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Giant Bomb's 2012 Game of the Year Awards: Day Four

In today's penultimate array of awards, downloadable games TAKE OVER THE WORLD while big ol' triple-A retail games are saaaaaaad.

Welcome to the quick-and-filthy look at today's awards categories. Sure, we spent time writing that text below, but it's really only here for people who don't have the time or energy to listen to our deliberation podcast or watch the video recap for today's categories. That's not you, is it? OK, go check that stuff out and then swing back by over here if you're looking for a little further explanation about our categories and winners. Deal?

WarioWare Spirit Award

Frobisher Says!

No Caption Provided

The WarioWare Spirit Award goes to the game that most embodies the things that make WarioWare great: Frantic action, objectives that change so fast that part of the game is figuring out what the hell you're even looking at, and a certain awkward sense of charm. In a year with a WarioWare release, this category would be redundant. But these days (and with no proper WarioWare sequel on the horizon), you're going to have to dig around for games that follow in the fat man's garlic-soaked footsteps. Surprisingly, there were numerous games to choose from.

But no one else captures the true spirit of WarioWare better than Honeyslug's Frobisher Says!, which was launched as a free downloadable game back in October, with some additional paid DLC releasing to expand the game with more microgames. Frobisher meets the WarioWare standard in a few different ways, first by delivering on that frantic gameplay that requires you to be fast on your feet and then by packing in the work of numerous artists who hadn't worked on games before, which lends the proceedings a unique look. But it also pulls off the neat trick that many of the WarioWare games also accomplish: it uses the available hardware in a lot of interesting ways. In the Vita, Frobisher Says! gets to play around on a platform so packed with weird, often-clumsy control options that it can't help but make you respect all that stuff. One game exclusively uses the back touch to move. Another uses the camera to detect if you're smiling or not, with the goal being to smile only at the pretty ladies. It's amazing. And most of it is free, which is perhaps the craziest part of all. If you have a Vita, stop screwing around and go download Frobisher Says! immediately.

No Caption Provided

Runners-Up: Rhythm Heaven Fever, McPixel

Best Download Game That Makes Us Want to Eliminate Award Categories for Download Games

The Walking Dead

Don't forget about Gomez!
Don't forget about Gomez!

The winds of video game distribution are changing--have been changing for several years, in fact--and we're fairly certain (and if nothing else, hopeful) that with the next generation of consoles, the phrase "downloadable game" will give way to a more appropriate term like, say, "game." The games you obtain through your Internet pipe have become every bit as ambitious, mechanically sound, and narratively engaging as the ones that come in a box. Actually, in many cases, the downloadables surpass the retail games in all of those categories.

No download game resonated more this year than The Walking Dead, which told a damn good story, emphasized meaningful player agency, and hewed to the sort of piecemeal episodic release schedule that got people talking around the water cooler in a way they haven't for a long time. But truly this was the year when we repeatedly took a pause, looked at all the stuff we'd been playing, and were repeatedly shocked and delighted at just how many of our favorites were smaller games in the 10 to 15 dollar range. Mark of the Ninja, with its impeccable stealth-puzzle mechanics, and the lovely retro aesthetic and mind-bending cryptography of Fez were among the best games of the year, nevermind what they cost or how you obtained them.

But the list hardly stops there. Let this category stand as a tribute to all the excellent games that materialized on our PCs and consoles out of thin air this year, including Journey, Hotline Miami, FTL, Rock Band Blitz, Spelunky, Trials Evolution, Dyad, Sound Shapes, Dust: An Elysian Tail, McPixel, and too many others to list here. If this is the caliber of games that results from the modest budgets and ease of release afforded by digital distribution, the future is looking bright indeed.

No Caption Provided

Runners-up: Mark of the Ninja, Fez

Best Multiplayer

Need for Speed: Most Wanted

No Caption Provided

Criterion is the studio responsible for some of the most influential multiplayer innovations of this generation. The "Autolog" feature that worked its way into the team's previous Need for Speed game is now everywhere, from shooters to open-world crime simulators. But the crew at Criterion isn't solely focused on reinventing the leaderboard. Need for Speed: Most Wanted is a prime example of how to find ways to play multiplayer that feel inclusive, rather than just developing something that can only be enjoyed if you're willing to devote every last second of your free time to staying good at something.

