Apparently the GOTY discussions were a bloodbath.

Alex just posted this on twitter keep in mind this is snarky ass Alex were talking about.

https://twitter.com/alex_navarro/status/279793258400477186

Got to sit in on discussions for the last couple of award categories, including GOTY. Shit got CUTTHROAT.

@Demoskinos said:

Alex just posted this on twitter keep in mind this is snarky ass Alex were talking about.

https://twitter.com/alex_navarro/status/279793258400477186

Got to sit in on discussions for the last couple of award categories, including GOTY. Shit got CUTTHROAT.

I am unreasonably excited to listen to a bunch of dudes decide on their favorite game of the year

I actually didn't finish listening to last year's GOTY podcasts until mid-November. I remember Brad and Jeff spending about two hours debating over whether or not Skyrim or Saints Row the Third should be on top.

Skyrim eventually won because Ryan, who was waiting the whole conversation out, finally cast his vote for Skyrim. And rightly so. I would have been pissed if I had listened to that whole thing just for something as average as SR3 to win.

So, yeah, cheers to Team Brad.

@Animasta: I hope we see evil brad come out. We all know he is a deviant in disguise.

@believer258 said:

I actually didn't finish listening to last year's GOTY podcasts until mid-November. I remember Brad and Jeff spending about two hours debating over whether or not Skyrim or Saints Row the Third should be on top.

Skyrim eventually won because Ryan, who was waiting the whole conversation out, finally cast his vote for Skyrim. And rightly so. I would have been pissed if I had listened to that whole thing just for something as average as SR3 to win.

So, yeah, cheers to Team Brad.

You wanna fist fight? Cause I'll fist fight for SR3 being a better game than Skyrim sir. I demand a gentlemens duel.

@believer258 said:

I actually didn't finish listening to last year's GOTY podcasts until mid-November. I remember Brad and Jeff spending about two hours debating over whether or not Skyrim or Saints Row the Third should be on top.

Skyrim eventually won because Ryan, who was waiting the whole conversation out, finally cast his vote for Skyrim. And rightly so. I would have been pissed if I had listened to that whole thing just for something as average as SR3 to win.

So, yeah, cheers to Team Brad.

that shit was the fucking worst.

and not because saints row was better than skyrim or vice versa (I think the first one but whatever)

he said Skyrim without playing it, his argument being "well saints row had problems like there wasn't enough of it"

it was annoying :(

I actually didn't finish listening to last year's GOTY podcasts until mid-November. I remember Brad and Jeff spending about two hours debating over whether or not Skyrim or Saints Row the Third should be on top.

Skyrim eventually won because Ryan, who was waiting the whole conversation out, finally cast his vote for Skyrim. And rightly so. I would have been pissed if I had listened to that whole thing just for something as average as SR3 to win.

So, yeah, cheers to Team Brad.

I hope to have Sleeping Dogs done by then and my top 10 list completed. I haven't even looked at what games I've played this year, but I think it's a bit over 10 so lots will be in there by default.

I'm thinking Jeff takes on the Brad* role this year, and goes apeshit against Walking Dead - he dropped heavy hints recently. I have no idea what they end up going with, but i wouldnt even be surprised if their GOTY ends up being a game that none of them have #1 on their list. It feels like a year where compromise might end up deciding the number one.

*And to be clear, i love Brad and think he has been reasonable on the GOTY 'casts. I know the public perception is that he has been over-the-top in arguing though. To me, last year was way more about Ryan's steel-chair-over-Jeff's-head-moment of not backing Saints Row (Oh!!! Collusion!). I literally went "WHAT?!!?!??!?!!" when listening to it the first time. It was such an insane thing to do when he hadn't even finished Skyrim that it actually felt like he had been bought off or something.

@cthomer5000: I don't think he ever even played Skyrim

@cthomer5000 said:

I'm thinking Jeff takes on the Brad* role this year, and goes apeshit against Walking Dead - he dropped heavy hints recently. I have no idea what they end up going with, but i wouldnt even be surprised if their GOTY ends up being a game that none of them have #1 on their list. It feels like a year where compromise might end up deciding the number one.

*And to be clear, i love Brad and think he has been reasonable on the GOTY 'casts. I know the public perception is that he has been over-the-top in arguing though. To me, last year was way more about Ryan's steel-chair-over-Jeff's-head-moment of not backing Saints Row (Oh!!! Collusion!). I literally went "WHAT?!!?!??!?!!" when listening to it the first time. It was such an insane thing to do when he hadn't even finished Skyrim that it actually felt like he had been bought off or something.

