall reception in the media (Bioshock Infinite, Tomb Raider), but overall, the vast majority of great PC games that came out this year are on this list, and most of them are indies. Omitting 2-3 games that you thought were good in a non-sequential 25 entry list doesn't invalidate it, especially when it comes from a PC and indie-centric site. To say that this list ruins RPS's credibility is a fucking joke and only ruins your own. The Internet has enough people screaming that their opinion is the only one that matters.

If you refuse to try Desktop Dungeons, Card Hunter or Teleglitch, you're only hurting yourself. Even with something like Proteus, you'll never know if you like it until you give it a try.
 

sclpls

Neo Member
List is solid. More importantly, the commentary they provide about their list is really good. I especially enjoyed reading them wax about Spelunky.
 

fresquito

Member
Once I thought GAF was full of hardcore gamers. This thread shows how wrong I was.

So many people in here laughing at games they never heard of before, believing it's a cool thing to do, but only showing their ignorance.
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
It's not in my top 10, but the list has 24 games, and that's a big enough list for BF4 to be in. Hell, even Monaco is there.

Then it's not "Game of the Year," material. Dude.

If you're going to make a list of 25 titles for the year, you might as well include them all.

And since even you admit BF4 is disappointing enough to where it'd be outside the top ten, you can see where I'm going with this. The crashes, the design choices, etc. don't make it a game of the year contender.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Some good stuff on there, but I'm surprised by Kentucky Route Zero. RPS writers usually seem to be big fans of games with lots of mechanics and systems if I remember correctly.

I'll definitely have to check it out now. I had the impression that it was a port of an minimalist iOS adventure game with very little gameplay to speak of.

Everyone vote for it on the Steam Community Choice right now!
 

Opiate

Member
I don't give shit about video games that look like the Mega Drive could render them in full hd, and have nothing else to them aside from some well done gameplay system.

I have the right to my opinion, and you to yours. GOTY lists shouldn't be called GOTY lists if they only serve to throw attention at obscure games that only do 1 thing well.

I see your point, but very few games do many things well simultaneously, and presumably we can agree that game play is the central concern of... a game.

For example, games with very high budgets are not likely to have inventive game play, for obvious reasons. Games with low budgets are not likely to be superficially pretty, also for obvious reasons. In a world governed by economic realities you can't expect any specific game to excel at everything all at once.
 

epmode

Member
Some good stuff on there, but I'm surprised by Kentucky Route Zero. RPS writers usually seem to be big fans of games with lots of mechanics and systems if I remember correctly.

I'll definitely have to check it out now. I had the impression that it was a port of an minimalist iOS adventure game with very little gameplay to speak of.

KRZ is actually a Kickstarter game from before Double Fine Adventure. It was never on iOS.

You're right about it being a minimalist adventure game, though. It's borderline visual novel.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
KRZ is actually a Kickstarter game from before Double Fine Adventure. It was never on iOS.

You're right about it being a minimalist adventure game, though. It's borderline visual novel.

Nothing wrong with that, I suppose. Lots of places gave The Walking Dead GOTY last year and I'd argue that that game falls right into the visual novel category.

I'll definitely give Kentucky a look, then.
 
Once I thought GAF was full of hardcore gamers. This thread shows how wrong I was.

So many people in here laughing at games they never heard of before, believing it's a cool thing to do, but only showing their ignorance.

The only thing I'm laughing at is that list. Platform exclusive GOTY lists look incredibly stupid 9 times out of ten simply because there are usually great games on other platforms as well.

The website actually is pretty interesting. I've already com across a few games that have piqued my interest despite never hearing of them before. Its great there are sites for the smaller games.
 

sclpls

Neo Member
Some good stuff on there, but I'm surprised by Kentucky Route Zero. RPS writers usually seem to be big fans of games with lots of mechanics and systems if I remember correctly.

I'll definitely have to check it out now. I had the impression that it was a port of an minimalist iOS adventure game with very little gameplay to speak of.

Everyone vote for it on the Steam Community Choice right now!

Some of the writers state that they were surprised about picking it as well, but that at the end of the year the game still stuck with them. I can certainly vouch for that happening to me as well. It is a simple and elegant game with an incredible presentation.
 

fresquito

Member
The only thing I'm laughing at is that list. Platform exclusive GOTY lists look incredibly stupid 9 times out of ten simply because there are usually great games on other platforms as well.
I'm pretty sure the people at RPS think there're games from other platforms worth being GOTY. PC games. But this is the RPS (the site) GOTY list, which means the GOTY list for PC gaming by RPS standards. If's easy to understand. I don't get why so many people get hurt to see a list where there's no TLoU or GTAV.
 
D

Deleted member 1235

Unconfirmed Member
Careful bro, he might ignore you with extreme prejudice.



For sure. Teleglitch, Card Hunter and Hexcells now have my attention. I actually own Teleglitch but haven't got around to playing it yet, now it's on the list.

looked at hexcells, but that is literally minesweeper with hexagons.

I already can play minesweeper for windows 8 (which has an awesome adventure mode)

teleglitch looks like my kind of game though.
 

epmode

Member
looked at hexcells, but that is literally minesweeper with hexagons.

The first level or two, sure. Then it starts adding in the Picross elements. It's a great game, not jokes.

(Minesweeper is kind of a shitty game because 100% guesses are occasionally required. Doesn't happen in Hexcells. Of course, this requires the levels to be hand-crafted so we have to live with the ~60 that ship with the two games)
 

traveler

Not Wario
Why are people complaining about this list? What is missing that you think should be on there? The only game missing I think is Dota 2.

Which is a huge omission, as it's arguably the best game of all time. I get these other console centric sites avoiding it. But RPS is a PC site, and this is a list of 25 games, not 10. Not even a mention of it? I guess fair's fair if they don't like it. But it just strikes me as odd that there's no discussion on it anywhere.
 

epmode

Member
Which is a huge omission, as it's arguably the best game of all time. I get these other console centric sites avoiding it. But RPS is a PC site, and this is a list of 25 games, not 10. Not even a mention of it? I guess fair's fair if they don't like it. But it just strikes me as odd that there's no discussion on it anywhere.

I don't think any of the main RPS writers play Dota so that would explain why it's missing.

It'd be nice to see them bring on a MOBA-specific writer, though.
 
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