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2011 Game of the Year Media Picks Thread

Durante

Member
Also Durante, I didn't play a spell caster in Dark Souls, but I did in Skyrim. While they be mechanically similar, in Dark Souls I can find an amazing spell early on and have a chance of using it. In Skyrim, I wont even see a spell book for that spell until I spend hours upon hour using the same shitty fireball spell to kite enemies repeatedly. It's a gigantic problem.

That's without mentioning all the other problems many of the quests face, such as the obvious becoming the grand-master of the guild with apprentice level spells and a basic axe. In a game with a real difficulty curve, you have to earn that. Skyrim does not have a difficulty curve. It's just a straight line.

All very valid, non-"whiney" reasons to be less than thrilled about the game being held up by the community as an example of the best the medium can offer.
I actually agree that these are valid concerns about the game. I hate enemy and loot scaling, and it completely ruined Oblivion for me. But I think the way it was implemented in Skyrim is more reserved, and it doesn't have nearly as huge an impact on me as it did in Oblivion. Maybe I'm just not good enough at the game, but playing on master I've entered tons of dungeons that I just wasn't powerful enough to fully clear at the time (without resorting to boring, repetitive and unrealistic cheese tactics). That never happened to me in Oblivion. I agree that no scaling would be better than toned-down scaling, but the way they implemented it in Skyrim is good enough for me to suspend my disbelief.

So in the end, while these are valid concerns, the improvements regarding scaling together with the much more fun combat, infinitely more diverse location design and improved character progression is -- in my opinion -- enough to make good on the unfulfilled promise held by Oblivion, and that in turn is good enough to make it eligible for Game of the Year. Obviously Skyrim has a lot more faults than some other candidates, and I think no one will deny that. But reaching for the moon and only arriving in the Himalayas is still more exciting than going grocery shopping -- even if you manage to do the latter with all the polish and aptitude in the world.
 

mujun

Member
We shouldn't have to trade stability for scale, at least not on the level Bethesda is asking. Other developers have shown that it is possible to release a huge game that isn't broken.

Bethesda is certainly a top shelf developer, but when I look at other developers in their league (like the people at Naughty Dog, or Nintendo, etc.) I can't imagine those studios putting a game out that was so fundamentally broken on one platform especially since the problem was preexisting.

How unstable is it, honestly. Reports seem to differ. The PS3 one is really bad according to reports (not that I've played it myself).

I've put 80+ hours into the 360 version and honestly besides a few little hiccups here and there had next to no problems. Infamous 2 was glitchier for me and it doesn't offer near the same size world or freedom.
 
I've put 80+ hours into the 360 version and honestly besides a few little hiccups here and there had next to no problems. Infamous 2 was glitchier for me and it doesn't offer near the same size world or freedom.

60 hours of Skyrim 360 here and it's had far fewer problems than the other game I'm playing right now, Battlefield 3 (and I've only been playing Conquest mode!).
 

Basch

Member
Poor Skyrim. GOTY awards for a game = years of talk about how it was actually shit. Bethesda better hope it gets dethroned before all's said and done.

Didn't seem to hurt Uncharted 2. Matter of fact, most of these games pale in comparison to UC2.
 

Cartman86

Banned
How unstable is it, honestly. Reports seem to differ. The PS3 one is really bad according to reports (not that I've played it myself).

I've put 80+ hours into the 360 version and honestly besides a few little hiccups here and there had next to no problems. Infamous 2 was glitchier for me and it doesn't offer near the same size world or freedom.

I Have put over 150 hours (30 of those are probably the game sitting on while I do something else) so far into the 360 version with it installed. Textures not loading in properly still happens all the time, but i'll take faster loading any day. I've had scripting issues from hour 40 if I recall. Probably 5 or 6 times something didn't trigger so I have to reload. Had to clear cache once when the framerate went down to single digits too. Probably the buggiest Bethesda game I've had to deal with so far. It's catching up to me!
 
how can a game with Crap gameplay mechanics, horrible animation, bad voice acting and shit ton of bugs be GOTY?

Witcher 2 is getting robbed.
 

mujun

Member
I'm not surprised by any of the games on the list.

Then again I don't think my opinion is gospel and I don't just think the games I bothered to play are worthy.
 

seat

Member
Justin Dennis said:
Skyward Sword also marks a new artistic direction for the series - it’s the first title to use animated cutscenes and full voice-acting to deliver the story.

