The Giant Bomb GOTY podcasts complain thread.

I can't stand hearing Jeff talk about Mass Effect 3. One minute he's saying that they didn't wrap anything up (he specifically brought up the Genophage at that point, which made absolutely no sense), the next minute he's saying that they wrapped everything up too nicely.

@jmood88: I never really understood that either. If you played all three games and maxed Paragon or Renegade, you do get a pretty utopian resolution to the various conflicts, but my regenade playthrough was doesn't have ME 1 stuff and wasn't a pure renegade, and even with best effort in ME3, some stuff is just fucked regardless. Which I prefer. I'd rather have a nice bonus for committed players.

@freakin9 said:

@Ramone said:

@freakin9 said:

I get it, there's been a lot of Nintendo franchises that I personally didn't like, but there was so much in them that it was impossible to give them the same score as a truly horrible game. You are acknowledging the quality and effort I guess in that case.

Then what's the point in the review? I know that games like Assassin's Creed are going to look nice and have a certain amount of polish just because of the size of the teams working on those sorts of games. 3 stars for a well made but ultimately disappointing sequel seems like a fair score to me.

You know now how they really feel, that should be enough. And you can't quantify disappointing. On some level I'm sure the score is based on their love for the series and characters. Also, hindsight. Sometimes your opinion isn't truly formed without comparables and time. Maybe its a factor of a lot of games just not being disappointing, due to their expectations of those other games, that led to AC3 being the "most disappointing".

The review should tell me how the reviewer feels and the score should reflect that, not a podcast 2 months after the fact.

@Ramone said:

@freakin9 said:

@Ramone said:

@freakin9 said:

I get it, there's been a lot of Nintendo franchises that I personally didn't like, but there was so much in them that it was impossible to give them the same score as a truly horrible game. You are acknowledging the quality and effort I guess in that case.

Then what's the point in the review? I know that games like Assassin's Creed are going to look nice and have a certain amount of polish just because of the size of the teams working on those sorts of games. 3 stars for a well made but ultimately disappointing sequel seems like a fair score to me.

You know now how they really feel, that should be enough. And you can't quantify disappointing. On some level I'm sure the score is based on their love for the series and characters. Also, hindsight. Sometimes your opinion isn't truly formed without comparables and time. Maybe its a factor of a lot of games just not being disappointing, due to their expectations of those other games, that led to AC3 being the "most disappointing".

The review should tell me how the reviewer feels and the score should reflect that, not a podcast 2 months after the fact.

Yeah just ignore every point so that you can restate the same opinion.

@freakin9 said:

@Ramone said:

@freakin9 said:

@Ramone said:

@freakin9 said:

I get it, there's been a lot of Nintendo franchises that I personally didn't like, but there was so much in them that it was impossible to give them the same score as a truly horrible game. You are acknowledging the quality and effort I guess in that case.

Then what's the point in the review? I know that games like Assassin's Creed are going to look nice and have a certain amount of polish just because of the size of the teams working on those sorts of games. 3 stars for a well made but ultimately disappointing sequel seems like a fair score to me.

You know now how they really feel, that should be enough. And you can't quantify disappointing. On some level I'm sure the score is based on their love for the series and characters. Also, hindsight. Sometimes your opinion isn't truly formed without comparables and time. Maybe its a factor of a lot of games just not being disappointing, due to their expectations of those other games, that led to AC3 being the "most disappointing".

The review should tell me how the reviewer feels and the score should reflect that, not a podcast 2 months after the fact.

Yeah just ignore every point so that you can restate the same opinion.

O.K, I'll address your other points sentence by sentence.

1. You can't quantify disappointing. I fully agree, in fact I don't think you can quantify a lot of things about games in general yet almost every game reviewing website on the planet has a score system. What you can do is try to describe these things in the review. At no point in Ryan's review does he use the words disappointing or any of it's synonyms when describing his overall experience with the game, yet it is the most disappointing game of the year?

