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Is this the year a downloadable game gets GotY?

if i could travel back to 1989 and pick up hotline miami from behind the beaded curtain of a seedy back alley rental shop, i would.
 
Randolph Freelander said:
I might need to play more games, or less. I haven't played anything from this year that I find redeeming. Mass Effect 3 would have come the closest, despite its overall flaws, until.... yeah.

Other than that, the only other new games from this year I have played are SSX and Halo 4. Cannot comment completely on 4, I'm only halfway through it, but I don't like it so far. And SSX was an outright disgrace, an abomination. Worst reboot ever.
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It might be snobbish to say, but if you only played three games this year, you're probably not qualified to participate in a vote to determine the best game of the year.

I mean, not that this should be in the rules somewhere, but some sort of self-check/control/governing would be nice. If you don't have some sort of minimum qualification (a minimum sample size), your vote is pretty much worthless and will probably do more harm than good.


pants said:
This is surely older than this year? I remember playing MNC last year at the very least.
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Super Monday Night Combat is a different release.
 
Haunted said:
It might be snobbish to say, but if you only played three games this year, you're probably not qualified to participate in a vote to determine the best game of the year.

I mean, not that this should be in the rules somewhere, but some sort of self-governing should take place. If you don't have some sort of minimum qualification, a minimum sample size, your vote is pretty much worthless and will probably do more harm than good.
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Oh, go right ahead, be snobbish. I wouldn't have voted anyway. I'm just more griping about how my few gaming selections, franchise favorites at that, are all duds.
 
pants said:
This is surely older than this year? I remember playing MNC last year at the very least.
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Super Monday Night Combat was released in April this year. Monday Night Combat was a different product. If you haven't tried it yet you should. Has pretty much replaced TF2 for my most played game.
 
If people should vote or not is an interesting thing, I've played probably around thirty games this year, but I've been looking, and there are barely ten I would even recommend, let alone consider to be a notable quality worthy of praise.
 
Randolph Freelander said:
Oh, go right ahead, be snobbish. I wouldn't have voted anyway. I'm just more griping about how my few gaming selections, franchise favorites at that, are all duds.
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It's definitely been the year of sequel disappointments for many. :/

StuBurns said:
If people should vote or not is an interesting thing, I've played probably around thirty games this year, but I've been looking, and there are barely ten I would even recommend, let alone consider to be a notable quality worthy of praise.
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I think the only actual rule we've got set up is a minimum of 3 games, so if you've played less, you can't participate.

Anything else goes.
 
I agree that there have been a lot of amazing downloadable games released this year, but has no one in this thread played XCom?
 
I realize now that I've only played six 2012 games this year, spent most of the year playing older PS2 stuff I missed.
 
Haunted said:
It might be snobbish to say, but if you only played three games this year, you're probably not qualified to participate in a vote to determine the best game of the year.
(...)
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I totally see your point, but I think there is a different type of player who needs to be represented in GOTY decisions. A lot of people only play multiplayer competitive games, MOBAs or RTS's/TBS's, or competitive FPSs (and this can be even further divided for MMO players).

These players may only play a handful of games but have played them for so many hours that they have mastered the intricacies and can accurately judge if the game holds up after hundreds of hours.

Someone who has played many single player games likely has not had the time to really consider if these time-intensive competitive games are worthy of GOTY.
 
Most of the games I played this year were downloadable and I enjoyed many of them. As things stand right now though, Halo 4 is likely getting my vote.
 
Haunted said:
CoD over Hitman?

Pretty disgusting. CoD shouldn't make it near any top 10 list of a gaming enthusiast forum, just like Transformers shouldn't make Roger Ebert's best films of the year list.
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After what they've done to Hitman I couldn't take Gaf making it goty. There's already a pretty large gap on here between console and PC gamers and what each expects from a game (especially when the franchise is a former PC franchise...like Hitman). To see a game that was so heavily consolized/mainstreamed be celebrated enough to be made goty would be like taunting PC gamers.
 
StuBurns said:
If people should vote or not is an interesting thing, I've played probably around thirty games this year, but I've been looking, and there are barely ten I would even recommend, let alone consider to be a notable quality worthy of praise.
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I'm gonna have to shorten mine to 5. I've played well over that but most don't deserve to be on a "best" list.
 
Derrick01 said:
After what they've done to Hitman I couldn't take Gaf making it goty. There's already a pretty large gap on here between console and PC gamers and what each expects from a game (especially when the franchise is a former PC franchise...like Hitman). To see a game that was so heavily consolized/mainstreamed be celebrated enough to be made goty would be like taunting PC gamers.
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I can't comment, I haven't played it yet.
 
