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Incoming: Giant Bomb's Game of the Year Awards Begin Tomorrow

Who will win the award for "Best Big-Ass Ramp?"

 OK. He's calling it.
 OK. He's calling it.
OK, we're down to it. By this time next week, we'll all live in space and video games played on things like "televisions" won't matter anymore. But let's celebrate what little time we have left with a set of awards designed to commemorate the best and stupidest things that happened in the world of video games throughout 2009. Here's what you can expect.

Starting tomorrow, we'll start posting the site-wide awards in categories such as Best Big-Ass Ramp, Character We'd Most Like To Party With, and The Brad Shoemaker "I'm Callin' It" Award For Best Use Of Zombies. There will be a short daily podcast to go along with these, where we discuss a bit about what we were thinking when we wrote all of these dumb joke categories. We'll also have videos with each of our top 10 games of the year, presented in a countdown format.

This will continue up until January 1, when we'll post the heavy hitters, our platform-specific awards and the overall Game of the Year. Along with this, there will be a Quick Look for each winner and what will probably be the longest podcast we've ever recorded, where you'll get to hear our deliberations for all of these major categories.

Mark your calendars accordingly!

OK, while I've got you here, I'm going to quickly dig through the achievements data and tell you what the most popular achievement for 2009 was. Keep in mind that we only have data going back to around May or so, and this is dictated by traffic coming to the site, so it'll be skewed in favor of tricky achievements.

In a landslide, the most popular achievement on Giant Bomb is... 

Points Aficionado and Confirmed Robot, T-Pain 
Points Aficionado and Confirmed Robot, T-Pain 

Borderlands - You're on a boat!


...yes, this not-so-subtle tribute to The Lonely Island, which requires you to go to the watery part of Borderlands, sneak around the back side of the area, and hop on a boat, has inspired more people to seek out its location than any other. In fact, Borderlands also has the most popular achievement list page on the site. Congratulations to Gearbox for clearly understanding how to write achievements in a way that keeps people interested in the game. I've been writing quite a few achievement-like things lately, and I can say that it's tougher than it looks.

Here's the top 10 most popular individual achievements for the whole year.
  1. Borderlands - You're on a boat!
  2. Garry's Mod - Secret Phrase
  3. Batman: Arkham Asylum - World's Greatest Detective
  4. Borderlands - My Brother is an Italian Plumber
  5. Borderlands - 12 Days of Pandora
  6. Prototype - Self-Deception
  7. Halo 3: ODST - Naughty Naughty
  8. Borderlands - Fully Loaded
  9. Borderlands - Made in New Haven
  10. Assassin's Creed II - Show Your Colors
 That's a pretty good spread across multiple games, but Borderlands is clearly dominant.

OK, now you know what we'll be up to over the next week. We'll be back in the office on January 4, at which time we'll probably jump into some of the new upcoming stuff like Darksiders, Dark Void, and Bayonetta, which should have been called Dark Bayonetta just to make my "dark games of January" threesome work. Darkmy of Two: The 40th Dayrk? OK, fine, I'll drop it.    
Jeff Gerstmann on Google+

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jeff

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Edited By jeff
 OK. He's calling it.
 OK. He's calling it.
OK, we're down to it. By this time next week, we'll all live in space and video games played on things like "televisions" won't matter anymore. But let's celebrate what little time we have left with a set of awards designed to commemorate the best and stupidest things that happened in the world of video games throughout 2009. Here's what you can expect.

Starting tomorrow, we'll start posting the site-wide awards in categories such as Best Big-Ass Ramp, Character We'd Most Like To Party With, and The Brad Shoemaker "I'm Callin' It" Award For Best Use Of Zombies. There will be a short daily podcast to go along with these, where we discuss a bit about what we were thinking when we wrote all of these dumb joke categories. We'll also have videos with each of our top 10 games of the year, presented in a countdown format.

This will continue up until January 1, when we'll post the heavy hitters, our platform-specific awards and the overall Game of the Year. Along with this, there will be a Quick Look for each winner and what will probably be the longest podcast we've ever recorded, where you'll get to hear our deliberations for all of these major categories.

Mark your calendars accordingly!

OK, while I've got you here, I'm going to quickly dig through the achievements data and tell you what the most popular achievement for 2009 was. Keep in mind that we only have data going back to around May or so, and this is dictated by traffic coming to the site, so it'll be skewed in favor of tricky achievements.

