so old.... why is this here?

" I have yet to play this game, and I hear nothing but good about it. But wonder if this game is getting bonus cred because it came from a no-name studio, so getting some underdog love. Everybody is used to give Infinity Ward or BioWare kudos, so feel like this game is getting more buzz due to its origins at Rocksteady. Like I said, havent played it, and I sure it is great, but was just wondering... "

" I really need to get this game sometime with all the praise it is getting. The demo thoroughly unimpressed me, but I get the feeling the full game itself is much better. "

I was afraid that it wasn't going to win any awards but it turned out good in the end.

I have yet to play this game, and I hear nothing but good about it. But wonder if this game is getting bonus cred because it came from a no-name studio, so getting some underdog love. Everybody is used to give Infinity Ward or BioWare kudos, so feel like this game is getting more buzz due to its origins at Rocksteady. Like I said, havent played it, and I sure it is great, but was just wondering...

I still can't believe that Batman is this good, I never played the game, and while there are some comic book games that done pretty well (MUA for example), I still can't believe that it could be this good, even now after seeing everyone love it this much, I'm still sceptical about it.

That said, it's obvious that I have to play this game.

It was a tough choice, but any of these games winning would be fine. I wouldn't mind if any of the top 10 multiplatform games won. Good year in terms of multiplatform games overall.

Assassins Creed II should have won in my honest opinion. AC was pretty decent but AC2 was a great example of how the sequel SHOULD be better.

Great Choice.Overall,i think Batman is the game of the year.We all knew Uncharted 2 would blow us away.But who could have ever predicted this great game?No one.

Brad dies at 8:59

I really gotta get this game soon.

good pick. very solid game.

" @WinterSnowblind said:

" @Stephen_Von_Cloud said:

" I was surprised to only briefly hear the quality of the boss fights mentioned as a major knock against Batman when they were talking overall GOTY on the podcast. I think it was only Jeff saying that the final boss fight was pretty weak, which I agree with but found every boss fight to be similarly bad.  Again, still a very good game but I have to think everyone was let down by the boss fights. "

I thought Killer Croc was bad, along with the final boss, but I didn't have a problem with most of the others.   I was very happy to see them avoiding simply using QTE's which absolutely ruined other games.  Just take a look at the Force Unleashed, considering it was a game that was supposed to make you feel like an all powerful Jedi, having every big sequence done through a QTE doesn't add to the experience, it just makes it feel like your watching a movie.  So while some of the boss fights in AA weren't exactly amazing..  they could have been so much worse.  Having not played Uncharted 2 yet, this is easily my GoTY. (I did just get Platinum on the original though) "

I agree with that QTE stuff. So many other games look awesome in trailers, like Heavenly Sword, but then when you play the game you realize it's just scripted QTE. This game feels more natural and I hope that games will be even better in the future. I can't think of any other game that has pulled off looking like a movie while still being a game, either they play like a game or look like a movie but to get both is just revolutionary IMO. I'm looking forward to what games will be like when they copy this and improve upon it. This game should be the inspiration for any sort of brawler in the future. I'd be fine with it becoming sort of a standard in the genre like the Halo 1 controls became for FPS and a foundation for all brawlers to try and improve upon. "

" I think it's crazy that people hated the Killer Croc fight.  Why?  I LOVED Killer Croc.  That was like my favorite boss fight.  Maybe were people getting lost or thought it went on too long?  I have a really good sense of direction so I would not have noticed that, but I suppose it could have been a big problem.  Seriously, why the hate over the Killer Croc fight?  Disclaimer: I am a total geek for Arkham Asylum and REALLY wish it would have won over Uncharted 2. "

50 Cent's not even a runner-up? Man, this site sucks.

I think it's crazy that people hated the Killer Croc fight.  Why?  I LOVED Killer Croc.  That was like my favorite boss fight. 
 
Maybe were people getting lost or thought it went on too long?  I have a really good sense of direction so I would not have noticed that, but I suppose it could have been a big problem. 
 
Seriously, why the hate over the Killer Croc fight? 
 
Disclaimer: I am a total geek for Arkham Asylum and REALLY wish it would have won over Uncharted 2.

It's my GOTY.