Most Wanted's multiplayer is competitive even when it's cooperative. You're up against the other racers in your game whether you're jetting over to the next starting point or working together to all reach a specific rooftop. It also makes a lot of exciting moves in the way it handles its racing by eliminating boring old starting grids in favor of something a little wilder... a little meaner. But at the end of the day, it's still about learning how the cars handle and knowing how to bash another racer off the road, things that have a decidedly lower learning curve than most other multiplayer games out there. Tack on a fun leveling system that ties together your progress across all modes and all versions of the game to give you a Call of Duty-like perk system for your cars, and you've got enough little hooks to keep you interested for a good long time.

Now if they could just make it easier to mute all the chatty Russians with always-on microphones in the PC version...

No Caption Provided

Runners-Up: Spaceteam, Journey

Best Story

The Walking Dead

No Caption Provided

There are two stories playing out in The Walking Dead: the one you're creating and the one authored by the creators at Telltale Games. The tension between the two reveals the subtle brilliance of The Walking Dead. In terms of the broader story beats, you ultimately have little control over what happens in The Walking Dead, but your influence over who lives, who dies, and how you choose to interact with characters in the most bizarre and upsetting of situations is profound. Though the overall story head to the same point for everyone, how you get there and who you leave behind will be very different, and results in a game pulling off authentic player choice in a way we haven't seen before. Who could have predicted that in the year that gave us Mass Effect 3?

What's remarkable is how little desire you feel to see how else the story could have played out. Even though Telltale Games built in a "rewind" function for that specific purpose, there was no motivation to use it. Your story was the story, and Telltale Games managed to make that stick for five episodes. Still, since you knew the story could play out differently, the first conversation after an episode was "what'd you do when [insert horrible choice]?" The Walking Dead inspired endless discussions about what does and doesn't make sense in most dire of circumstances.

Player choice aside, The Walking Dead is just a damn good story. You come to know the characters on a very personal level, and while the armchair designer in us may realize Clementine is a bit of a crutch for the writers to pull at our heart strings, it makes your relationship with her no less important. Protecting her become vital to survival in The Walking Dead's dreary new world. If we can't raise children and impart our values onto them, what's the point of surviving? By the end of The Walking Dead, that question becomes paramount, and sets up a tear-jerker of a conversation. And this is all without complimenting the game's overlooked but no less impressive portrayal of an African-American lead character, complimented by a child. How many games would even try that, let alone pull it off?

No Caption Provided

Runners-up: Dust: An Elysian Tail, Papo & Yo

Most Disappointing Game

Assassin's Creed III

No Caption Provided

First off, let's be clear that, for something to be disappointing, there had to have been expectations of something great, and it hadn't been that long ago that greatness visited the house of Assassin's Creed. Last year's Revelations may have felt rote and unnecessary, dragging out the Ezio story longer than it needed while simultaneously robbing him of his youth, but 2010's Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood was this series at its best, and all signs leading up to the release of Assassin's Creed III seemed incredibly promising.

The exciting and unknown setting of the American Revolution seemed awash in possibility, as did the new protagonist, a half-British/half-Native American character whose lineage had the potential to make him more invested in the coming conflict than his predecessors. New settings and a new hero meant new activities, and what we had seen of the huge naval battles and of Connor traipsing through the treetops hunting game looked good, or at least, looked like a distinct change of pace. On the other side of the Animus, there was also the promise of finally wrapping up Desmond's story, learning the truth about the First Civilization, and bring a stop to the apocalyptic event that all of this has--apparently--been leading up to.

What we got wasn't bad, per se, at least not across the board, but it was hard not to be disappointed. Connor's righteous naïveté paled in comparison to the cocky self-assuredness of Ezio. The lack of verticality provided by the dirt streets of Boston and the other young cities of Colonial America was a trade-off for the tree-filled wilderness that linked them together, but there simply wasn't much to do in that wilderness, and it forfeited the kind of urban exploration that had come to define much of the series. While many of the mysteries surrounding the First Civilization and Desmond's connection to it get resolved, the final resolution was unsatisfying and abrupt. All of these weaknesses are compounded by the fact that, for all of the side-missions you can get up to, the game fails to wrap them up into an interesting, cohesive whole, which is ultimately what makes Assassin's Creed III our most disappointing game of the year.

