Preparing for 2014's Game of the Year Deliberations

Giant Bomb's GOTY podcasts always contains a ton of spoilers. So I decided to make a thread that lists the potential discussion candidates for this year's deliberations. The games in question are usually story-heavy or have crazy events(like Bayonetta 2) and some people might not want to listen to that stuff before they play the games. Personally, I want to get through a couple of these titles before I listen to the podcasts. I eventually want to add timestamps, but I can't do that by myself. It'd be great if you helped me out a bit there.

Anyway, here's a first attempt:

• Jazzpunk
• Wolfenstein: The New Order
• Assassin's Creed: Unity (Day 2, 1:27:40)
• Transistor
• Bayonetta 2
• The Walking Dead: Season 2
• The Wolf Among Us: Season 1
• Far Cry 4
• Last of Us: Left Behind
• Valiant Hearts
• Dragon Age: Inquisition
• Banner Saga
• South Park: The Stick of Truth
• Dark Souls II
• Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor
• Sunset Overdrive
• Infamous: Second Son
• The Evil Within
• Destiny
• Divinity: Original Sin
• D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die
• Alien: Isolation
• Child of Light
• (Broken Age)
• Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea
• The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
• Metal Gear Solid 2 (Day 1, Best Old Game)
• Danganronpa (Day 2, Best Story)
• The Fall (Day 2, Best Story)

Keep in mind that the list, so far, only contains stuff from 2014 and we can all expect some things from predecessors to be revealed as well. I know that it would be insane to go through all of these games before the podcasts start. I just wanted to present a list to people who maybe forgot to play a title or two, but really want to see it for themselves before they dive into the shows. Let me know if I forgot anything and I'll ad it to the list.

@dippa: Aye, that hot Mario Kart 8 story. Don't want that spoiled for me. (Sorry.)

Well...

Bravely Default, Divinity: Original Sin, D4, Alien Isolation, The Evil Within probably should be up there too.

And Destiny. Oh, wait, you said story-heavy games.

@gaff: Did anyone on the staff talk about actually finishing Bravely Default? I thought Brad just played it than stopped after the quick look.

I really have a super hard time imagining that The Evil Within will get anything aside from a very brief nod from Patrick in some appropriate category. It will be brushed off so damn fast.

I'm concerned that they might spoil Broken Age, but I don't want to buy Broken Age until Part 2 comes out.

I want to have stuff here that they're most likely going to talk about. Yes, Bravely Default came out this year in the US and yes, it has a story. But are they going to talk about it to an extent that would affect one's gameplay experience negatively? Doubt it.

I will make sure to add Evil Within, Destiny, Divinity, D4 and Alien. They probably won't mention Broken Age at all since unfinished titles are not eligible for the deliberations, but I'll add it anyways, just to be sure.

Oh crap, I gotta finish D4 and Valiant Hearts.

@elvicerator: Don't think that's going to be an issue. I remember Patrick mentioning that they only consider episodic games that have had their last episode release in the awarding year. Likely Broken Age will be in contention for 2015 GOTY.

When will the GOTY-podcasts be available?

Vanishing of Ethan Carter is another thing that might possibly be brought up.

They'll start a week from now on the 26th and go until the 30th since there should be 5 days of them like usual.

@roboculus92: Thanks! Looking forward to it!

@grantheaslip: That cold hearted son of a bitch. I'm starting to think The Year of Luigi™ went to his head, he needs to be stopped! First Rosalina, next...?

Keep forgetting Child of Light happened this year. My weirdo roommate owns like every game for every system and all I do is play Mario Kart and every now and then try and get into The Last Of Us Complete Edition. Maybe cus I already played those other games before he got them or maybe cus MK8 is GOAT material idk

They could talk about Bioshock Infinite: Burial At Sea, I suppose. Part two came out this year.

There's a twist in Bravely Default can massively spoil the game for people that have not yet played it. However I think that game has really fallen prey of the 'early year release' and has pretty much been forgotten for the most part. A very well polished RPG with a great class system and fairly interesting story, from a gameplay perspective it knew what RPG players wanted and gave them the options (such as quick grinding and exp capping).

That and, holy crap I've not played a lot of those games! Although having watched the quick looks for most of them and hearing the podcast talk about Destiny, I think i'm good for at least hearing discussion on them for context in GOTY. I should pick up Jazzpunk though, that'll be in the Steam sale for sure.

I think I am going on a site and youtube black out so I can get the rest of the bombcasts done.

Oh, I'd forgotten about spoilers. Not too worried about spoilers for most stuff on that list except, like OP having some of the setpieces in Bayonetta 2 'spoilt'. Have to be ready to stick my fingers in my ears and hum for a few minutes until it passes (historically Dark Souls discussions in particular were hazardous for this).

Does anyone remember all the spoilers that occured in yesterday's podcast? I skipped the MGS2 part and I should probably add that game to the list. Appart from that, I didn't notice anything. They might have talked a bit about some stuff from Sunset Overdrive during the "Best Looking Game" deliberations.

I don't remember any explicit MGS2 spoilers -- they may have said something like "that game is crazy" and talked about one of the bosses (who I think you see early-ish in the game anyway). The boss is Vamp. I think the Sunset Overdrive "end boss spoiler" (the end boss being some prominent voice actor's head or something) was just a joke, but I haven't played the game to know either way. They did mention one specific boss fight (cutscene?) in that game which is a minor spoiler of a joke. They talk about that World War 1 game and how it "gets serious" or something but I don't think they got more explicit than that.

Today I'm expecting a lot of spoilers in the best story category so one can skip to 53:00, which is right after the end of the best story category.

edit: Ass Creed Unity ending spoiler at 1:27:40 ish.

Spoilers for The Fall, AC Unity and Danganronpa today. I'll edit the list accordingly. Thanks for the timestamp, Doomed.