Ryan = Hulk Hogan joining the NWO

Don't want to oversell it. I wouldn't say that it was necessarily any harsher than last year's. Comment was more that a lot of games a lot of people really loved had to get axed, myself included.

@Alex said:

Don't want to oversell it. I wouldn't say that it was necessarily any harsher than last year's. Comment was more that a lot of games a lot of people really loved had to get axed, myself included.

so what you're saying is that you killed jeff and left him in the garbage behind the CBSi offices

I half want another fist-fight of a GOTY discussion, especially with games like The Walking Dead and Journey being serious contenders. Half of the time those arguments devolve into "nuh uh" over and over again, but then again there's also the times when we get some real-ass talk about game design.

@Animasta said:

@Alex said:

Don't want to oversell it. I wouldn't say that it was necessarily any harsher than last year's. Comment was more that a lot of games a lot of people really loved had to get axed, myself included.

so what you're saying is that you killed jeff and left him in the garbage behind the CBSi offices

Also Patrick is dead rest his soul.

https://twitter.com/alex_navarro/status/279796911672811520

Actually, now that I know Alex is on, I will be much more disappointed when Hotline Miami doesn't make the top 10

@Animasta: It's in my personal top 3, if that makes you feel any better.

When is all this stuff going to be posted on the site? Been wondering if they have just been going crazy producing GOTY stuff all week?

@Alex said:

Don't want to oversell it. I wouldn't say that it was necessarily any harsher than last year's. Comment was more that a lot of games a lot of people really loved had to get axed, myself included.

If it was as harsh as last year's, it was completely insane.

...here's hoping this one doesn't play out like a wrestling match. Collusion? Definitely. But to mutual profit this time, please.

@Alex said:

@Animasta: It's in my personal top 3, if that makes you feel any better.

a fair enough prize

@Devise22 said:

When is all this stuff going to be posted on the site? Been wondering if they have just been going crazy producing GOTY stuff all week?

That is basically the reason for no TNT and a drought of content this week.

I did think that Skyrim was a better game than SR3, but I got a little pissed off at Ryan last year.

Ryan had SR3 on top of his personal list, he was pushing it for GOTY, and when he counted votes at the end he suddenly realized, "Oh, shit, this thing is actually going to WIN! Looks like I took the joke too far!" He should have had the balls to stick with it.

It does look like Jeff is going to put his foot down on The Walking Dead, but he is going to have to put forth a credible alternative that everyone can get behind. I don't think he can get there with XCOM or Mass Effect 3.

@Electric_Zen: why not xcom? that's the easy second answer, because all of them liked it.

It was always going to be between xcom and TWD, with Mark of the Ninja as their third

@Demoskinos said:

@believer258 said:

I actually didn't finish listening to last year's GOTY podcasts until mid-November. I remember Brad and Jeff spending about two hours debating over whether or not Skyrim or Saints Row the Third should be on top.

Skyrim eventually won because Ryan, who was waiting the whole conversation out, finally cast his vote for Skyrim. And rightly so. I would have been pissed if I had listened to that whole thing just for something as average as SR3 to win.

So, yeah, cheers to Team Brad.

You wanna fist fight? Cause I'll fist fight for SR3 being a better game than Skyrim sir. I demand a gentlemens duel.

I actually liked Skyrim better, but I'll jump in on this fight for referring to SR3 as "average".

I'm going to go ahead and predict Jeff and Brad are going to go at it again and Vinny will have concise arguments and Ryan will just vote (cus he's chill like that)  
=P 

@Electric_Zen said:

I did think that Skyrim was a better game than SR3, but I got a little pissed off at Ryan last year.

Ryan had SR3 on top of his personal list, he was pushing it for GOTY, and when he counted votes at the end he suddenly realized, "Oh, shit, this thing is actually going to WIN! Looks like I took the joke too far!" He should have had the balls to stick with it.

It does look like Jeff is going to put his foot down on The Walking Dead, but he is going to have to put forth a credible alternative that everyone can get behind. I don't think he can get there with XCOM or Mass Effect 3.

Yep basically this the fact he voted for it essentially because it was the "in" game at the moment without putting up a fight for SR3 left me a bit stupefied at the whole thing.

RIP Brad

@Electric_Zen: What makes you think Jeff's going to put his foot down on The Walking Dead? As far as I can remember he just hasn't played too much, not that he had strong feelings against.

@Animasta said:

@believer258 said:

I actually didn't finish listening to last year's GOTY podcasts until mid-November. I remember Brad and Jeff spending about two hours debating over whether or not Skyrim or Saints Row the Third should be on top.