No Caption Provided

Runners-up: Mass Effect 3, Resident Evil 6

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Brad

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Edited By Brad

Welcome to the quick-and-filthy look at today's awards categories. Sure, we spent time writing that text below, but it's really only here for people who don't have the time or energy to listen to our deliberation podcast or watch the video recap for today's categories. That's not you, is it? OK, go check that stuff out and then swing back by over here if you're looking for a little further explanation about our categories and winners. Deal?

WarioWare Spirit Award

Frobisher Says!

No Caption Provided

The WarioWare Spirit Award goes to the game that most embodies the things that make WarioWare great: Frantic action, objectives that change so fast that part of the game is figuring out what the hell you're even looking at, and a certain awkward sense of charm. In a year with a WarioWare release, this category would be redundant. But these days (and with no proper WarioWare sequel on the horizon), you're going to have to dig around for games that follow in the fat man's garlic-soaked footsteps. Surprisingly, there were numerous games to choose from.

But no one else captures the true spirit of WarioWare better than Honeyslug's Frobisher Says!, which was launched as a free downloadable game back in October, with some additional paid DLC releasing to expand the game with more microgames. Frobisher meets the WarioWare standard in a few different ways, first by delivering on that frantic gameplay that requires you to be fast on your feet and then by packing in the work of numerous artists who hadn't worked on games before, which lends the proceedings a unique look. But it also pulls off the neat trick that many of the WarioWare games also accomplish: it uses the available hardware in a lot of interesting ways. In the Vita, Frobisher Says! gets to play around on a platform so packed with weird, often-clumsy control options that it can't help but make you respect all that stuff. One game exclusively uses the back touch to move. Another uses the camera to detect if you're smiling or not, with the goal being to smile only at the pretty ladies. It's amazing. And most of it is free, which is perhaps the craziest part of all. If you have a Vita, stop screwing around and go download Frobisher Says! immediately.

No Caption Provided

Runners-Up: Rhythm Heaven Fever, McPixel

Best Download Game That Makes Us Want to Eliminate Award Categories for Download Games

The Walking Dead

Don't forget about Gomez!
Don't forget about Gomez!

The winds of video game distribution are changing--have been changing for several years, in fact--and we're fairly certain (and if nothing else, hopeful) that with the next generation of consoles, the phrase "downloadable game" will give way to a more appropriate term like, say, "game." The games you obtain through your Internet pipe have become every bit as ambitious, mechanically sound, and narratively engaging as the ones that come in a box. Actually, in many cases, the downloadables surpass the retail games in all of those categories.

No download game resonated more this year than The Walking Dead, which told a damn good story, emphasized meaningful player agency, and hewed to the sort of piecemeal episodic release schedule that got people talking around the water cooler in a way they haven't for a long time. But truly this was the year when we repeatedly took a pause, looked at all the stuff we'd been playing, and were repeatedly shocked and delighted at just how many of our favorites were smaller games in the 10 to 15 dollar range. Mark of the Ninja, with its impeccable stealth-puzzle mechanics, and the lovely retro aesthetic and mind-bending cryptography of Fez were among the best games of the year, nevermind what they cost or how you obtained them.

But the list hardly stops there. Let this category stand as a tribute to all the excellent games that materialized on our PCs and consoles out of thin air this year, including Journey, Hotline Miami, FTL, Rock Band Blitz, Spelunky, Trials Evolution, Dyad, Sound Shapes, Dust: An Elysian Tail, McPixel, and too many others to list here. If this is the caliber of games that results from the modest budgets and ease of release afforded by digital distribution, the future is looking bright indeed.

No Caption Provided

Runners-up:Mark of the Ninja, Fez

Best Multiplayer

Need for Speed: Most Wanted

No Caption Provided

Criterion is the studio responsible for some of the most influential multiplayer innovations of this generation. The "Autolog" feature that worked its way into the team's previous Need for Speed game is now everywhere, from shooters to open-world crime simulators. But the crew at Criterion isn't solely focused on reinventing the leaderboard. Need for Speed: Most Wanted is a prime example of how to find ways to play multiplayer that feel inclusive, rather than just developing something that can only be enjoyed if you're willing to devote every last second of your free time to staying good at something.

Most Wanted's multiplayer is competitive even when it's cooperative. You're up against the other racers in your game whether you're jetting over to the next starting point or working together to all reach a specific rooftop. It also makes a lot of exciting moves in the way it handles its racing by eliminating boring old starting grids in favor of something a little wilder... a little meaner. But at the end of the day, it's still about learning how the cars handle and knowing how to bash another racer off the road, things that have a decidedly lower learning curve than most other multiplayer games out there. Tack on a fun leveling system that ties together your progress across all modes and all versions of the game to give you a Call of Duty-like perk system for your cars, and you've got enough little hooks to keep you interested for a good long time.