There is an interesting scandal surrounding this game on the PC, which is about specific technical aspects of the port:
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2009/11/4/batmangate-amd-vs-nvidia-vs-eidos-fight-analyzed.aspx

" @Stephen_Von_Cloud said:

" I was surprised to only briefly hear the quality of the boss fights mentioned as a major knock against Batman when they were talking overall GOTY on the podcast. I think it was only Jeff saying that the final boss fight was pretty weak, which I agree with but found every boss fight to be similarly bad.  Again, still a very good game but I have to think everyone was let down by the boss fights. "

I thought Killer Croc was bad, along with the final boss, but I didn't have a problem with most of the others.   I was very happy to see them avoiding simply using QTE's which absolutely ruined other games.  Just take a look at the Force Unleashed, considering it was a game that was supposed to make you feel like an all powerful Jedi, having every big sequence done through a QTE doesn't add to the experience, it just makes it feel like your watching a movie.  So while some of the boss fights in AA weren't exactly amazing..  they could have been so much worse.  Having not played Uncharted 2 yet, this is easily my GoTY. (I did just get Platinum on the original though) "

" I was surprised to only briefly hear the quality of the boss fights mentioned as a major knock against Batman when they were talking overall GOTY on the podcast. I think it was only Jeff saying that the final boss fight was pretty weak, which I agree with but found every boss fight to be similarly bad.  Again, still a very good game but I have to think everyone was let down by the boss fights. "

Good choice.

Hearing the bombcast really makes me wanna finish this game..

I had more fun with it using a keyboard and mouse so pc version is my favorite.Ps3 version would be next because you can play as the joker.Altogether good pick for multiplatform game.

" No mention of Borderlands? Lame. "

" No mention of Borderlands? Lame. "

I think the fact that I beat Batman AA on the 360 and am thinking about renting it for PS3 so I can play the game again sums up my feelings towards this game.  It was the Batman simulator, so much so that I started to even read the Batman comics to learn even more about this franchise.

" Nice choice.  The only thing I have to say negative against this game, and it is somewhat of a big deal, is that the boss fights in this game were just lame.  They were shallow and used very basic and cliche patterns.  With how well the rest of the game was crafted I was hoping for some MGS-type boss fights that are less linear and make you really think.  Considering how important the villains are to Batman it was a pretty big misfire.    Still an awesome game but I haven't seen many people call the game out for the boss fights.  I'll be interested to see if the guys mention this on the Bombcast. "

Excellent choice! I feel this game has more impact on the industry than the millions of copies MW2 had sold.

Yep, kinda saw this coming. Well deserved, I must say.

No mention of Borderlands? Lame.

" @emkeighcameron said:

" Playing B:AA on hard mode is.....insanely hard. Which makes it more awesome. "

I think it's not that hard. The game on hard just forces you to make use of all of Batman's gadgets and to really learn the fighting system. And this is, yeah,... awesome! "

Not Modern Warfare 2, huh? Good on you GB! Respect has increased!

I have to say, even though I played Modern Warfare 2 more, this deserves it. This had one of the best combat systems I have ever played and really was the best comic book/superhero game of all time.

" I really like how GB handled these awards.   Batman definitely deserves credit for it's excellent performance on every platform - no bugs, no performance issues, no matter what platform. And adding the physx stuff was the icing on the cake for PC gamers. "

I really like how GB handled these awards. 
 
Batman definitely deserves credit for it's excellent performance on every platform - no bugs, no performance issues, no matter what platform. And adding the physx stuff was the icing on the cake for PC gamers.

I wanna say there was fog that swirled around you in the PC version or something like that.
 
Even though none of them made my list this year, out of the 3 popular GOTY contenders (Batman, Uncharted 2, MW2), I think Batman is probably the most deserving.  I did play all of them, and appreciate how technically excellent they all are - they're just not the type of games that stick with me I guess.  I generally like a little less hand-holding and a little more freedom.

Good pick.  I am very happy that I got this game for $33 on the PC.  I am super impressed with it so far.  I thought the demo was alright, but playing the full game it goes deeper into the story right away before you even get to the part where the demo starts.

" Playing B:AA on hard mode is.....insanely hard. Which makes it more awesome. "

Enough already! Fine! I'll play it!

That's why Uncharted 2 is still my game of the year, but I'm predicting Batman for Giant Bomb's. 
 
