Which is the best year in video game releases in the past decade?

I thought the GB community would've had strong opinuons about this clearly very important debate! I'll just leave this up for a while to see if anybody else will vote.

2011 and its not even close. Skyrim alone destroys all other years

Which year did Killer7 come out?
That one.

Also, OP, maybe bold the years in the list, makes it a bit easier to see.

holy shit I don't know based on those lists I pick 2008-2013. I can't narrow it down more than that. I'd need a more comprehensive set of data to say for sure.

Which year did Dead Space 2 come out?

That one.

2009 had Uncharted 2 and Dragon Age Origins which are two of my favorite games. Assassins Creed II, A Crack in Time and Arkham Asylum are also excellent, and New Super Mario Bros Wii is some of the most fun I've had with a video game (though my friends played a part in that). So that'd probably be the year I'd pick.

2011 is pretty amazing too now that I'm looking at it. I'd say there were more games I enjoyed that year than any of the others on this list, but the ones I loved from other years I loved a little more. Except Bastion, that's another one of my all time favorites.

2013 is in a comfortable 3rd place spot. Another year with great game after great game, the only problem is a lot of them were sequels, and aside from some standout indies that year, none of the games really showed me anything new, they just did stuff I'd already seen really really well.

2007 is overrated but it brought me Persona 3 and Portal so it's still pretty awesome. 2012 was kinda forgettable, when I look back at my list for that year I see a lot of almosts. 2014 has the honorable distinction of being the shittiest year on this list. 2015 and 2016 are looking pretty rad though! Looking back at all these is making me itch to do game of the year lists for the ones I missed. I ain't gonna chomp Brodehouse's flavor though.

2007



Also I think listing Dota under 2013 is kind of hilarious

2010, it's mad strong. Galaxy 2, ME2 and Red Dead Redemption are three of the greatest games I've ever played. 2010 also had Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, Bayonetta, God of War 3, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Super Street Fighter IV, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood etc. etc. Just an incredible year.

Skyrim, Witcher 2, Battlefield 3, Dark Souls, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Bastion, Mortal Kombat 9, Rayman Origins, Saints Row 3, Arkham City and Portal 2 all came out in the same year.

'07, comfortably. At least the poll knows what's up.

The Witcher, Assassin's Creed, Crysis and Uncharted all deserve a mention from that year too.

It's between 2012 and 2013 for me. I think i'm going to have to go for the former as that was when my favourite game of all time - Risen 2: Dark Waters - was released. The Darkness II, Mass Effect 3 and Transformers: Fall of Cybertron are also games i love very much.

In addition to this, you also had the likes of Kingdoms of Amalur, Binary Domain, Spec Ops: The Line, The Walking Dead, Sleeping Dogs, Borderlands 2, Dishonoured, Xcom, Far Cry 3 and Black Ops II.

Killer7 came out in 05, which makes it the fourth best year on this list IMO!

Because I love to rank things, here's my personal rankings:

2013 > 2012 > 2011 > 2005 > 2010 > 2009 > 2007 > 2008 > 2014 > 2006

I wrote this topic on mobile so there were no formatting options, and I don't know the code to bold! I would totally bold the years now, but for some stupid reason, I keep getting an error message when I try to edit the opening post.

Dead Space 2 came out in 2011. Another reason to think 2011 is a really strong year for games.

Not really a DOTA 2 player so I just looked up Wikipedia for the release date, and it says 2013!

Taking my personal taste into account, 2008 produced several top 10 games for me (1. Persona 4, 5. MGS4, 10. RB2) and the 2 games I've put the most time into out of any games ever (RB2 and Persona 4).

As a collective whole I would say 2011 but 2008 just has too many awesome games that are personal to me to ignore. The most surprising year is 2012, so many good smaller games that I could argue as the secret best year.

EDIT: God, can I just edit your post for you? Use bullet points for the games and bold the year so it doesn't just look like shit. If you are going to take the time to list everything you do, make it so it is slightly more eligible.