In fact here's a quote from the end of his review:

Assassin’s Creed III is a step up from last year’s Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, which saw Ezio’s story overstay its welcome and made some major miscalculations with its new mechanics, but it’s still not Assassin’s Creed at its finest. It's successful at establishing a whole new world and cast of characters, and tailoring the gameplay to match that setting, which is no small feat, even if the puzzle pieces don’t fit together as well as they could.

To me it sounds like Assassin's Creed 3 is a good game with some minor issues, not a major disappointment.

2. I hope not, a game should not get a higher score because the games prior to it set up an interesting fiction.

3. Jeff mentioned this in one of his Jar Time videos and said the review process would be looked at because it doesn't account for time on the other it's been less than 3 months since AC3 came out surely Ryan's opinion couldn't have changed that much? Also Assassin's Creed 3 was released after the other two candidates for most disappointing game so there was plenty to compare it to at the time.

4. When Brad reviewed Resident Evil 5 he gave it 5 stars so coming into Resident Evil 6 he must have had decent expectations. These are quotes from his review:

Resident Evil 6 is a big-budget disaster on the order of the Star Wars prequels, a sprawling production that clearly required so many individual talents to bring it into being, you can't help but wonder how the end result could have turned out so bad.

It's hard to fathom how Resident Evil, which almost singlehandedly redefined the action genre just two installments ago, has now become such a strange, mediocre pastiche of the better games this series once inspired. What a bitter irony that is.

After the great last couple of installments in the core Resident Evil franchise, it's astounding that the basic act of playing RE6 doesn't feel at least as good as it did in those games

That sounds like a disappointment to me.

It's hard to ignore Desmond in AC3 when the build up, and the whole reason why we were in the animus, is because of him.
He had all this training for what? Just to punk out at the end? I mean what the hell did they do with the Abstergo story thread?
They crapped it down the toilet! "I got stuck in an elevator then shot the main bad dude in the head. Oh yea, that "utitmate assassin" he died too."
It's stuff like that which tainted the whole of the AC series. I'm not saying the ending sucked but they developed it so fucking poorly. Ubisoft phoned it in. Fuck those guys.

P.S. Thank you for letting me rant. I respect your opinion too :)

@Rotten_Avocado said:

It's hard to ignore Desmond in AC3 when the build up, and the whole reason why we were in the animus, is because of him. He had all this training for what? Just to punk out at the end? I mean what the hell did they do with the Abstergo story thread? They crapped it down the toilet! "I got stuck in an elevator then shot the main bad dude in the head. Oh yea, that "utitmate assassin" he died too." It's stuff like that which tainted the whole of the AC series. I'm not saying the ending sucked but they developed it so fucking poorly. Ubisoft phoned it in. Fuck those guys. P.S. Thank you for letting me rant. I respect your opinion too :)

I haven't played either game and from what I hear AC3 sounds like just as much as of a mess as RE6 so I'm not disputing the fact that it's disappointing. I just find it weird that given the views the duders had given in other podcasts and in their reviews that AC3 ended up taking that category.

@Oldirtybearon said:

@Kierkegaard said:

Goddamnit. Assassin's Creed III has a bad ending, but it is still the best Assassin's Creed game. It's ambitious and doesn't always succeed, but where it does it is fun and important. And if you're looking for a story in games that deals with big issues and doesn't try to end on a happy note, ignore Desmond and look at Connor. Dude has a really interesting arc and a fascinating joy in his homestead while rage comes out in his destruction. I just... damn it. One of those times I really wish I was in the room with the guys.

I agree that the real heart of Assassin's Creed 3 lies in Connor and not the Desmond wrapper. That being said, like Jeff, I found the Desmond wrapper to be the most fascinating part of Assassin's Creed. Especially after the ending of 2.

It's hard for me to call AC3 the most disappointing game, and don't necessarily agree with the crew that it is. The game plays well enough, and Connor's journey is personal and effective. He's a conflicted and complex protagonist without falling into the broody anti-hero archetype. He's a genuine, sweet natured person who has to do some really brutal things to protect his people (which grows to include a warm community in the Homestead).