Batman had a few flaws but the only one that really got to me was the boss battles. The build-ups to them were amazing, especially the Scarecrow bits, but the main fights were so weak I didn't feel like I was playing the same game. They just don't mesh at all with the quality of the rest of it. On the other hand, I only had one problem with Uncharted 2, and that was the enemies in the last 2 chapters. Without spoiling it for anyone, I just have to say that bullet-sponges are not fun to fight. Naughty Dog made the same mistake with the first Uncharted too, in the sense that they throw a new enemy at you, not necessarily that they were bullet sponges, and that's why it frustrated me even more. I thought they would have learned not to do something like that towards the finale, but they did.  Both games were so close to perfect though, and I don't think I've ever had such difficulty choosing a game of the year before. Maybe 1998 or 2004. I give it to Uncharted for breaking some new ground with animations, pacing, and the way character's interact with environments, but Batman was still one hell of a game. "

If Batman won this over Modern Warfare 2, it means GOTY is either Batman or Uncharted.    

" @Stephen_Von_Cloud said:

" @Kajaah117 said:

" Aha! My prediction that the Giant Bomb GOTY would be between Batman and Uncharted 2 was right. This is a tough one. My favorite was Batman, but I think the best game of the year is Uncharted 2. They both had some dumb parts though. I hated the last 2 chapters of Uncharted 2, and the boss fights in Batman were weak as hell. I choose Uncharted by a hair, but I think Giant Bomb will actually end up choosing Batman. Something about the way they talk about it, it seems to be the most universally praised game in the office. Arg, this is though! I'm just glad MW2 didn't win. It's a phenomenal game, and I actually didn't think the story was as confusing as most people though it was, but dude.... Batman... "

If you're talking flaws in the gameplay, I think Batman's boss fights are weak, while in comparison to Uncharted 2 there really weren't any glaring flaws.  Sure, depending on your taste you could complain about different aspects of that game but there was no glaring flaws like with Batman.  Maybe that can be overridden by the rest of the game but I think it's worth mentioning when comparing the two. "

Actually, I don't know that I agree about Uncharted 2 being "without glaring flaws." The gunplay isn't exactly mind-blowing (of the shooters I've played this year, it stands out as the least satisfying gunplay outside of Halo 3: ODST) but for most of the game, it wasn't a problem at all. Shoot-outs in Uncharted 2, for the first half of the game, served to aid in pacing the platforming sections, flesh out the story and provide more meaningful conflicts. However, once you reach the infamous train sequence, the shooting takes control of the game for almost two hours straight, with very little of the excellent platforming and climbing that were the heart of Turkey and Nepal OR even the sense of exploration that filled Borneo. Hell, that section didn't even have any character development throughout most of it, excluding Nathan's hatred of helicopters and its ending. Even if the gunplay were excellent, they ignored so many of the good things about Uncharted to the point that it limits the audience of the game to people who like Uncharted's gunplay, although just about anyone would've enjoyed anything before then. If the sequence had lasted a half-hour, it would've been fine. But the train sequence is so long that it wrecked Uncharted 2 for me, derailing it from my "Game of the Year" title to back below Dragon Age: Origins. I still haven't finished Uncharted 2 because the pacing suddenly went out the window, and I was satisfied with the gunplay and felt like I wasn't going to get anything different anytime soon. And according to other people I know who've played, the final area is just as focused on the gunplay, which is disconcerting to me.

Playing B:AA on hard mode is.....insanely hard. Which makes it more awesome.

" @Kajaah117 said:

" Aha! My prediction that the Giant Bomb GOTY would be between Batman and Uncharted 2 was right. This is a tough one. My favorite was Batman, but I think the best game of the year is Uncharted 2. They both had some dumb parts though. I hated the last 2 chapters of Uncharted 2, and the boss fights in Batman were weak as hell. I choose Uncharted by a hair, but I think Giant Bomb will actually end up choosing Batman. Something about the way they talk about it, it seems to be the most universally praised game in the office. Arg, this is though! I'm just glad MW2 didn't win. It's a phenomenal game, and I actually didn't think the story was as confusing as most people though it was, but dude.... Batman... "

If you're talking flaws in the gameplay, I think Batman's boss fights are weak, while in comparison to Uncharted 2 there really weren't any glaring flaws.  Sure, depending on your taste you could complain about different aspects of that game but there was no glaring flaws like with Batman.  Maybe that can be overridden by the rest of the game but I think it's worth mentioning when comparing the two. "

Good choice on GOTY.   I'm glad "that" game wasn't picked.