Is it time to start talking GOTY?

Having played already what I was most anticipating for this year I doubt any of the ones I haven't been dying for will take over the GOTY title from "The Last of Us".

I'm a firm believer in waiting until January 1 of the next year, or until we know the final game has been released. When you see polls with games that haven't come out on them yet (looking at you VGA awards), the credibility of that award just falls through the floor.

Well I know I put my claim down as Fire Emblem just weeks ago, but I'm starting to turn around on GTA5. Hell, even Pokemon is making pretty big waves for me suddenly. Unless Zelda blows me away nothing coming out will matter though.

Tearaway looks really great and I have high hopes for Batman too, although I doubt this could topple The Last of Us for my top pick (and 2nd pick this generation after Uncharted 2). Need for Speed looks just incredible on Next Gen but I am not sure how a racer could ever topple a story based game for GOTY? I think Assassins Creed will be more of the same however I am super excited to play it as I love that series, whether it is strong enough to beat TLOU is hard to say however it deserves a fair shout before being ruled out.

Bioshock was pretty incredible but for me was to much of a shooter and didn't have anywhere near the atmosphere of the original.

Biggest surprise for me this year was Tomb Raider, what a fantastic game that was!

I don't think I could even come up with a hypothetical game that could take the title away from The Last of Us for me.

For a variety of reasons it seems like the game had relatively little effect on any of the Bomb Crew.

What is this fascination with Batman button mashers anyway? I've said it before and I'll say it again. I love Batman, but these are very average fucking games. Nowhere near the level of a Spider-Man 2, for example.

The Last of Us - done!.. Though I do need to get around to playing Brothers, Lone Survivor, and maaaybeeeee Batman: Arkham Origins, but even still the year already feels like it's come to a close for me.

Released this year? Probably Last Of Us. Best game I played this year? Fallout 3! So far, that is - I'm open to surprises.

This is going to sound snarky, but I really don't mean it to be - for me, there's always something that sneaks in just before the year's end, be it something I missed during the year or some little gem released late into the year (see Far Cry 3, for example). If I had my druthers, no one would even put out their GOTY lists until January 1st. But hey, I'm always up for reading why people enjoy games, so go for it, I suppose!

Bio Inf has very mediocre mechanics, I dont think it will win or be near top 3. It just has stellar presentation and production value. The gun play is very standard and the rest of the player actions are based on outdated design. Elizabeth's "amazing" AI involves enemy AI completely ignoring her, her taking cover on the wrong side of a battle, or her vaulting from cover into enemy sight while you are sneaking behind. She consistently broke my immersion instead of building it.

I don't understand the Saints Row 4 love. It's weaker than SR3 in my opinion, the missions feel like a drag. Of course, the zaniness is a redeeming factor, but I don't think it excuses the boring mission design and the near 100% rehash of the previous game's mission types. It felt like an expansion pack/DLC to me (for obvious reasons.)

Last of Us suffers the same problem as Bioshock Infinite, amazing presentation but ...ok gameplay. No where near as bad as Inf, so it has a chance of winning because from story to game design, it does most things right.

GTAV has unparalleled production value (of course with that budget), mostly exciting mission design (some very exciting heists and Strangers and Freaks missions mixed with what-were-they-thinking tow truck missions).

As a multiplatform current-gen open world developer, I'd say GTA does a stellar job with their world building and systems and having everything run relatively smoothly on these consoles. They have tons of gameplay mechanics and activities but most of them feel unpolished (drive-and-shoot mechanic is the worst part of that game, 100% lock on targeting vs swimmy free aim)

Aside from those, I havent had the time to play Brothers, but the way people talk about it, I'll trust them.

I'm almost about ready to finalize a list. Only things left to come out for me are Batman, Battlefield 4, and Assassin's Creed IV, and really Batman's probably the only one that has a shot at making my top ten. Also need to play Brothers and Fables and I should be good to go. Played about an hour or two of Rayman: Legends yesterday and that's already going to make it. It's kind of funny because I think about half of my list will be comprised of stuff I rented. No PC games. Front runners so far are looking like Bioshock, Last Of Us, and Saints Row IV in my opinion.

I dont think im getting a next-gen console till early next year, so I'm HEAVILY leaning towards GTA5. It's been the most fun game-wise i've had all year BY FAR. The driving is fun, the story was pretty good, the characters were great, the shooting (free aim) is pretty decent (i like it, screw ya'll). Plus it looks and runs really good, which is pretty damn amazing considering the hardware its on.