And yet still, I have a hard time forgiving AC3 for delivering one hell of a wet fart for an ending to the Desmond story. It wasn't that the concept was terrible or that it didn't make sense (well, within the fiction of Assassin's Creed anyhow), it was that it was rushed and glossed over. It disrespected the investment long-time players had in Desmond and his story. In the relationships that developed from 2 onward. It disrespected the intriguing nature of the "first civilization" and the idea that the greatest enemy in the Assassin's Creed universe was our own sun. In the end, it just felt like "we need to wrap this up and get it over with" and there was no love or care put into it at all.

Contrast that with the epic way Connor's narrative wraps up (pre-epilogue, the grave scene) and the conflicted emotional response that left in most players, and it becomes strikingly clear just how little of a shit Ubisoft gave for concluding Desmond's story in a satisfying manner.

All valid points, I think. What I will say for Desmond is that his tragic arc and the ambiguity between assassin and templar interests was consistent in the series. If Juno has been molding him to become the sacrificial key to her power from AC2, then his transition to order over freedom kinda fits.

Arguing less from my heart as from my understanding, Desmond deciding for himself to save the world could be a bold choice as it finishes his descent into order from chaos. From his experiences in the Animus, he has seen how assassin ideals often counter act their purposes. Maybe that embittered him and justified, for him, saving his dead while forcing many men to commit suicide.

I did like the totally different feel the Desmond missions took on--no mini map and no indication of enemies in the real world gave a great contrast to the gameyness of the animus. You feel icky killing people in 2012, an ickyness that 1777 never evokes. That's interesting.

Still, I agree. The ending concluded the major theme of freedom vs order in the series, but it did not give resolution to Desmond, Shawn, and Lucy, nor did it use gameplay as a finale. I didn't need a boss fight. I did want to do something to lead to the end or beginning of the world, though.

@SaturnPrime said:

WAY TO SPOIL THE END OF JOURNEY DURING THE GRAPHICS DISCUSSION PATRICK. It's fine, I've completed it already, but I was taken a back by the bluntness in saying it in an unnecessary category.

*says nothing, looks around the room*

Just because the GB crew find a game disappointing (due to what they were shown publicly & privately at places like E3/GDC/press events/ect.) doesn't make the game bad for anyone else who might find it fun.

This seems like the best place to bury angry ranting thoughts over these awards, so I'd like to rant about a bad decision that's been eating away at me. Seriously, I'm livid over this, and I typically pride myself at not getting angry over game awards.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted does not have the best multiplayer this year, and it's complete horseshit that it's getting any acclaim. I'd be willing to rank Borderlands 2, Trackmania 2: Canyon, and even Forza Horizon over Most Wanted's multiplayer. I'm not saying that any of those are the best multiplayer -- I haven't played enough games this year to know definitively -- but having played Most Wanted, while the multiplayer is indeed the best part of that game, it's simply a mediocre addition to an otherwise excruciatingly dull and uninspired title.

The charm of Burnout Paradise's multiplayer was the collection of freeburn challenges, and how they often created situations that would spur on horrible (and hilarious) crashes and accidents in the midst of a cooperative goal. Races were a rarity. Occasionally, Marked Man would be fired up, because that's entertaining in multiplayer in small bursts, but the key to what made Paradise work was the act of completing challenges. The satisfaction of getting a group together to complete a difficult goal, especially upon the introduction of timed challenges and their leaderboards, added a lot of value and a general feeling of camaraderie amongst the lobby. Plus, all the cars were fast and had handling nuances that suited just about every driving preference, and the world had distinctly different regions with different styles of challenges, despite being somewhat small. I put hundreds of hours into working with public and private lobbies to complete every challenge in the game, and I rank that easily as one of my best experiences in any video game I've ever played.

Most Wanted is not Burnout Paradise, and it will never come close to Burnout Paradise except in the most desperate of eyes yearning to relive that experience in a new game. To consider Most Wanted's changes solely as an improvement on Paradise and not ten steps backward at the same time is utterly delusional.