Now if they could just make it easier to mute all the chatty Russians with always-on microphones in the PC version...

No Caption Provided

Runners-Up: Spaceteam, Journey

Best Story

The Walking Dead

No Caption Provided

There are two stories playing out in The Walking Dead: the one you're creating and the one authored by the creators at Telltale Games. The tension between the two reveals the subtle brilliance of The Walking Dead. In terms of the broader story beats, you ultimately have little control over what happens in The Walking Dead, but your influence over who lives, who dies, and how you choose to interact with characters in the most bizarre and upsetting of situations is profound. Though the overall story head to the same point for everyone, how you get there and who you leave behind will be very different, and results in a game pulling off authentic player choice in a way we haven't seen before. Who could have predicted that in the year that gave us Mass Effect 3?

What's remarkable is how little desire you feel to see how else the story could have played out. Even though Telltale Games built in a "rewind" function for that specific purpose, there was no motivation to use it. Your story was the story, and Telltale Games managed to make that stick for five episodes. Still, since you knew the story could play out differently, the first conversation after an episode was "what'd you do when [insert horrible choice]?" The Walking Dead inspired endless discussions about what does and doesn't make sense in most dire of circumstances.

Player choice aside, The Walking Dead is just a damn good story. You come to know the characters on a very personal level, and while the armchair designer in us may realize Clementine is a bit of a crutch for the writers to pull at our heart strings, it makes your relationship with her no less important. Protecting her become vital to survival in The Walking Dead's dreary new world. If we can't raise children and impart our values onto them, what's the point of surviving? By the end of The Walking Dead, that question becomes paramount, and sets up a tear-jerker of a conversation. And this is all without complimenting the game's overlooked but no less impressive portrayal of an African-American lead character, complimented by a child. How many games would even try that, let alone pull it off?

No Caption Provided

Runners-up:Dust: An Elysian Tail, Papo & Yo

Most Disappointing Game

Assassin's Creed III

No Caption Provided

First off, let's be clear that, for something to be disappointing, there had to have been expectations of something great, and it hadn't been that long ago that greatness visited the house of Assassin's Creed. Last year's Revelations may have felt rote and unnecessary, dragging out the Ezio story longer than it needed while simultaneously robbing him of his youth, but 2010's Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood was this series at its best, and all signs leading up to the release of Assassin's Creed III seemed incredibly promising.

The exciting and unknown setting of the American Revolution seemed awash in possibility, as did the new protagonist, a half-British/half-Native American character whose lineage had the potential to make him more invested in the coming conflict than his predecessors. New settings and a new hero meant new activities, and what we had seen of the huge naval battles and of Connor traipsing through the treetops hunting game looked good, or at least, looked like a distinct change of pace. On the other side of the Animus, there was also the promise of finally wrapping up Desmond's story, learning the truth about the First Civilization, and bring a stop to the apocalyptic event that all of this has--apparently--been leading up to.

What we got wasn't bad, per se, at least not across the board, but it was hard not to be disappointed. Connor's righteous naïveté paled in comparison to the cocky self-assuredness of Ezio. The lack of verticality provided by the dirt streets of Boston and the other young cities of Colonial America was a trade-off for the tree-filled wilderness that linked them together, but there simply wasn't much to do in that wilderness, and it forfeited the kind of urban exploration that had come to define much of the series. While many of the mysteries surrounding the First Civilization and Desmond's connection to it get resolved, the final resolution was unsatisfying and abrupt. All of these weaknesses are compounded by the fact that, for all of the side-missions you can get up to, the game fails to wrap them up into an interesting, cohesive whole, which is ultimately what makes Assassin's Creed III our most disappointing game of the year.

No Caption Provided

Runners-up:Mass Effect 3, Resident Evil 6

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citizencoffeecake

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Say WHAT!?

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Edited By UlquioKani

Most disappointing game turned out to not be Mass Effect 3. Can't wait to listen to the podcast

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snakeitachi

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Edited By snakeitachi

I would totally agree with ac3 being VERY disspointing

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Edited By smitty86

Fez on PC. I need this.

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white

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Edited By white

AC3? Disappointing? Why?

There's another "3" that is more of a disappointment than AC3.