You can nitpick at it for days just like anything else, but I think it certainly deserves game of the year. Well i dont really care about those awards since they're all meaningless anyways, but it's my personal game of the year so far by a mile.

Isn't Mario 3d World still coming out this year? and Zelda? I've got my own personal favourites so far though.

My favourite so far hasn't come to the west yet, Youkai Watch by Level5. I guess it'll come next year. It's got a mix of pokemon/dq monster with that level 5 flavour. A lot of the monsters remind me of Ni No Kuni (for obvious reasons) and the combat is pretty fun as well (better than the one in Ni No Kuni which I enjoyed unlike many people). Wish the game were longer though. Second year in a row that a 3DS game is my favourite game of the year. Last year my favourite was Animal Crossing. Well, if only western release dates counts than I'd say Animal Crossing: New Leaf would be my favourite of 2013. I know I'll be playing that for years even if only 15 minutes every now and then.

The game that surprised me the most so far was Dead or Allive 5 Ultimate (I didn't play vanilla DOA 5). It fixed some things that kept DOA4 from being great and overall I very good fighting game and this is coming from a VF player. People will probably ignore it thinking the accessible mechanics mean no depth and will say it's just a boob fest game. I feel sorry for those people. The game is a lot of fun AND competitive.

Lunch games should be GOTY, every year. Dinner games could potentially be even better though if they start making those.

Game of the year was won when EU4 came out.

:P you'll love this.

I don't know, the argument was there, but Mass Effect 2 came out in January. I know some didn't love it, or even hated it (I didn't like a lot of the changes they made), but right off the bat that was up there in GOTY.

I think GOTY shouldn't be cut until South Park gets a fair look, and in which by then, every game that would be out between now and then that would mean anything would probably be out.
Dem downloadables, though

@bigjeffrey said:

We're talking about GotY, not a top 30 list.

I assume you're talking about the Arkham games? Those are the diametric opposite of button mashers. Unless you consider games with action designed around focused, precise, reactive play that you might be able to spam your way through if you're on a lower difficulty and happen to get lucky and don't mind getting incredibly low scores/XP from every encounter and dying often to be a "button masher".

Ain't no discussion about it. The Last Of Us Wins

or Fire Emblem Awakening. Or some other great game most of the Bombcast have no interest in.

Couldn't tell you but I loved the game to be honest.

This is just me personally, but unless Super Mario 3D World absolutely blows me away, my GOTY is already set in stone. As for professional types like the staff, they should wait until December like normal people.

@warxsnake: No comment from me on Bioshock, GTA, Saints Row or Last of Us. I haven't gotten around to playing any of them yet. I was just stating how the a giantbomb GOTY debate will go down. Of what I've played this year The Wolf Among Us was probably my favorite.

I forgot to list Rayman. Patrick and Alex will give that some love. Mario 3D World too.

I swear, GOTY season just comes earlier and earlier every year.

Call of Duty Ghosts had GOTY won for me since it was announced. Nothing will change that. FIFA 14 will take #2, Madden 25 #3, GTA V #4 and maybe Beyond Two Souls at #5.

Yes.

Amazing.

Nice shot.

Okay at first I thought this was a joke post by naming all the dumb AAA sequel driven, roster update games and then you got to #4 and #5 and now I'm not so sure? Or maybe you still are joking and your opinion on GTA V and Beyond isn't very high.

I enjoy Madden, FIFA and CoD more any given year than all of the other games that come out any given year combined. Always have, always will.

So Call of Duty will always take #1 because that's the game all of my friends buy and we spend hours upon hours playing together and having fun. Then FIFA and Madden are practically equal. I play them mostly single player (franchise mode / etc), but occasionally play my friends or Ultimate Team which is a blast.

Nope, he's just one of those people who really really like Call of Duty games(every game after Call of Duty 2 at least) and very little else

@jz: Uhhh The Last of Us came out in June and while I love GTAV and I'm sure Batman will be great,TLOU pretty much sealed it when it came out

After watching some more Arkham Origins gameplay recently, I'm actually pretty excited for that game as well. I thoroughly enjoyed the last two, but was worried a malaise would set in with those games. It doesn't appear that that will be the case.

I also loved Tomb Raider from earlier this year. I may need to go back and replay that again too.