Sure, there's a few fixes to nagging issues from Paradise, such as easier navigation, better compensation for stragglers and quitters, and simplifying car swapping, but everything else forgets what made Paradise and even games like Hot Pursuit so great. The handling of the cars is atrocious, attempting to create a mix between realism and Burnout arcade driving and ending up with a bad mix of hyper-sensitive or drastically heavy handling profiles that rarely made me feel in control as a driver. This might not be so bad if the world had a decent flow to it, but there's very few enjoyable roads in the tiny expanse, and it comes off feeling more like something suited for a driving-heavy GTA clone than a high-speed Burnout homage, making crashes far too easy for all the wrong reasons. Plus, figuring out which area is which is nearly impossible, since they're not all that unique or interesting, and feel heavily segmented due to the incredibly generic roads that connect them all.

Oh, and we're forgetting about how Paradise encouraged working together, and not taking each other out over silly "how far can you jump" challenges. I'm fine with a little head-patting or bonuses for reaching destinations first or mischievous gameplay amid a challenge, but I feel no sense of accomplishment over completing meaningless, bland challenges or winning speedtests in Most Wanted. Sure, they give me XP and those unlock cars and upgrades, but the amount of time I have to spend with mediocre upgrades and unenjoyable cars make those milestones worthless. Give me a list of challenges to complete, if you must. I want to work through hundreds of challenges and see accomplishment for their completion, not simply a grind for XP.

I'm certainly a little biased because I expected far better from Criterion (and consider all five main Burnout games AND Hot Pursuit better than this rubbish), but the fact that Most Wanted's going to end up with more acclaim in GB's awards than a surprisingly good game like Forza Horizon (and yes, I expected Horizon to suck) tears at me. I don't know what the fuck Jeff sees in Most Wanted. It's fucking miserable. Maybe avoiding the single player and experiencing only a few hours of multiplayer makes it seem more worthwhile to him, but that's a damn shame, because it doesn't have a fraction of the longevity that Paradise or any good racing game from this year did, despite all the upgrades and perks that tried to create exactly that.

I know it's just opinions and we have a right to disagree, but fucking hell. It's like we played entirely different games.

@Phatmac said:

@JasonR86

Those guys just don't get Dear Esther like I do Goddamn it.

It's a great walking simulator for sure.

You suck.

@planetary said:

@SaturnPrime said:

WAY TO SPOIL THE END OF JOURNEY DURING THE GRAPHICS DISCUSSION PATRICK. It's fine, I've completed it already, but I was taken a back by the bluntness in saying it in an unnecessary category.

*says nothing, looks around the room*

I reviewed your other thread and don't have any "Patrick Hate". In fact, I enjoy that he tries things the others ignore or pass on and think he gets dumped on too much. I knew the spoiler rules laid out beforehand, and in a perfect world they should only be dispensed as needed for debate. I don't really mind spoilers as I said, but I've carved my listening of the GOTY podcasts around what I wasn't willing to be spoiled. I've skipped Best Story, Best Moment, and Walking Dead Episode. However I had completed Journey already, so no biggie. I would have thought "Best graphics" would have been clear. It is added in the timestamps thread. This is the complaint thread, where I felt I could best yell at a wall for a bit.

I am enjoying the debate and nomination bargaining more in the Day 3 & 4 than in Days 1 & 2. However I did skip chunks of 1 & 2. Jeff saying "You all are on dust." regarding ME3 MP. I enjoyed, but didn't agree with, that line. There is no way Most Wanted is best MP. It is far too frustrating to get anything done.

edit: just read what PsEG wrote regarding NFS:MW. Agreed.

I really enjoyed Patrick calling everybody retarded 12 year olds.

Y'know, considering his PSN name is MechaMothra.

Like, fucking really? Is self-awareness just not a thing these days?

@Terramagi said:

I really enjoyed Patrick calling everybody retarded 12 year olds.

Y'know, considering his PSN name is MechaMothra.

Like, fucking really? Is self-awareness just not a thing these days?