Do grunts, groans, and sighs now pass for "full voice-acting" these days, or did this writer even play the game? Come to think of it, I assume "animated cutscenes" should refer hand-drawn animation, which SS had none of. Regardless, I fail to see how cutscenes are new to Zelda.
 

AgentP

Thinks mods influence posters politics. Promoted to QAnon Editor.
Crap?

Really? Crap? I know there are better and more polished combat systems out there, but crap? Considering everything that Skyrim is doing?

It does lots of things, just none of them well. I'll take quality over quantity.
 

Noshino

Member
Follow your bliss, but part of me thinks that what Skyrim is aiming to achieve is just lost on some people.

Its not lost, many of us have praised it for the ONE thing that it does

but that's not enough for all the other things that it doesn't do well at all, at least not for many of us.
 

Yagharek

Member
EDGE magazine's 2011 awards are in the latest issue:

Mainstream Game of the Year - The Legend of Zelda:The Skyward Sword (2nd: Dark Souls, 3rd: The Elder Scrolls V:Skyrim)

Rest of the awards for anyone interested:

Mainstream Game of the Year - The Legend of Zelda:The Skyward Sword (2nd: Dark Souls, 3rd: The Elder Scrolls V:Skyrim)

Indie Game of the Year - SpaceChem (2nd: Bastion, 3rd: Triple Town)

Portable Game of the Year - Mario Kart 7 (2nd: Super Mario 3D Land, 3rd: Jetpack Joyride)

Best Online Experience - Dark Souls (2nd: Portal 2, 3rd: Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 3)

Best Visual Design - Uncharted 3 (2nd: Battlefield 3, 3rd: Child of Eden)

Best Audio Design - Portal 2 (2nd: Skyward Sword, 3rd: Dark Souls)

Publisher of the Year - Nintendo (2nd: Ubisoft, 3rd: Bethesda Softworks)

Studio of the Year - Eidos Montreal (2nd: Mojang, 3rd: Firemint)
 
Justin Dennis said:
Western blogs called it creator Shigeru Miyamoto’s “magnum opus” - a tall order, considering 1998’s “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” has topped countless “best of” lists for years. Skyward Sword also marks a new artistic direction for the series - it’s the first title to use animated cutscenes and full voice-acting to deliver the story.
wut?
 

twinturbo2

butthurt Heat fan
No, I haven't played Skyrim, nor do I want to.

Forza 4 is my personal GOTY, with Daytona USA a close second.

More on that once the GAF GOTY post goes up.
 

AgentP

Thinks mods influence posters politics. Promoted to QAnon Editor.
It makes me sad

Dark Souls >>>>> Skyrim

Ya, but Skyrim is huge with lots of quests! Lots of boring quests with yappy lame NPCs! Skyrim is such lowest common denominator WRPG crap. Same thing happened in 2006 with Oblivion. Not even in my top 10 for 2011, but everyone eats it up like McDonald's cheeseburgers.
 

Derrick01

Banned
No Rayman Origins, eh?

Fuck it

I'm sure someone somewhere will give it 1 if a 1998 game and Catherine can win.

I think it's absolutely hilarious that Dark Souls hasn't won yet that I'm aware of. The more that come out and the more it doesn't win just makes all of these rabid fans of the game even angrier.
 

Guevara

Member

Cheech

Member
Ya, but Skyrim is huge with lots of quests! Lots of boring quests with yappy lame NPCs! Skyrim is such lowest common denominator WRPG crap. Same thing happened in 2006 with Oblivion. Not even in my top 10 for 2011, but everyone eats it up like McDonald's cheeseburgers.

Dark Souls is so edgy! So edgy, in fact, that the frame rate puts the PS3 version of Skyrim to shame! So edgy, there is no narrative! So edgy, the game is designed to be difficult for difficulty's sake!

I actually enjoyed Dark Souls, but Skyrim is objectively a better game. I've been playing all flavors of RPG since the early 80s, and Skyrim is the best one I've ever played.
 

Dresden

Member
Dark Souls is so edgy! So edgy, in fact, that the frame rate puts the PS3 version of Skyrim to shame! So edgy, there is no narrative! So edgy, the game is designed to be difficult for difficulty's sake!