Skyrim eventually won because Ryan, who was waiting the whole conversation out, finally cast his vote for Skyrim. And rightly so. I would have been pissed if I had listened to that whole thing just for something as average as SR3 to win.

So, yeah, cheers to Team Brad.

that shit was the fucking worst.

and not because saints row was better than skyrim or vice versa (I think the first one but whatever)

he said Skyrim without playing it, his argument being "well saints row had problems like there wasn't enough of it"

it was annoying :(

@cthomer5000: I was under the impression that they had all played a good bit of Skyrim. And, cthomer5000, Skyrim is a game that you don't really need to "finish" to get a good opinion of.

@Demoskinos: @MariachiMacabre:

I kind of knew this was coming. To put it bluntly, I feel that Skyrim is much better at drawing you into a well-realized world. I feel like every nook and cranny in that game is more interesting and thoughtful than even the best things in SR3. I'd say that all of the interlocking systems, most importantly the better persistence in the world and the better AI patterns and that sort of thing, across this massive world are really impressive when you think about them. I would say that writing and story in Skyrim is much improved over that of Oblivion, and while the guilds (Companions, Dark Brotherhood, etc.) are not as interesting as they were in Oblivion, it's made up for by the better main story quest and just a wide variety of mostly interesting quests here and there, everything from a ghost-girl whose father was being led by vampires to things as silly as Sheogorath's Daedric quest. This is all included in a game whose biggest flaws are the bugs inherent in its own ambition.

Saints Row the Third, meanwhile, has less bugs (nothing flys like it shouldn't), but it has a very disconnected story that's pretty hard to care about. It has a mostly flat world that's no more sophisticated than that of its predecessors, or even games that came out in the PS2 era. It has no sense of proper pacing, meaning that the game feels like it peaks in the first thirty minutes and then never, ever reaches those same highs. Its humor is often forced, juvenile, and stupid in a way that I can't get behind (zombies? Are you fucking kidding me?) It is, indeed, a fun game at first, and that carries it for a little while, but by the fifteen hour mark, where I first beat the game, I just plain didn't want to play it anymore. I beat it because I didn't want leave a game that close to its finale, but I can tell you that the last few hours of that game were neither fun nor well-spent. The game is not bad, not at all, and I have it on Steam from the THQ Humble Bundle. And it's installed. And I've played it again some more, and its first few hours are fairly decent. It just never, ever builds to much of anything that I can honestly recommend past the part where you jump out of a plane with Kanye West's "Power" playing.

@believer258: I'm pretty sure he didn't play any Skyrim (I can't know for sure, but I distinctly remember him mentioning that he didn't play it).

I'm guessing The Walking Dead played a central role in the conflict. Whether or not that kind of marginally interactive storytelling, no matter how well executed, makes up for the fact that the actual 'game' parts of that game aren't anything special.

Seems to me that it probably came down to one side boosting Walking Dead (Patrick, Brad) and the other side pushing for XCOM (Jeff for certain, I'm not sure where Ryan and Vinny fall between these two).

@Electric_Zen said:

It does look like Jeff is going to put his foot down on The Walking Dead, but he is going to have to put forth a credible alternative that everyone can get behind. I don't think he can get there with XCOM or Mass Effect 3.

Mass Effect 3 isn't getting anywhere near top 3. No chance.

Looking forward to where XCOM falls on the list. As much as I have liked other games this year, I still see myself breaking this out many years down the road.

alright, it's good to hear they got Alex into it. This should be fun.

I'm giddy with anticipation.

@Electric_Zen said:

I did think that Skyrim was a better game than SR3, but I got a little pissed off at Ryan last year.

Ryan had SR3 on top of his personal list, he was pushing it for GOTY, and when he counted votes at the end he suddenly realized, "Oh, shit, this thing is actually going to WIN! Looks like I took the joke too far!" He should have had the balls to stick with it.

Is the implication that enjoying Saints Row the Third was some kind of extended exercise in irony? Because I couldn't disagree more. That game is great--way better than Skyrim. Skyrim is a husk. Saints Row the Third has some weak moments, but at least it has a soul.

Also it makes me real happy to know that Hotline Miami is getting its due in this discussion. I wouldn't expect it to win the overall prize (though it is my personal favorite game to be released this year), but it does warm my heart to know it gets recognized.

@believer258: Saints Row 3 wasn't average, hell it was the better game.

but that's besides the point, it's all personal opinion. The issue is that brad did a terrible job trying to fight for that game. Patrick won that fight for him.