Yeah. Yeah that was rough. The dude needs to chill with his extreme views on things and thinking that his assumptions equate to reality. Just because one has a stupid username doesn't mean that person is 'a terrible person'. In fact, I would say that there is no such thing as a good username. They're all kind of dumb in their own way. So dudes like Patrick just need to relax.

The hardcore love of Fez confounds me, especially the soundtrack. Been playing it over the last week or so(and I'm currently partway through the second "playthrough"), and I don't even remember anything about the soundtrack or music. It's a pretty good game, though, I ain't saying it's bad by ANY means. It just keeps getting brought up an inordinate amount.

@Terramagi said:

I really enjoyed Patrick calling everybody retarded 12 year olds.

Y'know, considering his PSN name is MechaMothra.

Like, fucking really? Is self-awareness just not a thing these days?

Actually, he called them 14 year old idiots.

I saw a thread earlier today complaining about how much Patrick was spoiling stuff and everyone was giving the OP shit for it. Then I listened to the Day 4 podcast. Patrick just goes into end-game spoilers for games that are being cut. Yes, I know the GOTY podcasts are full of spoilers, but just to say "Hey this game is getting cut, but here's the ending." Or, "Hey, I just put this game on this list to tell you the ending." I can see how it kind of makes sense to the give the game it's props, but it just kind of bugged me. No one else went it to great detail about a game that was being cut. And yes, his comment about the 14 year old idiots was pretty annoying. But all of the crew is like that (except Vinny who seems to be more accepting of people and doesn't talk shit about a group of people). They just clump people together into a group and talk shit about them. I found him saying that especially weird because sometimes, I feel like he acts like a 14 year old. The way he emphasizes his swear words and talks about drinking like he's breaking the rules while on recess at school or something. I don't mean to come off as one of these Patrick-Haters, he just did somethings that rubbed me the wrong way this week and this is the place to say it.

I was promised dozen or more hours of deliberations. It's more like 9 hours. Me no like.

@Winternet said:

I was promised dozen or more hours of deliberations. It's more like 9 hours. Me no like.

No, Ryan said GOTY only went on for about 8 to 10 hours during that last non archived live stream.

Very surprised FTL somehow didn't make top 10. That is a bit confuzzling to me. Seeing how it was on almost everyone's individual top 10.

@Lukeweizer said:

I saw a thread earlier today complaining about how much Patrick was spoiling stuff and everyone was giving the OP shit for it. Then I listened to the Day 4 podcast. Patrick just goes into end-game spoilers for games that are being cut. Yes, I know the GOTY podcasts are full of spoilers, but just to say "Hey this game is getting cut, but here's the ending." Or, "Hey, I just put this game on this list to tell you the ending." I can see how it kind of makes sense to the give the game it's props, but it just kind of bugged me. No one else went it to great detail about a game that was being cut. And yes, his comment about the 14 year old idiots was pretty annoying. But all of the crew is like that (except Vinny who seems to be more accepting of people and doesn't talk shit about a group of people). They just clump people together into a group and talk shit about them. I found him saying that especially weird because sometimes, I feel like he acts like a 14 year old. The way he emphasizes his swear words and talks about drinking like he's breaking the rules while on recess at school or something. I don't mean to come off as one of these Patrick-Haters, he just did somethings that rubbed me the wrong way this week and this is the place to say it.

Ryan put Dragon's Dogma on the list because he wanted to hear the ending

I'm surprised that ZombiU made the list. Other then that I'm happy with XCOM winning.

Fucking Syndicate.

- I would have fought hard for Rhythm Heaven Fever.

- Fez being so high on the list or even on the list is craaaazy. Ryan should have spoke up about his distaste for Fez too.

- I really really wish Vinny fought harder for Sleeping Dogs. That game is great.

- Asura's Wrath and Binary Domain should have generated more discussion. I also do not think that BD's shooting is bad.

- I love Alex, but Hotline Miami, really?

- I only played The Walking Dead on the 360 and I did not have any problems with it. Calling that version awful is super dramatic.

EDIT - also, Dishonored. NO JUSTICE IN THIS WORLD!

But again, I love hearing diverse contrasting opinions and the GOTY was a ton of fun to listen to. My favourite time of the year other than E3.