While 2007 and 2011 were certainly great, my vote goes to 2009 for Dragon Age Origins, Borderlands and Uncharted 2.

And Dead Space 2, Terraria, L.A. Noire, Ghost Trick, Uncharted 3, Super Mario 3D Land, Binding of Isaac, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, Bulletstorm, Pushmo, Dead Island, To The Moon.

@nightriff: dude i totally would but IT KEEPS GIVING ME AN ERROR MESSAGE SAYING I CAN'T

Again, I created this topic on my goddamn phone which for some reason doesn't have any formatting options.

@josephknows: I apologize then, could be because its a poll that its causing the error (?)

There's been a weird precedent set that says 2007 is the best year, and I think that is fucking crazy. Compare 2007 to 2008. Just look at the games. How can you say 07 was better? Because it had modern warfare?

@nightriff: Yeah, I could see that being the reason. These forums aren't exactly the best!

And yes, I'm quite surprised how 07 is comfortably leading! Maybe it's because people here REALLY love The Orange Box, BioShock, and Super Mario Galaxy.

2012 is the best year off the top of my head.

Right, but the original DotA WC3 mod started in 2003, and Dota 2 is literally just an extension of that, insofar as it's even run and designed by the same guy and has patch parity with DotA. Most people that wanted in have been in the beta since 2011-2012 and the first International was even in 2011.

I totally get why you'd include it and realize I'm mostly arguing semantics; I just think it's funny to include it. If I were making the list I would've just left it off entirely, but it's your list!

2011 is the best, handily. 2010 and 2007 were pretty great, too.

2008 wins hands down. Far Cry 2, Person 4, Burnout Paradise, Rock Band 2, Dead Space, Mirror's Edge, Braid. There is no better year on the list.

2006, Valkyrie Profile 2. 2005 and 2014 were good as well, along with 2011; though from 2009-2014 every year was good except 2012.

I adored Skyrim and Dark Souls is probably my favourite game in a decade, if not of all time (a cliché, I know,but true nonetheless). Those games alone put 2011 way ahead of any other.

I was pretty disappointed with Deus Ex: HR that year though. I was a huge fan of the first game back in the day, but the few hours I played of HR just didn't grab me at all. Any of you duders think it's worth giving a second shot? Also I hate the black and gold aesthetic, but I can probably look past that. Probably.

Also, 2015 is looking pretty fantastic so far. I have literally been waiting years for a game like Cities Skylines and a game like Pillars of eternity to come along, and what do you know, they come out practically back to back and are better than I'd hoped. And if The Witcher 3 can refine the Witcher 2 in the way the Witcher 2 refined the original, I may finally like that series as much as I've wanted to for all these years.

@ajamafalous: Based on my intimate knowledge of the game's fanbase (read: listening to Brad on the Bombcast), I assume those people love the game so much that they will vote for the actual year it was released. Doesn't matter if it's on a year they didn't play anything else!

@pcorb: My only experience with the original Deus Ex was fumbling through the tutorial and not even finishing the first level. If not for the boss fights in HR, I would have loved it. But because of those horrendously stupid encounters, I just think it's a REALLY good game. I guess if you were to ever go back to it, play the Director's Cut since it tweaked the boss fights so you could beat them using other methods than head to head combat. Shooting certainly isn't that game's strongest suit.

There was a post like this about a year ago. This was my post:

Looking at this I'd definitely have to say 2005, followed by 2010 and then 2011.

I would add 2014 to the list but it's out of the running before I even enter it.

Objectively I say 2007, and personally I prefer 2013.

2007 = Mass Effect, The Witcher, Portal, Crysis, TF2, Bioshock, CoD, Assassin's creed.. The year was so awesome that it bled into 2008 as well.

2013-14 have been boring

Also, I'm mad at you for not including the Witcher in 2007

You didn't even include Fable in 2005/06. Focus man!

2014 = Big names, Sh*t games

@jimbo said:

'07, comfortably. At least the poll knows what's up.

The Witcher, Assassin's Creed, Crysis and Uncharted all deserve a mention from that year too.