Also I hope brad losses every debate he has this year for his hatred towards rayman origins. Another game he just had a poor argument for being against

@Electric_Zen said:

It does look like Jeff is going to put his foot down on The Walking Dead, but he is going to have to put forth a credible alternative that everyone can get behind. I don't think he can get there with XCOM or Mass Effect 3.

That's because the game everyone can get behind is Far Cry 3

@HerbieBug said:

@SomeDeliCook said:

I wonder if Far Cry 3 will be in the #1 slot argument?

Perhaps if the PC version was the only version of that game. The technically deficient console versions argue pretty strongly against the idea of that game getting top spot.

If you wanna play the technically deficient game, then Walking Dead shouldn't even get a mention on the list for it's save game corruption issues.

I had no issues playing Far Cry 3 on my 360.

@Animasta: I hope we see evil brad come out. We all know he is a deviant in disguise.

SPOILERS

XCOM GOTY

I just hope that FEZ makes it on somebody's list.

I'm certain Brad got his way in these discussions.

@believer258: The whole point of Saints Row is just to be one big dumb joke that focuses on just being dumb fun because FUCK I'M A VIDEO GAME. Man, I had the complete opposite reaction hearing "I need a hero" playing while rescuing the girls at the end was fucking hysterical. So many other fantastic moments and Co-op was a hoot too. Skyrim had its moment with me but I already did most of what Skyrim did for fucking hours before in Morrowind and Oblivion. I've not played any games that have just so unflinchingly embraced being a video game as Saints Row 3 did. It was just FUN for the sake of being fun. That in itself was refreshing amongst so many games wanting to be cinema action flicks. But I digress possibly that isn't what does it for you but I'm just over the trend of needing all games to be "immersive" or great storytellers. I just want fun-ass fun games.

I wonder if Far Cry 3 will be in the #1 slot argument?

And before anyone says the console versions are "terrible and unenjoyable" (which I disagree with) Skyrim won last year's GOTY with the note that the PS3 version is terrible and "straight up broken"

@rjayb89 said:

I'm certain Brad got his way in these discussions.

brad always gets what he wants

he lives in the land of take what I want with saucepan man

@SomeDeliCook: Oh, I agree man as someone who as played the 360 version I think Brad was insanely way to hard on the console versions. It is completely enjoyable on console.

@BlatantNinja23: So support that argument?

Don't quote me just to say "NO SR3 IS WAY BETTER!" without having a little something to back that up. I mean, it really all boils down to opinion since there's nothing fundamentally wrong with either game (meaning neither is an unplayable mess of baffling decisions), but you've got to have some idea of why you think SR3 is better than Skyrim.

Yeah I have a feeling it's going to be Jeff against the crew about The Walking Dead specially after it won on Spike and then Ryan swinging towards Jeff at the end. I have no idea what the alternate GOTY would be. I guess it's between Sleeping Dogs and Far Cry 3.

I should beat Far Cry 3 tonight.

@SomeDeliCook said:

I wonder if Far Cry 3 will be in the #1 slot argument?

Perhaps if the PC version was the only version of that game. The technically deficient console versions argue pretty strongly against the idea of that game getting top spot.

SR3 made you play hours of their shitty side missions to advance the story. As much as I loved the game, I can't forgive them for the awful pacing. I'll also firmly stand by the opinion that the most entertaining parts of that game aren't the parts where you're playing it. That stuff is fun, but it's just an average open-world crime game wrapped in absolute insanity, which is both why I love it and why I think it didn't come close to being deserving of GOTY.

I really have no idea about this year, because I honestly think it was a weak year and there seemed to be a lot of disappointment from the crew on a lot of big games. I just hope TWD doesn't get another pass for being an awful game with a fantastic story.

@Demoskinos: But that's just the things - Saints Row the Third completely stopped having any semblance of "fun" for me by the time I reached the end. I finished it for the sole reason that I was close to the end and didn't want to leave it dangling. The game never built much on its promises, it started off way too strong and by the end I was tired of being pummeled with the "crazy" and "insane" antics of this goddamn tiring game.

Yes, I perfectly understand the concepts of a fun gamey-game. I played Just Cause 2 for around fifty hours before I finally got bored of it, and that game embraces both its stupidity and gamey-ness arguably more so than SR3. I don't need games to immersive or great storytellers, but I also don't need them to just throw everything the developers could think of in a disjointed mess at me. Again, not a bad game - but as far as I'm concerned it's decidedly average and barely noteworthy. Harsh condemnation, especially in a site that religiously loves the game, but that's my opinion.

Man i am way to excited for this....i hope my ears are ready to receive them