Good one. DOOM is good, but Hitman is something special. The multiplayer caveat was more than a little caveat if we consider the importance of multiplayer in DOOM games...
And I can't agree with DOOM nomination for best story. It barely has a story, it has a setting. The "break stuff instead of turning it off" was not that original, the same happened in ME3.
I loved watching/listening to GOTY talks this year. Yet again, this is like a personal holiday for me that none of my friends understand (I've tried explaining, believe me). :-)
On another note, I love the layout of content on the home page. For so much content being posted over the last week it's still super easy to find what I'm looking for. Nicely done.
Have mine ears bewitched me with whispers of Xanadu?!?!
As much as I love Doom, Hitman kept me going all year long. Doom may have had higher highs but the buzz of Hitman was sustained for a much longer time frame. Games usually don't have that effect on me for that period of time.
It could have done with a little less of Alex steamrollering the conversion with the implied threat of a toddler style meltdown if the others didn’t acquiesce.
BTW: What’s with Overwatch Character of the Year category? If I didn’t know any better I’d have sworn that was a half an hour of Blizzard Entertainment co marketing.
The Doom hyperbole is getting to be a bit much. Look I'm not a fps guy but I can appreciate what they like about the fast paced gameplay. But the story is a total non-element of that game. Not only is it nonsensical, it's actively bad. who needs emotional resonance when we can have a big tough guy running around shooting demons!
What would it take for a multiplayer focused game to win GOTY? Like every year it's some game that lasts like 2 weeks and the game I keep playing for months gets ignored. Whether it's Overwatch, or Streetfighter 4, or Dota 2, or Hearthstone or Starcraft 2 or, or or it's always a game that is over in a few weeks and the games I play for months get passed by.
What would it take for a multiplayer focused game to win GOTY? Like every year it's some game that lasts like 2 weeks and the game I keep playing for months gets ignored. Whether it's Overwatch, or Streetfighter 4, or Dota 2, or Hearthstone or Starcraft 2 or, or or it's always a game that is over in a few weeks and the games I play for months get passed by.
Why do you need their validation? If Overwatch is your game of the year it is your game of the year regardless of what some people you listen to on the internet say.
That said, I would say the reason multiplayer focused games tend to get passed over is the nature of their jobs and the varied tastes of the crew. They are constantly moving from title to title, and unless it hits their personal tastes or is easily turned into content they don't seem to stick with it as a group.
I figured Hitman would come down to be their #1 while watching this. Now I really want to buy Hitman and play it for myself even though I'm hesitant to do so after watching all of the site content that they've put out for this game that I won't have the same experience as the GB guys and have too much knowledge about the game before going in.
Nah, Austin would've fought for it but it still would've missed out. That's the problem with the Souls series. You know what it's about. All installments can be great but they're not surprising. At best, you'd have gotten Abyss Watchers having a discussion for best moment before being shuffled out of that.
Absolute stunner, did not see that coming. But I guess they did all kinda got the hitman bug hard right at the end.
Same. I thought Vinny would like it actually (because it can be crazy and whacky with lots of freedom) but I am shocked Jeff liked it in the end when he tried it.
Is Uncharted 4 this years Witcher 3? And by that, I mean is Uncharted 4 the mediocre game I'm going to have to listen to fanboys complain about getting snubbed all year?
Nah, Austin would've fought for it but it still would've missed out. That's the problem with the Souls series. You know what it's about. All installments can be great but they're not surprising.
Oh I agree with you, souls games are a known quantity at this point. And since Jeff is never going to bat for one, basically an instant strike one, heh.
Yeah, replace The Witness with Dark Souls 3, swap Doom and Hitman around, and you've got my list right here. (Fuck the Witness, boring newspaper-style puzzles saddled with Jonathan Blow's philosophy YouTube playlist, get fucking real.)
I wonder how much Hitman's release strategy factored into its number one spot. While DOOM was a single great experience, Hitman by design stayed in everyone's collective memory up until the deliberations.
I haven't watched or listened to the deliberations because I just can't stomach people getting angry with one another about video games, but DOOM's nonexistent story being a runner-up for the best is... odd.
Thank Fook Hitman won, it was so obvious as it's the only game that took over the entire team. I just hope the next season has fun maps, season one had 3 pretty bad maps.
The only good thing about Uncharted 4 was the facial animations, if you get rid of them, you're left with a boring game and a tired rerun of a story. I only remember Uncharted 4 because of how convincing those faces were, it's like finally someone has overtaken HL2.
I'm so glad Uncharted 4 got booted off for Hyper Light Drifter and Stardew Valley (never played Thumper). Yet another cinematic third person shooter with the most graphics from the people that specialise in that stuff is painfully boring four games in.
Wish Doom would have won Best Game, but at least it was a strong number 2.