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DG991

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Edited By DG991

How isn't mass effect 3 most disappointing.... I guess I'll have to listen to the podcast

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Edited By sumbog

I agree with most of these picks, I have still yet to play Walking Dead though, but from what I hear it is amazing. Cant wait to get home from vacation to dive into it!

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Edited By dr_mantas

I can't even believe Mass Effect 3 is a runner up for most disappointing.

Actually, I can, but I totally disagree.

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FotoVerite

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Edited By FotoVerite

Makes sense. Ass3 was a piss poor game with a terrible lead character and a fucking horrible ending. Mass Effect 3 was a fun game with a fucking horrible ending that has been mitigated somewhat by Leviathan and the extended cut.

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Edited By GunstarRed

I hope next year they have the Walking Dead award for being like The Walking Dead, Walking Dead award.

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droop

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Edited By droop

Man.. GB crew really likes Walking Dead. And Mass Effect 3 on most disappointing and not Hitman: Absolution? Interesting.

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deactivated-660208a327978

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Did you guys forget Mass Effect 3 was released this year or something? How you could skip it for 'most disappointing' when it is crying out, begging to be chosen is absolutely beyond me. ME3 was born for that award.

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Edited By MocBucket62

I like the WarioWare Spirit Award idea, but I wish Rhythm Heaven Fever won.  
 
Also after reading about Assassin's Creed III getting most disappointing game, I'm happy I didn't get that for my brother on Christmas. Thanks Giant Bomb!

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Edited By LarcenousLaugh

AC3 was absolutely the most disappointing game this year. Compared to the steps that were taken in Brotherhood and Revelations, it's like the teams they had working on both games simply didn't talk to each other. Don't know why I expected as much given the annualization of the series, but it looked so very promising. So very, very disappointed.

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Edited By Hawkerace

So much Walking dead, bleh I thought it was the disappointment of the year, I bought into everyone's hype and was bored the entirety of it.

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Edited By BaneFireLord

Walking Dead came out on disc this year, too. By that logic, any game that came out on Steam or Origin as well as on disc should have been considered for that award. All the more reason to eliminate that category.

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@Hawkerace: CALL OF DUTY!

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Edited By mrfluke

honestly it would have been ME3 for most disappointing for me, but yea AC3 is another great choice for most disappointing.

also wow dust and papo e yo made runner ups for best story? i gotta check those out. ill put my reservations of dusts art style aside then.

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Can Mass Effect 3 be my Most Disappointing and My GOTY?

Because I think it is.

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@mrfluke: ME3, for the most part, was fun to play and had some great moments the led to an ending that didn't make some people satisfied. AC III had the opening scene in the opera house and then a whole bunch of mediocre. The American Revolution setting is wasted, most of the side stuff is COMPLETELY irrelevant and the ending is (IMO) a bigger FU to fans of the series than ME3's was.

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Edited By Hurricrane

$5 says Brad won out most disappointing through stupid annoying attrition and throwing a fit.

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Edited By Efesell

Most disappointing AC3..

Yeaaah..I guess so. In some ways.

Sure was a lot of fun though.

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Edited By hermes

I agree. Assassins Creed 3 was a huge disappointment.
I don't think the main character is that bad, but the biggest issue the game has is lack of cohesion. The old phrase of the kitchen sink. It felt like the designers had a big brainstorm and then included every idea they got.

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Edited By Terramagi

TWD really has to fucking get stomped in the final awards.

That shit is not running away with half the fucking awards. Fuck those guys.

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Edited By TastyCakesMcG33

I would have taken Resident Evil 6 over AC3, but I still am ok with the pick. Was sad at both.

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Edited By kerse

I was just as disappointed with ME3 as everyone else and I absolutely agree that AC3 was the most disappointing game of the year. It was just all around bad, at least ME3 had a ton of stuff I still really liked. AC3 was just incredibly disappointing.

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Edited By Pudge

So I assume for best Story, Patrick just rewrote all the nominations while everyone else was gushing over how Walking Dead handled the death of children right?

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Edited By byterunner

man, some people here are really upset that ME3 didn't win most disappointing. I mean sure, the ending wasn't amazing. (And I know that it railroads your RPing, but I don't particularly mind the endings given) But no need to have a hissy fit about it

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Edited By KillEm_Dafoe

No way in hell is ACIII more disappointing than RE6. ACIII came out and was generally pretty well-received. RE6 came out and ended up being complete garbage top to bottom. I expected it to at least play well and be a fun time, if not even be good as a RE game, but naw son, turns out it was an abomination.