@Lelcar said:

- I love Alex, but Hotline Miami, really?

- I only played The Walking Dead on the 360 and I did not have any problems with it. Calling that version awful is super dramatic.

Sometimes you gotta fight for shit.

Also, TWD on 360 hung for like 5 seconds during the ending of Episode 2. Really takes you out of it when Lee says "IT'S OVER" and then there's like 5 seconds before the game stops hanging.

Syndicate getting on the list because Jeff liked it was ridiculous.

Also is XCOM really that good? Should I play it?

@Ramone said:

Syndicate getting on the list because Jeff liked it was ridiculous.

Also is XCOM really that good? Should I play it?

Yeah, I could have done with Syndicate off the list.

@Terramagi: I agree that there were moments when it stalled for a couple seconds here and there, but personally it didn't really take me out of the moment and I didn't really mind it. I went through the game a couple times with some different friends too and they didn't seem to mind. You know what, I'm sure that the game is better on PC. I'm not going to fight for consoles. I'm just saying that it's dramatic to proclaim how terrible and unplayable the 360 version is.

@Ramone said:

Syndicate getting on the list because Jeff liked it was ridiculous.

Also is XCOM really that good? Should I play it?

XCOM is great the first time through.

And the second time.

...that's about it.

Several complaints and comments about today's (the last) podcast:

• Why is Jeff such a strong supporter of Fez and yet he only gave it four stars and had a very hesitant recommendation when it came out? Also, that game's not all that. Really, c'mon people.
• Rhythm Heaven Fever is TOTALLY the best Rhythm Heaven game, by a mile. By a light year! The GBA game is definitely second but geez...no, just about every minigame in Fever is absolute GOLD but the GBA and DS games (especially the DS game) have a lot of pretty dang lame ones. Fever is transcendent, it's like the best game ever made so it's almost unfair to put it on a list with lesser, mortal games so I guess I'm okay with it being cut.
• Jeff is about the only person in the world that LOVES Syndicate. How are these guys, none of whom have played it, allowing him to argue for it to be in the top ten?
• I'm so freaking glad they cut Frog Fractions. Holy crap having that game be mentioned exactly never anywhere this year to come into the top ten when at best it's a hilarious novelty would be ridiculous.
• Journey HAS to be on that list. It really needs to be. I can't understand it NOT being in the top ten...heck, the top five.
• Sleeping Dogs, from everything I've heard, is a competent, fun open world game that's nothing remarkable. Like seriously.
• The top three according to Giant Bomb really need to be XCOM, Far Cry 3 and The Walking Dead, simply going by how they reacted all year and what effect those games had on these dudes.

My only complaint is the lack of Borderlands 2. That game is one of the best examples of what a sequel should be; the only game that was a better example of what a sequel should be was AC2. Other than that, I enjoyed this years goty podcast, and having Xcom winning over the walking dead is just icing on the cake.

Disappointed with no talk about Crusader Kings 2. I know that game would never won GOTY or even be in top 10 for this site but it deserved some recognition. Frigging amazing game

The only games I was surprised about making it into the top 10 were Syndicate and ZombiU. I was surprised that the other guys didn't put up more of a fight against Jeff and Patrick on those.

(Not saying they are bad games, I haven't played either... just surprised based on general consensus throughout the year.)

Sorry for being a jackass (although that's sorta what this thread is about), but the absolutely stupidest thing I heard through all the GOTY deliberations was Jeff completely bombing on ME3 for being "just another wave based mulitplayer" going straight into praising Syndicate for being "my L4D". Not that I think either of the games deserves credit, but it's just sad that noone called him out on that complete bullshit.

Am I the only one who just doesn't give one rats ass about ANY game of the year shit from ANYONE?

Jeff's taste about things just seems so completely random. He won't like Red Dead Redemption, but then he completely loves Far Cry 3. You often get the suspicion that it's all about his mood at the time he is playing something.

Syndicate....really?, not saying it's bad, but in the top 10 list?, putting ZombiU in there was also weird.