And thank god Uncharted wasn't on here. In 3 years, that game won't be good. The story is bad (Firewatch got robbed) and the gameplay is awful, and really the only thing making people like it is the tech. Believe me, Uncharted 4 is the James Cameron's Avatar of video games
I'm not sure where Jeff's hard stance on good single player games w/ bad multiplayer came from. Remember GTA4/MGS4? Everyone agreed a poor multiplayer doesn't matter if people are coming to it for the solo play. Again with MGS5 and Mario Make which had really terrible online features where the user needed to rely on external sources.
My main issue with Hitman winning on this site is that they all played and really loved Doom, but only like Brad and Vinny put any actual time into Hitman while the rest of the crew sort of appreciated it from a distance. i really enjoy Hitman but it's not as smooth and entertaining an experience as Doom was.
I was sure Jeff, Brad and Dan would push DOOM for top place but I'm surprised how much of an impact Hitman had on the entire crew! I think Hitman definitely deserved the top spot.
Naughty Dog... you guys need to start making some shitty games so that the next time you give gold to these jokers they'll appreciate it instead of punishing you for having already achieved greatness before. Reminds me of when Grant Theft Auto 5 was also shafted because of individuals lobbying for their indie darlings of choice.
@humanity: I think that's totally fair to feel that way and you've hit on my biggest pet peeve with the GotY process itself (and why I don't bother to listen to them anymore). But people around here seem to love it, so I've just kinda accepted it will probably never change.
Wow, Hitman the surprise victor. I guess I have to get it now - never played a Hitman before. Good thing season 1 is heavily discounted on psn right now. Definitely did not expect Vinny and Drew to end up arguing for it to win when they both had Doom number one on their personal lists, but Jeff made some compelling arguments. Alex backing up Jason also convinced me to go back and finish hyperlight drifter which I gave up on before any of the updates.
Stardew is the GOTY of my heart so thrilled to see it make the team. I can not wait to see the community list and how it compares.
Having given the deliberations a second listen I'm pretty happy with the reasoning behind everything landing where it did on the GOTY list. They dug into what they've done in the past. I do agree with Brad that it would be nice if they discussed the games more rather than the bargaining for ranking. Yes, they discuss a lot of these games in other categories but there's something to be said for the GOTY discussion which feels like it should take on a different dimension than what comes up with some of the specific niche categories.
I figured Hitman would come down to be their #1 while watching this. Now I really want to buy Hitman and play it for myself even though I'm hesitant to do so after watching all of the site content that they've put out for this game that I won't have the same experience as the GB guys and have too much knowledge about the game before going in.
It didn't bother me. I barely remember the hits those guys were going for. I mean, you can play with opportunities and instinct off, if you're that worried.
@humanity: In a vacuum with no discussion DOOM might've won since they all had fun with it on a personal level, but in the discussion as a whole they realised that Hitman brought them the most fun as a team and the most (fun) content on the site. Even though they tried to downplay that, I think it is important. In my opinion, it is partly why Super Mario Maker got it last year.
Another fun mechanic in these deliberations is that a person can strongarm a game up or down the list and the rest goes 'sure if you say so, I didn't play enough of it' (this is not the 'getting the personal favourite on the bottom of the list' one). Kinda why the first Titanfall got dropped after a minute in 2014, but the second is high on the list in an arguably more stacked year.
Best would be full knifes/bats out to be honest. The list itself is whatever, but the discussion is always interesting to listen to, even if the arguments get nonsensical at times. This year was perhaps a bit tame at times. DOOM vs Hitman could've used some more fireworks.
@gundogan: sure I get that reasoning but it seems like something like that shouldn't factor into how good the game is. Doom motivated all of them to not only play but complete it. How often does Drew actually play mainstream games? Or even complete them? It's something that they all played and all enjoyed a great deal. Only a few of them played Hitman and Jeff often complained how he thought the actual controls are somewhat clumsy in contrast to the excellent clockwork scripting.
But I mean who cares really. As we all know these lists are quite silly and trying to eek out any logic or counter logic to their choices is ultimately a waste of time. I just wanted to "speak my piece" on the matter - a great drinking game is listening to the deliberations and taking a healthy swig each time someone said that phrase.
@mrwakka: It's not about one game. In terms of validation it's really just depressing how my favorite games get moved into this one little sub category and it's such an exception when they're actually given any real recognition. Overwatch; like fine they didn't think it was as good but the press both writ large and Giant Bomb almost always find a way to give a flavor of the month game it and meanwhile games I'll play for years will at best only find a handful of outlets recognizing them.
If they like Hitman and Doom more than Overwatch, like that's fine it's their list but it's not a one off. But when you look at these thing in retrospect it becomes clear that multiplayer games aren't really taken seriously.
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