I actually enjoyed Dark Souls, but Skyrim is objectively a better game. I've been playing all flavors of RPG since the early 80s, and Skyrim is the best one I've ever played.

Ya, but Skyrim is huge with lots of quests! Lots of boring quests with yappy lame NPCs! Skyrim is such lowest common denominator WRPG crap. Same thing happened in 2006 with Oblivion. Not even in my top 10 for 2011, but everyone eats it up like McDonald's cheeseburgers.

As someone who liked both games (although I prefer Dark Souls by far) these kind of posts are hilarious. One's full of it and the other is full of himself.
 

alphaNoid

Banned
No Deus Ex HR?
LLShC.gif
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
I don't think there are too many people who can/will mount a convincing argument that Skyrim's combat is better than Dark Souls.

Which is a big deal as combat is probably the single most important element in any "adventure" scenario, especially as DS is no slouch in the world/story/atmosphere department.

The real difference maker though is how many people played Skyrim versus Dark Souls... something that was never in doubt as to which side was going to get the advantage.
 

Riposte

Member
the game is designed to be difficult for difficulty's sake!

This sentence doesn't mean anything.

I actually enjoyed Dark Souls, but Skyrim is objectively a better game.

Funny. It is a bigger game, I'll give you that.

I've been playing all flavors of RPG since the early 80s, and Skyrim is the best one I've ever played.

Unfortunately that doesn't help your poor understanding of action games, which is what Dark Souls is and what WRPGs want to be.
 

Derrick01

Banned
I don't think there are too many people who can/will mount a convincing argument that Skyrim's combat is better than Dark Souls.

Which is a big deal as combat is probably the single most important element in any "adventure" scenario, especially as DS is no slouch in the world/story/atmosphere department.

The real difference maker though is how many people played Skyrim versus Dark Souls... something that was never in doubt as to which side was going to get the advantage.

Combat's important to Dark Souls because that's all you do in the game. As for Skyrim it improved over Oblivion which is what I wanted. Yeah it'd be nice to have a Witcher 2 quality combat system but I'll take any upgrade I can get.

I'm still playing both games though it's been about a week since I've forced myself to go back to Dark Souls but in the end I go with what's more fun over what has better x or y. DS is not fun to play.
 
It's a shame that most of the people who played Catherine only cared about the story; it's as if they treat the puzzles as something that was thrown in just to pad the game's length. It's too bad, since it's probably the best puzzle game this gen.
 

Riposte

Member
Combat's important to Dark Souls because that's all you do in the game.

That's "all you do" in most games, especially since combat can mean many things more than swinging a sword when we actually look at it from a mechanical point of view(for example all you do in Tetris is combat). Even in Skyrim combat is the primary activity. What a poorly thought out slight on Dark Souls lol. (For the record the role-playing, meaning manipulating the story with player choice, is utterly mediocre and pretty vapid. Dark Souls, while no New Vegas or Alpha Protocol, at least has small "quests" where you actions can make for surprising results on the lives of characters. What else do you have left? Mining rocks? Boring)

What Dark Souls is lacking versus an Elder Scrolls game is a quest/map structure which is as addictive as grinding your character's level. (In other words: It isn't as well-designed as a MMORPG.)

It's a shame that most of the people who played Catherine only cared about the story; it's as if they treat the puzzles as something that was thrown in just to pad the game's length. It's too bad, since it's probably the best puzzle game this gen.

It is not a puzzle game if it is harder than Portal or Braid. ;)
 

Salacious Crumb

Junior Member
Ya, but Skyrim is huge with lots of quests! Lots of boring quests with yappy lame NPCs! Skyrim is such lowest common denominator WRPG crap. Same thing happened in 2006 with Oblivion. Not even in my top 10 for 2011, but everyone eats it up like McDonald's cheeseburgers.

You seem really bitter about Skyrim, were you burned by the PS3 version?
 
I really want to know why EDGE went with Eidos Montreal for Studio of the Year. Odd choice considering their GOTYs, if not odd considering how great DXHR is.
 

Radec

Member
For reference on the prequels:

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - 42.5*
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - 6
Assassin's Creed II - 5.5*
Batman: Arkham Asylum - 2
Demon's Souls - 1
Killzone 2 - 1

:O
 
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