In a landslide, the most popular achievement on Giant Bomb is... 

Points Aficionado and Confirmed Robot, T-Pain 
Points Aficionado and Confirmed Robot, T-Pain 

Borderlands - You're on a boat!


...yes, this not-so-subtle tribute to The Lonely Island, which requires you to go to the watery part of Borderlands, sneak around the back side of the area, and hop on a boat, has inspired more people to seek out its location than any other. In fact, Borderlands also has the most popular achievement list page on the site. Congratulations to Gearbox for clearly understanding how to write achievements in a way that keeps people interested in the game. I've been writing quite a few achievement-like things lately, and I can say that it's tougher than it looks.

Here's the top 10 most popular individual achievements for the whole year.
  1. Borderlands - You're on a boat!
  2. Garry's Mod - Secret Phrase
  3. Batman: Arkham Asylum - World's Greatest Detective
  4. Borderlands - My Brother is an Italian Plumber
  5. Borderlands - 12 Days of Pandora
  6. Prototype - Self-Deception
  7. Halo 3: ODST - Naughty Naughty
  8. Borderlands - Fully Loaded
  9. Borderlands - Made in New Haven
  10. Assassin's Creed II - Show Your Colors
 That's a pretty good spread across multiple games, but Borderlands is clearly dominant.

OK, now you know what we'll be up to over the next week. We'll be back in the office on January 4, at which time we'll probably jump into some of the new upcoming stuff like Darksiders, Dark Void, and Bayonetta, which should have been called Dark Bayonetta just to make my "dark games of January" threesome work. Darkmy of Two: The 40th Dayrk? OK, fine, I'll drop it.    
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RHCPfan24

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Edited By RHCPfan24

I can't wait to see the GOTY shenanigans go down. The podcast is going to be epic if it really is 4 hours +.

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InfiniteGeass

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Edited By InfiniteGeass

The next week sounds exciting.

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chewii101

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Edited By chewii101

Surprised Borderlands dominated the achievements this year. I'm gonna guess if Sony weren't so tight-assed about the trophies, Uncharted 2 and Infamous would have made this list. 
 
Happy Boxing Day!

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Edited By Milkman

Oh man, a podcast for every award? You're spoiling us, guys.

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spankingaddict

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Edited By spankingaddict
@InfiniteGeass said:
" The next week sounds exciting. "
very
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guerrilla_mason

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Edited By guerrilla_mason

Cant wait to see what you guys have to say. And to see everyone complain about your picks. Should be fun.

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hatking

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Edited By hatking

Awesome... I'm looking forward to all of the great action on the site taking place in the coming weeks. :D
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Edited By Darkstar614

"The Brad Shoemaker "I'm Callin' It" Award For Best Use Of Zombies"
 
 
YES

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Edited By trophyhunter

 I'm Callin' It this is awesome

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Venatio

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Edited By Venatio

I think I speak for alot of people when I say: 
 
Cant fucking wait! Especially for that really long podcast

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misterpope

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Edited By misterpope

GOTY for Giant Bomb. Last years podcast was epic. Hopefully this year's is even better.

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mracoon

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Edited By mracoon

You guys have gone crazy with the amount of GOTY stuff your doing this years. I'm looking forward to see all the joke categories.

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Edited By bubahula

so much sweet stuff!

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JJOR64

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Edited By JJOR64

I'll be here tomorrow then.  :)

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MichaelBach

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Edited By MichaelBach

Daily podcasts... gotta love that :)

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Edited By Rhaknar

holy FUCK, this will be MUCH better than i expected... daily videos AND podcasts? videos for each of you guy's top 10s? quicklooks for the winners? and of course the mega huge goty bombcast... seriously, is there any doubt in anyone's minds that this is by far the greatest videogame website ever made?

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Edited By Mushir

Brad has called it meaning that awesomeness is now guaranteed.

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Edited By buzz_killington

      
                    WHERE MY GOTY NOD??????  
 
 
 

Paid for by the 50 Cent for GOTY commitee.

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Edited By Jedted

You could call Mass Effect 2 "Dark Effect" since the theme of it looks to be pretty dark. 
 