Haunted said:
I can't comment, I haven't played it yet.
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Don't know if you saw the Hitman review thread today but people got the new PC Gamer and it was reviewed

PaulLFC said:
New PC Gamer just arrived with a review:

62/100 - A passable stealth game, but one that betrays almost everything that, until now, has made Hitman great.
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Cons
- No saving, checkpoint system is awful - even an AI glitch can lead to you having to restart the level, also doesn't save data such as disguises or items you've left, and guards killed will respawn
- Focus on (embarrassingly bad) story over gameplay
- PC performance was awful, they tried out on 3 different PCs - two can run Skyrim smoothly yet get 15fps in Hitman on minimal settings, with occasional freezes of over a second, and load times of over a minute
- A lot of gameplay involves you getting to a door to trigger a cutscene
- The amount of kills you have control over how they're executed is about 25%, even then it's not as expansive as Blood Money
- Equipment system - can't choose weapons in main missions, or carry weapons over between missions
- Guard AI is strange, they will sometimes detect you walking where commando rolling wouldn't get you detected
- "Sneak by covering your face" idea is laughable
- DRM on Contracts mode - can't play any contracts, even your own, offline

"I desperately hope the reaction is strong enough to convince the developers to change direction, because I couldn't stand to watch the series die like this"
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Every game with an 85 or higher Metacritic this year*:
The Walking Dead - 95 - Downloadable (Just a note, this is not really an easy one to score. The retail release that contains all the episodes has a higher metacritic than the individual episodes, which range from about 80-87 or so)
Mass Effect 3 - 93
Mark of the Ninja - 92 - Downloadable
Journey - 92 - Downloadable
Xenoblade Chronicles - 92
Borderlands 2 - 91
Dishonored - 91
Guild Wars 2 - 90
Zero Escape - Virtue's Last Reward - 90
Trials Evolution - 90 - Downloadable
Xcom - 90
Thirty Flights of Loving - 89 - Downloadable
Colors! 3D - 89 - Downloadable
Fez - 89 - Downloadable
Diablo III - 88
LBP Vita - 88
Torchlight II - 88 - Downloadable
La Mulana - 87 - Downloadable
Halo 4 - 87
Spelunky - 87 - Downloadable
Max Payne 3 - 87
Dance Central 3 - 87
Velocity - 87 - Downloadable (PS Minis)
Black Mesa - 86 - Downloadable
Hotline Miami - 86 - Downloadable
Persona 4 Arena - 86
Tribes Ascend - 86
Tales from Space - Mutant Blobs Attack - 86 - Downloadable
Zen Pinball 2 - 85 - Downloadable
Need for Speed MW - 85
Forza Horizon - 85
Assassin's Creed III - 85

I'm not going to process through iOS games owing to the different standards for reviewing, but I'd give special mention to Beat Sneak Bandit (92), which I think has a pretty credible shot at making some top 10 lists.

* Chose best platform for each game, chose best episode for episodic games, excluded annualized sports games, excluded DLC packs, excluded ports of pre-2012 releases, included Xenoblade. I considered PC games to be "downloadable" or not arbitrarily.
 
I haven't played the Walking Dead, but from the reaction that game, I wouldn't be surprised if it showed up on many GOTY lists.
 
That PC Gamer reviewer guy must be feeling really good about himself right now, having so much power over people. He sounds really important.
 
Dylan said:
I haven't played the Walking Dead, but from the reaction that game, I wouldn't be surprised if it showed up on many GOTY lists.
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They still have to nail the all important final episode.


Dyni Crippler said:
You don't owe anything to anyone, really. I'd save the money and buy it when it's 10$ or so.
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AHA-Lambda said:
You owe IO nothing, after all they don't seem concerned what fans of the originals think.
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Worst case, I owe it to IO to tell them that it's shit and they've messed up again (Kane and Lynch 2 was strike 1).
 
revolverjgw said:
That PC Gamer reviewer guy must be feeling really good about himself right now, having so much power over people
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Unless he was lying about what he posted then the review should have a lot of power because what he posted in the cons was a description of some game with the Hitman name, but not Hitman in content. Sort of like Splinter Cell Conviction.

But further discussion about that should probably be handled in the Hitman thread IMO.
 
What do we mean by "GOTY"? A lot of games claim that these days.

And Minecraft won, what, last year or the year before? The year it launched it was considered GOTY by many publications.
 
It's definitely been an amazing year for downloadables. Journey, Dustforce, Lone Survivor, FTL, Tokyo Jungle, Unfinished Swan, Chivalry, Path of Exile, DRM, Thirty flights of loving, Resonance... My GOTY will be between these games and Crusader Kings 2, Sleeping Dogs and Dragons Dogma. But none of those is likely to win many awards, most sites don't seem to remember games from the first three quarters of the year.
 
It's not the best release, but I certainly hope it's remembered at the years end.....

tumblr_m3b5u3X0do1qbv0k2o1_1280.jpg
 
Lots of downloadable games will certainly be in my list. Walking Dead, Trials Evolution, Dust: An Elysian Tail, Hotline Miami, FTL. So many good downloadables.

Only big retail games I've loved this year were Max Payne 3 and XCOM. Still need to play Dishonored and Assassin's Creed III, though.
 
shintoki said:
This is download only, F2P. Though it did have its beta in 2011
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Like I said in my notes, I classified PC games arbitrarily. I think the spirit of the "downloadable" question is not whether it's actually distributed via download--I mean, I suspect the bulk of Guild Wars and Diablo sales were download copies--but rather how it's positioned and the type of team size, budget, sale price, etc positioning the game gets.

Tribes I put as "retail" in that list because, although it's F2P, it seems pretty similar in scope and effort to the previous Tribes games. I would say it's positioned at something like a $30 game, rather than something more like a $10-15 game. Obviously, though, the point is well taken; classification of stuff is getting tougher.

Jo Shishido's Cheeks said:
It's not the best release, but I certainly hope it's remembered at the years end.....

tumblr_m3b5u3X0do1qbv0k2o1_1280.jpg
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not 2012
 
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