This seems like the best place to bury angry ranting thoughts over these awards, so I'd like to rant about a bad decision that's been eating away at me. Seriously, I'm livid over this, and I typically pride myself at not getting angry over game awards.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted does not have the best multiplayer this year, and it's complete horseshit that it's getting any acclaim. I'd be willing to rank Borderlands 2, Trackmania 2: Canyon, and even Forza Horizon over Most Wanted's multiplayer. I'm not saying that any of those are the best multiplayer -- I haven't played enough games this year to know definitively -- but having played Most Wanted, while the multiplayer is indeed the best part of that game, it's simply a mediocre addition to an otherwise excruciatingly dull and uninspired title.

The charm of Burnout Paradise's multiplayer was the collection of freeburn challenges, and how they often created situations that would spur on horrible (and hilarious) crashes and accidents in the midst of a cooperative goal. Races were a rarity. Occasionally, Marked Man would be fired up, because that's entertaining in multiplayer in small bursts, but the key to what made Paradise work was the act of completing challenges. The satisfaction of getting a group together to complete a difficult goal, especially upon the introduction of timed challenges and their leaderboards, added a lot of value and a general feeling of camaraderie amongst the lobby. Plus, all the cars were fast and had handling nuances that suited just about every driving preference, and the world had distinctly different regions with different styles of challenges, despite being somewhat small. I put hundreds of hours into working with public and private lobbies to complete every challenge in the game, and I rank that easily as one of my best experiences in any video game I've ever played.

Most Wanted is not Burnout Paradise, and it will never come close to Burnout Paradise except in the most desperate of eyes yearning to relive that experience in a new game. To consider Most Wanted's changes solely as an improvement on Paradise and not ten steps backward at the same time is utterly delusional.

Sure, there's a few fixes to nagging issues from Paradise, such as easier navigation, better compensation for stragglers and quitters, and simplifying car swapping, but everything else forgets what made Paradise and even games like Hot Pursuit so great. The handling of the cars is atrocious, attempting to create a mix between realism and Burnout arcade driving and ending up with a bad mix of hyper-sensitive or drastically heavy handling profiles that rarely made me feel in control as a driver. This might not be so bad if the world had a decent flow to it, but there's very few enjoyable roads in the tiny expanse, and it comes off feeling more like something suited for a driving-heavy GTA clone than a high-speed Burnout homage, making crashes far too easy for all the wrong reasons. Plus, figuring out which area is which is nearly impossible, since they're not all that unique or interesting, and feel heavily segmented due to the incredibly generic roads that connect them all.

Oh, and we're forgetting about how Paradise encouraged working together, and not taking each other out over silly "how far can you jump" challenges. I'm fine with a little head-patting or bonuses for reaching destinations first or mischievous gameplay amid a challenge, but I feel no sense of accomplishment over completing meaningless, bland challenges or winning speedtests in Most Wanted. Sure, they give me XP and those unlock cars and upgrades, but the amount of time I have to spend with mediocre upgrades and unenjoyable cars make those milestones worthless. Give me a list of challenges to complete, if you must. I want to work through hundreds of challenges and see accomplishment for their completion, not simply a grind for XP.

I'm certainly a little biased because I expected far better from Criterion (and consider all five main Burnout games AND Hot Pursuit better than this rubbish), but the fact that Most Wanted's going to end up with more acclaim in GB's awards than a surprisingly good game like Forza Horizon (and yes, I expected Horizon to suck) tears at me. I don't know what the fuck Jeff sees in Most Wanted. It's fucking miserable. Maybe avoiding the single player and experiencing only a few hours of multiplayer makes it seem more worthwhile to him, but that's a damn shame, because it doesn't have a fraction of the longevity that Paradise or any good racing game from this year did, despite all the upgrades and perks that tried to create exactly that.

I know it's just opinions and we have a right to disagree, but fucking hell. It's like we played entirely different games.

The fact that Gears 3 didn't get a mention for 2012's 2011 GOTY. The post release stuff was great,

I haven't listened to the podcast but I love that Syndicate muscled its way in. Game was disastrously underrated.

