For me yes, for them I don't think so. I think the Walking Dead well edge XCOM out.

It's up there. Top10 certainly. This year really did not have much games of my linking.

Some of you don't seem to understand that GOTY is a relative thing. Arguments of so and so game cannot be GOTY because it has bugs don't fly unless you have a non-buggy game released this year to argue as being better.

this post has been brought to you by the people for Hotline: Miami goty 2012

Trials Evo is the dark horse of the GOTY awards, calling it.

It's my personal game of the year, but I don't think it's going to steal any awards away from the clear front runners such as Dishonored, Halo 4 and such. But I absolutely love this game.

Sadly I don't think it will win game of the year even though it should have at least been nominated too many people just want fast paced action and don't care to think while playing a game. Was X-com perfect? no but it was different and took risks well beyond the same old crap that the new Halo, Call of duty, etc took.

No way Giant Bomb will lock Walking Dead as GOTY, because it's a Gary Whitta thing and they're too close to him. So they'll feel uncomfortable enough about that to make an excuse. X-com has the best chance I think

I really don't think anything is a lock. Xcom will definitely get considered, and I'd love to see it get that sort of attention (it certainly could use it), but I have my doubts.

I feel like it's certainly Walking Dead or XCOM. I don't get XCOM though, I typically like the same things as the GB Crew, but after 4 hours of XCOM I uninstalled it. The game just felt tedious and boring to me.

A great game but no way a lock.

I have a feeling it will win. I remember they would talk non stop about it in podcasts and the entire team loved it.

Buggy as hell, but so was The Walking Dead, and Skyrim last year on PS3. Year of the Bowugs!

Now knowing that Far Cry 3 is Jeff's GOTY and hearing the guys react to it in today's recap... I dunno, I feel like it might actually have a shot.

How is Dishonored not on this short list as well?

No because RE6 came out this year.

The only bugs I ever got in XCOM were the odd times when my guys would shoot through a wall and hit an alien. That's really the only thing.. Sucks that everyone else seems to have encountered a lot more. I played and completed it a few days after release as well, so this was before any patches. It's my GOTY purely because it grabbed me and didn't let go. Dark Souls, Skyrim, and Mass Effect 2 being the only other games that ever really did that to me.

Maybe it's because I have such a high tolerance for bugginess in games. I dunno, unless the game completely breaks and I can't play, I generally don't care about bugs.

Xcom is awesome. But no. There were too many games this year for anything really to be a "lock". If anything, the Walking Dead is the closest thing to a lock seeing as how many people put it so high on their lists...I need to play that thing

It's third for Brad, second for Jeff and first for Ryan and I'm pretty confident it will rank high with Vnny and make Patrick's 10. The only other strong challenger in my opinion is The Walking Dead and Jeff doesn't seem down with that game so I'm giving the advantage to XCOM. We'll find out Friday!

I'm expecting a very long debate over XCOM vs Walking Dead. Brad and Patrick both love Walking Dead, Jeff hates it, and while Ryan put XCOM as his personal game of the year, he also loved Walking Dead. I think people expecting XCOM to get an easy win need to remember the Skyrim vs SR3 debate. People keep saying this argument will hinge on Jeff, but honestly Vinny seems like the swing vote here.

For the record, I love both games and will be happy with either winning.

It's going to come down to The Walking Dead, XCOM and Far Cry 3.

I think it'll be Far Cry 3. I mean, even the day 3 recap managed to be tons of fun - not only to watch, but to talk about and discuss.

Klepek might not like the game, but I feel Gerstmann still has more sway in these matters. XCOM is a well-rounded favorite but I don't think it'll take the prize.

I can't wait for Giant Bomb's GOTY. It's going to be a shitshow. Their opinions are so varied this year, it's amazing! I love how polarizing 2012 is for the whole videogame community actually. There's no common ground this year like Skyrim, or Uncharted 2, or GTA4. I love 2012.

I think for GB, it'll come down to The Walking Dead, XCOM, and Far Cry 3. I actually can't even guess at which one of those will take it. I'm hoping Rhythm Heaven Fever.

Totally called it.

I saw this showing up time and again as people's number one on lists, and while I'm not surprised, based on the way people have been talking about it, from my own personal experience, I just can't see it. I didn't know where else to post this thought, but I had to express it.

I played X-Com. I enjoyed X-Com. I finished X-com I played it on a difficult enough setting that I had to reload a few times (and yes, I know not everyone played it that way). But I just don't see how X-com was game of the year. Its story was bare-bones. Its gameplay hardly varied from the moment you first put your boots on the ground. Ultimately it became a cycle where I was more interested in my advances outside the battlefield, because the battles became more or less the same thing over and over, with the only variety introduced by being forced to mix-in squad members where yours were wounded.

I think X-com did a great job opening the door for the rebirth of the squad-based strategy game, but I don't think it was the pinnacle of that art. When you think about it, it only did the same thing Total War has been doing for years, mixing managerial strategy with combat tactics. The only thing I can figure is that something about either the hype or the interface of X-com made it so easy to access that people that haven't played a real strategy game that wasn't Starcraft or Red Alert were suddenly introduced to a whole different kind of gameplay they'd thought themselves too impatient for for years. And I guess there's something to be commended in managing to leap that gap- but I just experienced nothing revelatory when I played it.