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Edited By cornbredx

Completely agree. AC3 was very disappointing.

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Edited By simkas

@OneKillWonder_ said:

No way in hell is ACIII more disappointing than RE6. ACIII came out and was generally pretty well-received. RE6 came out and ended up being complete garbage top to bottom. I expected it to at least play well and be a fun time, if not even be good as a RE game, but naw son, turns out it was an abomination.

It's not much about which game is worse, it's about which one was more dissapointing, RE6 wasn't as disappointing because it already wasn't looking like it's going to be all the great quite a while before release, when all trailers and footage was just showing a bunch of action and a complete lack of actual survival horror.

So basically, RE6 was less dissapointing because most didn't expect as much from it.

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Hawkerace

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Edited By Hawkerace

@cannonballBAM: Gross. Get it away from me!

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Phatmac

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Edited By Phatmac

So the Walking Dead is a lock for game of the year, right?

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dazzhardy

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First off, Mass Effect 3 wasn't disappointing, the ending of it was (for most people). Now, you might argue that the meat of the game wasn't up to the same calibur as Mass Effect 2, but it was at least competent. 
 
I can't speak much about AC3, I played it for 2 hours and haven't gone back to it yet. Maybe that speaks volumes. 
 
But Resident Evil 6, that's another story. RE4 was such a high point, it not only raised the bar, it pretty much redifined a genre. RE5 was a slight mis-step in horror terms, but it played better, and had enough of an OTT story that you kinda went with it. RE6 somehow managed to take everything before it and somehow make it all worse. I dragged myself through that game, and every time I found myself thinking "hey, maybe this isn't so bad" it managed to point out it was. I was really looking forward to RE6, and the game I got left a terrible taste in my mouth. 
 
I may not of liked the last 2 hours of my single player ME3 game, but the 28 before it I liked. I also played a whole bunch of the Multiplayer. AC3 I got out of a morbid curiosity, I went in with low expectations after I didn't like Revelations much. But RE6 I was excited for. They started showing that game with Leon offing the President who was a Zombie. It was the game I was most looking forward too all year, and the end result is a clear winner of biggest disappointment for me.

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rNilla

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Edited By rNilla

I hope tomorrow's The Walking Dead Award goes to The Walking Dead. It's gonna be close!

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mrfluke

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@Kingpk: yea your not wrong, AC3 ending was a real "HAHA FUCK U!" kind of deal, but the connor stuff for me ended good, not great, but it ended good, so im interested in seeing what they do with connor or their next history assassin (which rumors are circulating that the next assassin will be in brazil) as i cant give a shit anymore what they do with the modern day story after that ending.

but for me i felt betrayed by mass effect 3, the themes of "the cycle" and "inevitability" were not the themes i associate the mass effect 3 series with, and to me it comes off as them trying to be "edgy" and them trying to give the universe more complexity than it required.

for me mass effect themes were about "breaking the inevitability", "overcoming all odds" "defeating the unstoppable threat", "galactic unification"

so to not get the payoff i expected of "having a unified galaxy kicking all the reapers asses at the cost of losing the relays with you dying next to anderson watching your victory after activating the crucible "

i couldnt help but think that everything i did in that whole series of building up this unified galaxy was for nothing. and i stand by the fact that if they had gone the feel good obviously predictable route happy ending, that this would have been one of the best trilogies in any medium

so yea thats my ramble on why ME3 is the most disappointing game imo :P

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fatalbanana

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Edited By fatalbanana

@Kingpk said:

@mrfluke: ME3, for the most part, was fun to play and had some great moments the led to an ending that didn't make some people satisfied. AC III had the opening scene in the opera house and then a whole bunch of mediocre. The American Revolution setting is wasted, most of the side stuff is COMPLETELY irrelevant and the ending is (IMO) a bigger FU to fans of the series than ME3's was.

Totally, but I wouldn't say the American Revolution setting was wasted .. Maybe it wasn't done as well as it could have been though I thought what they had was pretty awesome and cool to see (even if some of the possibly cooler stuff was rushed through). I totally agree with you about the story though the last few hours or so of that game is total bullshit. I enjoyed my time through for the most part, I didn't do much side-questing at all and the main game play was exciting enough but man that ending is awful.