What catches my interest here is the maneuver of saying nothing better here is coming up so this is what I say is GOTY. It may even prove to be true by majority consensus (thank god video game players tend to be way too contentious to agree w/ anyone's pushed bs) Even worse is the technique of what isn't GOTY that already exists, makes me write off right that right away.

It may well prove to be true that the candidate already exists. I do not care. For a good AAA game I am waiting for Batman Origins, and have other varied titles I like. I will wait for a sale for GTA 5 though I think it does have a strong chance for GOTY. Other games exist or will exist outside the boundaries of personal opinion. We will see. The condition of pushing back the decision timeline has not been met in my view.

@video_game_king said:

This year it started back in march! :/

You mean when Patrick said that Fire Emblem would be his Best of the Year and Jeff freaked out about this "War on GOTY"?

DOTA 2 is the game of the year. There we are, end of discussion

@afabs515 said:

@bigjeffrey said:

There can still potentially be 9 games better than that this year. It's only guaranteed to be in the top 10.

I'd be hard pressed to name 9 games I enjoyed less than Brothers i 2013.

Oh man I forgot Fire Emblem came out this year. And almost forgot about DmC. Of the games I've played so far, Last of Us is my GOTY. I don't see it winning the site awards though. I doubt Jeff and Brad will play it, and even if I do I just don't see Jeff getting behind it.

@video_game_king said:

Couldn't even remember that. Does sound more interesting than what I had in mind. I was thinking about everyone talking about Bioshock Infinite only to think maybe it was not all that great after all few months later. Then we got The Last of Us and it started all over again.

I'm not really a big fan of srpg but Fire Emblem being someone's favourite of the year sounds pretty awesome to me :p It was the first FE I played since the gba. They marketed it really well. Couldn't imagine so many people playing a FE game outside Japan. Anyway, I'm more into Disgaea but it's pretty different. No one will remember Disgaea D2 :(

Have a favourite (so far) or meh, don't care?

The only game that I am looking forward to now that Watch Dogs' been delayed is South Park. Other than that, it's a pretty clear list for me so far.

Because I was trying to tie that into my Christmas joke from before.

GOTY will be Super Time Force.

Yes it will SHUT UP

@ozzdog12: when did I say it didn't?

For me its probably

GTAV>Fire Emblem Awakening>Bioshock Infinite>TLOU

I cant see anything else coming out this year topping those.

I'm just going to make predictions so far for the giant bomb crew's top 10

These are pretty much locks.

Bioshock Infinite: In all likelihood it would have been a two horse race with this and the Last of Us, but now I don't see enough of them getting around to it and enjoying it after everything.

GTA V: Sounds like they've discussed enough drawbacks to this one that I don't think it will be in contention for the top spot, but there's no way it doesn't make the list

DMC: Brad played the hell out of this one and loved it, he'll surely argue for it and will get enough support.

The Last of Us: Opinions on this have been understandably skewed, but I think it will still make top 10, enough of them will finish it in time.

Dota 2: Brad will fight for this to the death and the others will allow it on the list

Brothers: Same as dota unless someone else plays it and has a strong opposing opinion it will probably make it.

Papers Please: Jeff played through it and really enjoyed it, its different and Ryan was a fan, I think it will be there.

Saints Row IV: Jeff and Brad did every side mission, it will be low (not as good as 3) but will still make it

Gone Home: A bit more of an outsider but it was liked and could make it. Could be an entertaining Brad vs Jeff, Brothers vs Gone Home battle.

Others that stand a chance: Fire Emblem (unsure of how high Patrick is on it, but if he fights for it I could see the others going with him), Divekick (a possibility, but opinions may be a little mixed), Antichamber (adds variety, Jeff was pretty positive on it), Metro: Last Light (Patrick may make the fight for it), Kentucky Route Zero (provided all eps are out, again Ryan was a fan), Rogue Legacy (enough people put enough hours into it that it could be there).

I also feel like year walk, the stanley parable, tomb raider and animal crossing will probably end up on 1 or 2 individual lists, but will struggle to make the group top 10.

The Last of Us I'd imagine, not from Giant Bomb though; probably going to win the most even over GTA V I'd guess, since GTA's online component is shit and its gameplay is mediocre, fair amount of people really like both the multiplayer and the gameplay of The Last of Us; even if there's a significant number of people that don't like the singleplayer gameplay. Bioshock Infinite has a good but not great story and pretty tedious gameplay that a small number of people liked. Let's just pretend Dark Souls 2 came out this year.