Game of the Year 2013: Day Five Recap

I want Drew to narrate all Anti-Chamber in the style of the Stanley Parable Narrator.

A bit hyperbolic? Everyone except Patrick had it in their Top 10.

Watching Jeff play Antichamber made me really want to go and play through it again.

@jeff when you said that Drew already played your #1 game and you were going to show something else I almost expected you to queue up another game of Windjammers.

@cat_herder

Don't think it happened :/ Here is a simulation though for your amusement!

Runners Up:

Lego Marvel Super Heroes: Cyclops, Antman, Deadpool, etc. (probably the most Nolan North)

Dota 2: Brewmaster, Earth Spirit, Gyrocopter, etc. (Brad wouldn't shut up without some mention of DOTA 2, and forcing a game into a list noonebut him cares about. PS Brad is bad at games.)

Saints Row 4: The President of the United States (yup)

Winner:

Deadpool: Deadpool AND himself. Wins by breaking the North Dimension.

Now here is the most uncomfortable Nolan North interview your ever likely to see.

They retired them mainly because North hasn't been in as many roles as he used to be. And the winner would probably be his role in The Last of Us

That's just California's future. The rest of us will be fine. Because we know how to beat up a rogue ATM when we need to.

If you don't believe how good Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is, you should watch Chip Cheezum's and General Ironicus' informative and hilarious Let's Play of it. Chip shows off the depth of the game, and you get a deep understanding of how fucking amazing that game is. Too bad it's so short. It's fuckin balls to the wall crazy.

I am completely shocked at Jeff's number 1. I don't remember what he was saying about it back when it came out but in the first four days of the deliberation podcasts I can't recall ever hearing him lobby in favor of Infinite winning anything.

Disclaimer: I skipped some/all of the more spoiler-y categories as I have not played a lot of the games being discussed, Infinite included.

When the played the Bioshock DLC and he went "what a cool game," it was my first indication that he might have really dug it. With Last of Us being out for him and Saints Row IV not peaking like III did, I honestly didn't know what else would top his list. You're right, Bioshock didn't seem like a sure thing, either.

The plaid couch is timeless and immortal!

Nice list overall, Jeff. Bioshock Infinite was definitely one of the best game of the year, and Anti-Chamber looks like what Portal 3 could've been.

Well. That escalated quickly.

I think the only games they really spoiled was Brothers and Zeno Clash 2.

Also I think it is crazy Divekick made it over Mario. Divekick is really cool and funny, but Mario is so fantastic.

Don't see how the last of us is game of the year, when it wasn't anybody's number one, and didn't even make jeffs list.

That game is the most overrated game of the year, and i wanted to love it ...

Me, too....COZ IT WASN'T MOTHERFUCKING WINDJAMMERS!!! WHAT A FUCKING TRAVESTY, @jeff!!!! WINDJAMMERS WAS ROBBED!!!! WHAT HAPPENED, JEFF??! WHAT HAPPENED??!

These videos have been amazing!

I see you trying to sneak your way into the video package, R.I.P.D. Nice try.

This video seemed like it was very hard to make.

All the videos were great. I enjoyed it.

I saw that too. Haha...

Honestly, I kind of hate that category. It's really weird and cynical, and I'm not sure what it says other than condemning a bunch of folks who spent a whole shit load of their time working on a game that didn't quite make the vision they had set out to achieve. Often times, I assume most of the time, the projects in that category are as much a disappointment to the creators as they are the consumer. A negative critique serves the purpose of letting people know don't play this game. Giving them an award to let them know they made the "worst" game of the year just seems cruel. I think the please stop category is way more valuable because it highlights something that is actually nefarious in the industry, often something that actively hurts and targets the consumer. Between please stop and most disappointing I'd like to see worst game disappear next year.

Glad BioShock didn't win overall. For all the whining some people do about games trying too hard to be cinematic, Infinite's only strong points are cinematic and art direction, the gameplay became a chore too quick. I got somewhat tired of Last of Us' combat/stealth sections towards the very end, but it was still better and tighter than the shitty 2007 era combat of Infinite.

I'll never understand the love for Divekick though.

Based on how he said he didn't have his list done he probably didn't know it would be his GOTY for anything until after deliberations were done himself.

I got the impression that he had a handful of games he really liked but when it came down to the list of 10 he didn't care about the particular order they were in.

True, but RIPD was especially heinous in that it was a reskin of another, different bad game in God Mode.

actually loved this, very random but a perfect culmination.

kinda wish we got to see everyone in their cyberpunk guises or something, rutger hauer would say something about c-beams. and then they'd play four hours of Shadowrun Returns or summat. but this is still great!!!

Oh, that is a deep-cut reference, I like it.

All the filler text says the apocalypse is going to happen. Looks like it already happened, to the GB staff anyway.

Ride To Hell: Retribution won worst game in a year where The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct and Aliens: Colonial Marines came out. The worst part is that I thought it looked just fine in the Quick Look and what I saw of the other two didn't.

Man, Antichamber was great. Glad to see it get some more recognition.

It's Bill, from The Last of Us. Mystery solved.

Don't you mean David :)

I'd love to go play some Windjammers!

You should play the game. I can assure you that it is beyond the level of terribleness that those two games have on offer.

Oh man. You know what, I think you're right. I'm just gonna look away. I get why Vinny didn't want that other game to get any publicity. Because people like me end up buying that stuff and then regretting it.

@xymox: :)

This is why this site is THE BEST!

You a wasteland...

It's better enjoyed as a LAN game when you can trash talk and be in the same physical space as your opponent, just like any fighting game, the difference is that the barrier to entry is really low and easier to get into. It's harder to appreciate it by just playing online, alone from home.

@dystopiax: I got the impression from the side comments during the videos and the podcasts and live streams leading up to December that there weren't any games that Jeff himself found to be that great, most of them he just found to be really good or rather he didn't find the games he liked to be certain of the order of which he thought to stand out as great games to him. I think if anything most of the games he played this year ended up having some problems or having some caveats (e.g. Killer Instinct and Divekick not having a lot of people playing online after launch, etc.).

BUT YOU'RE IN LUCK SO DOES GIANT BOMB DOT COM!

For once, my own personal list is much closer to Jeff's.

This is one of the better things you guys have done. Love it!

@cat_herder: I believe they retired the category after last year. This year, I think the winner would've been Nolan North as the Nolan North voice option in Saints Row IV.

Is it just me or was 2013 a pretty weak year for games? It seems strange to say that with AAA titles like Bioshock, The Last of Us and GTAV and indie titles like Brothers, etc. my feeling I'm left with for the year is just a bit of disappointment for some reason. Nothing lived up to what I was hoping it would be.

Or in dota 2

In the future, there will be only one place spacious enough for a public works project of this magnitude, and appropriately enough, it's the Dave Lang Zone.

Vinny and Drew, you have outdone yourselves this year. This is some net art right here.

It all starts with an earthquake...

Ah, I was hoping for a Back to the Future 2 take on this. The whole shitty apocalypse view of the future that seems to be the current norm is a bummer. However, still all around fun idea and presentation for GOTY content this year!

I'd say the highs haven't been as high as in other recent years (probably most notably 2011), but that on average, the games were generally good, but as Jeff said - we've had a year filled with games that could take the 5th to the 15th places on the GOTY lists, but no clear 1-5's.