You sir, are correct. I like you

2007 was the year that defined the last generation. Mass Effect, COD4, Crysis, Assasins Creed etc. So much of the most influential shit

Tough poll, but I had to go with 09. That Arkham - Souls one-two punch alone takes it for me. Uncharted 2, Borderlands and Assassin's Creed 2 are just icing on the cake. A lot of the stuff before 09 might have been more influential, but a lot of them like Mass Effect, Bioshock and Assassin's Creed 1 were rough copies that got better with later iterations. Short of maybe something like Skyrim, and the indie boom, I don't feel like games have gotten much better than they were in 09.

2007 or 2011. I preferred 2011.

A kinda hard choice between 2007, 2009 and 2011, I think. I ended up voting for 2011.

2011 was a really good year for RPG's, with Dark Souls, Skyrim and Dragon's Dogma.

Pretty much every year has an argument to be made for why it's the best (that includes 2014, which some people still call "a bad year for games"). If I really had to choose I'd probably go with 2011.

Mostly for Dark Souls, Skyrim and Saints Row 3. Portal 2, Deus Ex, Mortal Kombat 9 and Alice: Madness Returns are pretty damn good too.

2011 is unstoppable with the Dark Souls, and Skyrim combo for me.

Bioshock, Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 by themselves made 2007 a year with games I went back and played a hundred times after they released.

Plus it had games that I didn't get around to playing until later like Persona 3 and Team Fortress 2 as well as games like Assassins Creed and Mass Effect where they weren't the best games in the series, started it all.

Also Portal, my god.

2007 for sure. Although personally, my favorite was 2009.

2009

• Batman: Arkham Asylum
• Street Fighter IV
• Dragon Age: Origins
• COD: MW2
• Borderlands
• Demon's Souls
• Forza Motorsport 3

Vs 2007

• BioShock
• Super Mario Galaxy
• Portal
• Team Fortress 2
• Rock Band
• Mass Effect

Kinda narrowed down the list to what I perceived as THE games of those years... I say 2009 wins it. Sequels don't do it for me unless they're THE number of the game to have (i.e. MW2>MW, Forza3 over other forzas). 2009 was such a good year for new IPs with the Arkham series, Dragon Age, Borderlands hitting the scene, Demon's Souls. 2007 was also Great with Bioshock, Portal, Mass Effect and Rock Band, though Rock Band was just a better version of something Guitar Hero introduced. Super Mario Galaxy was the Mario game people had been waiting for. In the end, 2009 is too strong for me. And again, all personal here for me.

Also... Format, brother, format.

2008 was my pick. But Rouge Legacy almost wins just because of the amount of time I've spent on it.

For me, it's definitely 2007. At least in my mind, that year was basically the beginning of the modern era of games.

2011 is missing Deus Ex: Human Revolution and The Witcher 2.

Also, my vote, though 2007 is a close second. Both years had plenty of games that could have taken Game of the Year in any other year.

Personally, 2007 wins it for gracing us with Team Fortress 2. I bought two damn versions of that game and spent countless hours playing it. Plus I remember my time with Modern Warfare and Assassin's Creed a lot of those games very fondly.

2011 is hard to top.

2007: Bioshock, MW4, Halo 3. Three of the biggest FPSs of the last generation, which one might say was defined by that genre.

2007 wins, but 2011 has saints row the thrid...

Oh there's two games I like in X year so that's the one!

How about there are about thirty pretty great games that came out in 2010 and if you don't say 2010 then you're Al Qaeda.

2011 also had Mortal Kombat 9 and LA Noire.

(it's funny. . . i automatically thought of 2011 before I read any of the listed games).

Last year did give us both Danganronpa and Danganronpa 2 which is enough to put it super high up for me, but I'll still probably say 2010.

2007. Easily. Bioshock, CoD 4, AC1, Mass Effect 1, Halo 3...

2007 > 2011 > 2008 > 2010 > 2013 > 2009 > 2012 > 2006 > 2014 > 2005