I can't wait to see which games get nominated in the Big-Ass Ramp catagory(besides 50 Cent ofcorse) 
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Edited By Atomic_Tangerine

Doesn't 50 Cent got that big-ass ramp category on lockdown?  Like really, how can any other game top it?  I mean, I guess Trials HD had some good ramps, and that snowmobile section from Modern Warfare 2 kinda had a ramp... but none of those were big ass enough.
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Edited By Video_Game_King

Creative award names? Damn it! Now my GOTY blog will look unoriginal! I've already typed it up and everything...*grumbles off, madly*

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Edited By rallier
@Jeff said:
" I've been writing quite a few achievement-like things lately, and I can say that it's tougher than it looks.

GB achievements in the works CONFIRMED
 
HURRAY!
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Edited By MetalGearSunny

This sounds amazing.

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Edited By FLStyle

Sounds great, all hail the mighty GB.

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Edited By Xeiphyer

Ahh! Christmas and April fools are awesome around here =p

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Edited By Light_Bahamut
@Guerrilla_Mason said:
" Cant wait to see what you guys have to say. And to see everyone complain about your picks. Should be fun. "
It's a tradition, man!  I kinda hope they pick something that was exclusive to one platform so all the fanboys can call them "Teh biased!!"
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Edited By Dany

Daily bombcasts? Quicklooks of winners? Video of nominees? Bombcast of GOTY and console GOTY???
 
YES!

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Edited By Dirty_Harry

AWESOME!

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Edited By Xander51

Sounds like an awesome week of content. I love it.

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Edited By Cornman89

HOLY CRAP this week sounds awesome.

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Edited By wwfundertaker

Cant wait

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Edited By BionicMonster
@Milkman said:
" Oh man, a podcast for every award? You're spoiling us, guys. "
i think he meant a QL for every winner and one GIANT giant bombcast.
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Edited By Rhaknar
@BionicMonster said:

" @Milkman said:

" Oh man, a podcast for every award? You're spoiling us, guys. "
i think he meant a QL for every winner and one GIANT giant bombcast. "
 "There will be a short daily podcast to go along with these, where we discuss a bit about what we were thinking when we wrote all of these dumb joke categories."
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Edited By raccoonusdoodus
@BionicMonster said:

" @Milkman said:

" Oh man, a podcast for every award? You're spoiling us, guys. "
i think he meant a QL for every winner and one GIANT giant bombcast. "
nope:
 
 Starting tomorrow, we'll start posting the site-wide awards in categories such as Best Big-Ass Ramp, Character We'd Most Like To Party With, and The Brad Shoemaker "I'm Callin' It" Award For Best Use Of Zombies. There will be a short daily podcast to go along with these, where we discuss a bit about what we were thinking when we wrote all of these dumb joke categories. 
 
yay!!
GB is so awesome.
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Edited By wolf_blitzer85

I'm cool with all of this! Next week will be some good times.

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Edited By Soap
@Jeff said:
"I've been writing quite a few achievement-like things lately, and I can say that it's tougher than it looks."
Achievement System coming to Giant Bomb for site activity in 2010, you've heard it here first.
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Edited By tomance

You guys definitely do GOTY stuff right.  Glad there's a podcast going up everyday for it.  

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Edited By sloppyjoe

best. site. ever.

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Edited By Winternet

Giantbomb's game of the year awards are looking to be awesome. I can't wait to see it all. Amazing week is on the horizon.

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Edited By sjupp

Sweeet!

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Edited By natetodamax

w00t w00t w00t!

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Edited By dietmango

Cannot wait for this. This week is going to be awesome. I'm lovin it :D

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CharlesAlanRatliff

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Yaaay finally, I have been excited about this stuff for a while now!

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Edited By Willy105

I will be awaiting this with great relish.
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Edited By Winternet

Oh and Jeff. There's "Darksiders", "Dark Void" and "Dark Void Zero" that are coming out on January. There's your dark January threesome. (a bit stupid I know, but hey!...)

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Edited By makari

Demon's Souls is a shoe-in for the 'Best Critically Acclaimed Game That We Have Never And Will Never Get Around To Playing' award.

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Edited By JoelTGM

This is going to be fun!

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Edited By pepper_2000

50 Cent better win everything. Even best RPG.

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Edited By Druminator

Sounds awesome!