I can't say I'm surprised, nor do I find it egregious that XCOM beat out Walking Dead and Far Cry 3. Out of those three, I'd have probably put Far Cry ahead of the pack because it was so bloody enjoyable, but one thing that really bugs me is Patrick's incessant need to call the game racist. It's not fucking racist. If Patrick thinks that game is racist, he has no fucking idea what racism actually is.

Also, getting real tired of him talking out of his ass about stealth games. I get it. Not for everyone. I love stealth games, but I'm not going to hold a gun to anybody's head and tell them that they need to enjoy stealth games like I do. If you don't, you don't. Just fucking stop dismissing an entire genre (and by extension the people who play it) because you have no interest in learning the mechanics. I heavily dislike JRPGs, but I'm not going to run around telling Hailinel that Xenoblade is a terrible game because I don't like JRPGs.

Also, that "herp derp 14 year old idiots" comment... can someone remind me why Giant Bomb hired this guy again?

Completely agree with Alex on Fex. Preach, brother. He's 1000% right.

I think Mark of the Ninja deserved to be placed higher, that is my only complaint regarding the actual Game of the Year stuff.

A side note though, is that I fucking love stealth games, and Patrick annoyed me when he flat out said that stealth sucks and no-one said anything in the defense of stealth games. I love stealth games, they provide some of the most satisfying experiences, and I don't like when people dismiss stealth with the only reasoning that stealth - apparently - sucks.

This year just kinda thought me I don't care about the site top 10 at all. I care about the discussions (which were kinda flat this year), the recaps and the personal lists. I also think GB needs to rethink their categories, as some of them feel like internal jokes. But props to them for not doing "Best shooter" and such.

@Oldirtybearon The story in Far Cry 3 is racist, confirmed by the writer in an interview as intentionally so. I think you're assuming that by "racist" Patrick is implying that the game demonizes or otherwise imples that non-whites are inferior. It doesn't, at least, not overtly.

The story is racist in that it is an (intentional) retread of the colonial "white savior" fantasy, as per Dances With Wolves, Last Samurai, Avatar, etc. That is, our white protagonist (and really, he doesn't have to be white, just 'like us') comes to adopt the ways of a native people, only to find that he excels at their ways even more than they do, and only he can bring victory to his 'adopted' people. There is a name for the story type I can' quite remember - at any rate it's an established story trope with roots in colonialism.

Far Cry 3's writer has said implicitly that his intention was to subvert this trope by

Whether the writer succeeds at this is debaeable (personally I don't think it works for several reasons, especially given the fact that most players do not select that ending so that the trope remains intact and unsubverted).

At any rate, I've not yet listened to the Day 5 recap. If Patrick is indeed claiming the game simply says "colored people scary/bad" then he is incorrect. But the writer himself says:

"“It’s set on an island in the South Pacific, so immediately the thing that comes to mind is the white colonial trope, the Avatar trope. I started with that"

Link to interview

Thank fucking god for Vinny. If Sleeping Dogs got cut, I would have lost my goddamn mind. Also, cutting Hotline Miami over Mass Effect 3 and ZombiU is INSANITY. The fact that Mark of the Ninja was even being discussed as being cut over those two games is borderline insulting.

@Village_Guy said:

I think Mark of the Ninja deserved to be placed higher, that is my only complaint regarding the actual Game of the Year stuff.

A side note though, is that I fucking love stealth games, and Patrick annoyed me when he flat out said that stealth sucks and no-one said anything in the defense of stealth games. I love stealth games, they provide some of the most satisfying experiences, and I don't like when people dismiss stealth with the only reasoning that stealth - apparently - sucks.

Agreed and Jeff sorta shut him up on that yesterday by pointing him to some of his own favorite games like Mark of the Ninja and Dishonored. He really needs to drop it with this all or nothing attitude he has about certain games or genre. It always the greatest thing ever or complete garbage. There's never any middle ground. You can't keep gushing about Dishonored and Mark of the Ninja all year long and constantly dismiss the whole genre.