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Tennmuerti

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Edited By Tennmuerti

Ezio maturing (more) out of his pissant youthful self was the single redeeming part of Revelations.

If you still thought that the over reaching Desmond story was headed anywhere or could have concluded in any satisfactory manner after the amount of extra shit they pile onto it over 2, Brotherhood, Revelations, then really there is only yourself to blame. Anytime a narrative gets spun so out of control rarely if ever do the writers manage to tie it together at the end.

The game looks absolutely fantastic on PC i would say better then FC3, and the way Connor moves is so well done it's a statement of his character in and of itself. The naval battles are great (and gorgeous) and were surprisingly varied. Homestead missions are a joy to witness unfolding. Connor's righteous naïveté is what makes him his own unique defined character, just like Altair's arrogance and Ezio's annoying playboy attitude. All of the three AC characters start with major flaws and over time work through them, just like Connor's naivete is hammered at, called out and challenged towards the end. The side mission stuff in AC series was for the most part rarely tied together well to the narrative in any of the games. As someone who has long since been playing this series for the stories of the actual characters Altair, Ezio, Connor and has wrote off Desmond's story as not the primary motivator, the disappointing Desmond bits did not affect my enjoyment of the game in the slightest. AC3 also once again pushed the multiplayer forward, fixing and improving many of the missteps of Revelations MP. Overall I enjoyed AC3 a great deal, tho it seems i'm in a minority in this on this site.

Let's be clear Desmond out of the animus stuff is garbage, no argument there. But i saw the mess forming a mile away, and 99% of AC games for me are about the actual past assassins in them, not Desmond.

ME3's ending however managed to sour my feelings on the entire series retroactively.

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KillEm_Dafoe

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Edited By KillEm_Dafoe
@simkas said:

@OneKillWonder_ said:

No way in hell is ACIII more disappointing than RE6. ACIII came out and was generally pretty well-received. RE6 came out and ended up being complete garbage top to bottom. I expected it to at least play well and be a fun time, if not even be good as a RE game, but naw son, turns out it was an abomination.

It's not much about which game is worse, it's about which one was more dissapointing, RE6 wasn't as disappointing because it already wasn't looking like it's going to be all the great quite a while before release, when all trailers and footage was just showing a bunch of action and a complete lack of actual survival horror.

So basically, RE6 was less dissapointing because most didn't expect as much from it.

When they put out that first trailer, I thought it looked fucking amazing. They had actual zombies in dark, urban environments for one, which lead me to believe the series was finally getting back on the right track. I don't love RE5, but it's an alright game, and what I was expecting was some of the old mixed with the new. The game's biggest problems are that it controls terribly and has almost non-top QTE's, something you definitely don't get out of pre-release footage and trailers.
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wsowen02

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Edited By wsowen02

Haven't listened to the podcast yet but I would hazard a guess that Brad is THE reason ME3 was not most disappointing game.

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ajamafalous

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ME3 not Most Disappointing
 
I lol'd

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forkboy

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Edited By forkboy

@dr_mantas said:

I can't even believe Mass Effect 3 is a runner up for most disappointing.

Actually, I can, but I totally disagree.

I think ME3 would be in my top 3 most disappointing games for 2012, but that says more about the high expectations I had going in. The game is perfectly fine, but the story doesn't really end in satisfying way, for me at least. And because of how attached I was to the characters & the universe as a whole, ending on a damp squib is disappointing.

Plus something like Resi 6 or Halo 4 weren't games I had any expectations for, so they couldn't disappoint.

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zor

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I take issue with the Waking Dead and Journey being in the download category, since both titles had a disc release... They are both great, but I wouldn't consider either to be a valid choice for any download game awards (unless you also consider all the other games that came out digitally and on disc).

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christilton

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Edited By christilton

I'd have added Halo 4 to that disappointing list.

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Jimbag

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How was Hitman not at least a runner up for Most Disappointing?

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gbrading

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I thought ME3 would be a shoe-in for Most Disappointing Game. Was Assassin's Creed III really that disappointing?

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Sooty

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Most disappointing game gets 4/5 stars, ok.

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Efesell

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@Sooty said:

Most disappointing game gets 4/5 stars, ok.

Great games can still be disappointing.

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Brainling

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Edited By Brainling

@Sooty said:

Most disappointing game gets 4/5 stars, ok.

Being good, and being disappointing, are not mutually exclusive traits.