Day 2's coverage is live and once again everything was top notch. No surprise - however it is still impressive nonetheless.

Skylander of the Year

I really feel Chop Chop got snubbed in this category, especially if you have listened to previous bombcasts that have followed the Skylander coverage. Chop Chop was thoroughly discussed on previous episodes with a lot of positivity so his loss to Drobot was a bit of a surprise for me, even with Drobot's pedigree. Plus, Chop Chop looks way cooler. We had enough dragons this year and while it's true that Skeletons are as old as time itself, Chop Chop managed to take a tired and old trope and make it feel new and fresh. I mean just look at him:

Best Debut

Bastion was definitely an awesome game but to me it wasn't the best debut. It has a lot of strong points but it doesn't do anything all that new. What Bastion does do, it definitely does extremely well, but it wasn't anything that pushed the envelope. That said, I gotta say the narration in Bastion is awesome. I actually was surprised by the list that ended up as the top 3 as I really didn't like L.A. Noire a whole lot. The story was a lot of fun but everything surrounding the story was bland. The game was just boring to play overall and I had to be in the right mindset anytime I approached it. I think Stacking could have easily replaced L.A. Noire, personally.

As for me I really liked Terraria. Like a lot. The game launched with so much to do and covered the adventuring, exploring, and building aspects really well and has improved about 10-fold since its release. I have sunk about 80 hours into Terraria so far and I still play it with my friends on occassion. Barring that it is fun for a wide audience. I'm a pretty 'hardcore' gamer and I think its great - meanwhile my girlfriend has played about 20 hours more of this game than I have and she rarely plays games. Terraria has sold well over a million copies over the course of the year and while this category might not be based on numbers you can't deny that such things show that Terraria had a powerful debut: keep in mind it was independently developed by a very small team in the course of a handful of months.

Best Surprise

I didn't play WWE All Stars but I did play Dead Island. I don't feel too strongly about Dead Island, personally. It didn't engage me as much as I was led to believe it would after hearing so many people talk about it. I think people just like zombie games, really. I enjoyed it but I didn't fall in love with it and I didn't feel like I needed to go out of my way to spend time playing it. But I am curious about checking out WWE All Stars. A wrestling game that is actually good/fun? Count me in.

Best Sky Game

I really want to play Skyward Sword but having sunk in over 70 hours on Skyrim I have to agree with the choice. Skyrim is addictive if you get into the fiction. If you have been playing Bethesda's open-world RPGs then you will recognize the huge step up that Skyrim is immediately. Is that enough? Well the game is more ambitious than most games can ever hope to be. Sometimes its ambitious, massive scope works against it because it is a jack-of-all-trades in a lot of regards so no one particular thing feels 'great' but when you consider all of the pieces as the whole it is a tremendous game that offers an experience unlike any other. I normally only play multiplayer games, but Skyrim feels so massive and alive that I had no qualms about putting my time aside for it in lieu of actually playing with my friends. I expound my thoughts on Skyrim a bit more in Day 01's Best Mission/Level.

Best Use of a Licensed Song

Power.

Wrap Up

Day 2 was as good, if not better than, Day 1. I have been on Giant Bomb since day 1 and I am still surprised at how great the discussions go even for jokey categories like 'Best Sky Game' Day 3 feels forever away now. Can't wait!