Game of the Year 2011
Honourable Mentions: LA Noire, Halo Anniversary, Space Marine, From Dust
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Holy shit, this came out of nowhere for me. I don't like GTA-syle games. I did not like SR1, I didn't bother playing SR2, and I picked this up solely due to Ryan's super-liminal messages on the Bombcast. I am so glad I listened, because damn it if this isn't the most amazingly stupid, stupidly amazing game I have ever played. I could pile the superlatives on, but at the end of the day YOU SHOULD JUST FUCKING PLAY SAINTS ROW
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Skyrim was going to come first, but then it took a Saints Row to the knee.
All memes aside, Skyrim is the Elder Scrolls formula (almost perfected) and a truly breathtaking experience, even with the backwards dragons and twenty thousand other random glitches.
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I think most Giant Bomb users felt a certain sense of attachment to Bastion thanks to the Building the Bastion videos here on the site, as well as a familiarity with Greg and the crew...I was not one of those users. Somehow, I managed to miss basically all the hype for this game due to an unintentional media blackout at the time, and yet none of that made a single difference. Bastion is, from top to bottom, a gorgeous, lovingly crafted game, and one that I have recommended to everybody I know.
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Battlefield 2, but modernised, perfected, and made stunningly beautiful. I had been waiting years for this game, and was not even slightly disappointed.
Oh, and the campaign was better than Modern Warfare 2 and 3's, even though it was still kinda average.
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If I were ever to be a fanboy for a faceless corporation, it would probably be Valve. No company ever executes as flawlessly as they do, and Portal 2 was no exception to this. I laughed, I cried, I laughed more, and all while defying the laws of physics.
Simply wonderful.
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Capcom take note: this right here is how you make a fighting game that doesn't make your fans curse you for being shifty, thieving bastards. Great character roster? Check. Quick to learn, hard to master? Check. Robust, fun multiplayer? Check. Incredible, cheesy, fan-service-y singleplayer. Check.
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Gears just edges Batman for me, as while it was also a sequel-arse sequel, Epic really seemed to want to experiment with their storytelling and trying to move their characters away from being one-dimensional manchild caricatures into something a little more relatable. Personally, I believe they were successful, and as a result they crafted a Gears game that played fantastically while also packing a surprising emotional punch.
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So I heard you liked Batman: Arkham Asylum? This game is a sequel-arse sequel, but that's ok when you are following in the footsteps of one of the biggest surprise hits in recent memory, especially when that game captures the spirit of Batman better than just about anything else I can think of.
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Another game that took me completely by surprise, bought on a whim on Steam. I hate tower defense generally, but the lovely third-person action combined with light roleplaying elements and some fiendishly fun traps made this an absolute blast to play. I struggle to think of a more satisfying experience than sitting back and watching as my traps massacre hundreds of orcs without me lifting a finger.
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They didn't fuck it up.
I must admit that was the very first thought that ran through my mind after spending some time with the game. It had been my worse fear, as I rank the first game up there as one of (if not the) best of all time. While the game became a bit of a drag towards the end and almost outstayed its welcome (and those boss fights...), it was still a great ride and hit all the notes you expected from a Deus Ex game.
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