I'll start off by posting what I think were the best games of the year, just so you guys get a sense of where I'm coming from:

1. Uncharted 3
2. Batman Arkham City
3. Assassin's Creed Revelations
4. Catherine
5. Alice Madness Returns
6. Professor Layton and the Specters Flute
7. The Witcher 2
8. Gears of War 3
9. Zelda: Skyward Sword
10. Dead Space 2

I generally find all the back and forth between the different bomber a really hilarious affair, and although I don't always agree, I feel like the rationale behind their decisions are usually clearly put on display. This year however, I felt like the discussions were sort of useless, as people just dismissed games without and sufficient reasoning or completely ignored reasoning. Uncharted 3 wasn't on their list because Uncharted 2 was so good, and Uncharted 3 matched that...? Yet Gears was on the list because the second story wasn't that good, but the third bumped up the story bar? What kind of reasoning is that to dismiss one game and accept another?

But whatever, moving on, because you guys may say hey you are just biased 'cause you love Uncharted. Then lets talk about another duo, both of which are not even on my list. The final GOTY discussion; Jeff and Vinny ferociously defended St. Row the Third, Patrick jumped back and forth between who he defended, and Ryan, (who by the way had little reason to actually back Skyrim since he hasn't even played it) defended Skyrim. I mean, what kind of an argument on Ryan's part was St. Row the Third was so good, that I wanted to keep playing even after beating it? How is that a negative to be held against the game?

The main thing that bugged be about the final decision was that after nearly an hour of two of two member ferociously defending one game (St. Row the Third) the decision to award Skyrim the GOTY was just like "alright so what wins? Skyrim? All right cool." thereby invalidating all the arguing that happened before hand.

I personally do not care about the specifics of their list as I value their opinions and it differs so greatly from mine anyway. I'm just a bit bugged that after listening to nearly a four hour podcast their decision to award Skyrim was so random, considering how obvious it was that St. Row the Third was much more heavily defended.

Life moves on I suppose. On to 2012.

I agree with you completely. Vinny, Jeff and Patrick were giving good arguments with examples while Brad just said things like "You can't get an experience like this anywhere" or things to that effect. Ryan backed a game he didn't even play which seemed dumb. Brad's arguments against Saints Row were things like how the combat was uninteresting and had the nerve to claim that Saints Row was buggy while defending Skyrim, a game that is buggy as hell of PS3.

I don't mind which they chose as game of the year but it should have been the game that had the stronger arguments for it and the weaker arguments against it in the discussion which I felt was Saint's Row 3

It was strange, even though Skyrim topped my personal GOTY list I felt like SR3 should have won based on the debate. Ryan flipping sides also made no sense.

Brad refusing to back down on a point during GOTY discussions?

Unheard of.

sometimes in the heat of the moment for such a conversation you might not be able to articulate something verbally that can with typing. cause you can at least think over your argument before you press enter.

It was probably a long day, and they were tired.

This thread is useless

I liked the format of this years Goty podcast the most of all of them, the russian roulette was a genius idea.

That being said the final decision was a bit strange, maybe Ryan thought Saint's Row 3 was not Goty material and that Skyrim is just a better video game? While SR3 is amazing because of the cut scenes and whatnot, (I haven't played SR3 so I wouldn't know) but listening to the crew talk about it, that seems to be the main appeal of it. So maybe he thought Skyrim is a better game? That's the only logical conclusion I can think of for why Ryan decided to go with a game he has never played.

Patrick was firmly in the Skyrim camp, and it also was first on his personal lists, not sure how you guys interpreted differently. I think it also says a lot that even though Ryan had not played Skyrim, and put SR3 first on his personal lists he still recognized the impressiveness of what Skyrim did. That was the most telling factor for me. It was 3 against 2 and ultimately it came down to a stalemate where SR3 got outvoted simple as that, they were never going to come to a completely mutual agreement, so it just ended as it did, I think both sides made compelling arguments.

@bonbolapti said:

sometimes in the heat of the moment for such a conversation you might not be able to articulate something verbally that can with typing. cause you can at least think over your argument before you press enter.

It was probably a long day, and they were tired.

I don't think that justifies the way things were handled though. If you had good points, then why didn't you say them. I have trouble saying things in the heat of the moment and I tend to lose because I couldn't get my points across. That may have been what had transpired here but you can't say that someone won a debate because they had good arguments in their head.

Ryans plot twist made less sense then the ending of The Village.

@deathstriker666 said:

This thread is useless

Yes. I enjoy the discussions as it gives me something to do during break sort of a tradition for me now. I haven't even played 10 new games this year. Just picked up quite a few games to play during 2012 on steam.

What annoyed me is that Skyrim won GOTY while having a totally fucked up PS3 version. They should be getting scalded for that.

http://www.gamesradar.com/skyrim-exactly-how-broken-ps3-version-better-take-look/

Do not reward developers shipping broken games just because it works on your platforms of choice.

@LiquidPrince said:

The main thing that bugged be about the final decision was that after nearly an hour of two of two member ferociously defending one game (St. Row the Third) the decision to award Skyrim the GOTY was just like "alright so what wins? Skyrim? All right cool." thereby invalidating all the arguing that happened before hand.

I still feel that Brad's points about Skyrim were better than Jeff and Vinny's points about Saints Row the Third. Brad just didn't argue his points very well and ended up sounding very stubborn. Also, I felt that Jeff's abject dismissal of Red Dead last year made far less sense than anything that Brad argued for this year or Ryan's less than enthusiastic decision.

@Sooty said:

What annoyed me is that Skyrim won GOTY while having a totally fucked up PS3 version. They should be getting scalded for that.

http://www.gamesradar.com/skyrim-exactly-how-broken-ps3-version-better-take-look/

Do not reward developers shipping broken games just because it works on your platforms of choice.

Why should one shitty version of a game prevent the other two good versions from winning awards? If the guys still had the best "Multiplatform game", Skyrim probably wouldn't have won but that doesn't mean it can't win overall GOTY. Also the guys made it clear that they were only giving the GOTY award to the 360 and PC versions of Skyrim and that the PS3 version wouldn't even have made the top ten.

@spazmaster666 said:

@LiquidPrince said:

The main thing that bugged be about the final decision was that after nearly an hour of two of two member ferociously defending one game (St. Row the Third) the decision to award Skyrim the GOTY was just like "alright so what wins? Skyrim? All right cool." thereby invalidating all the arguing that happened before hand.

I still feel that Brad's points about Skyrim were better than Jeff and Vinny's points about Saints Row the Third. Brad just didn't argue his points very well and ended up sounding very stubborn. Also, I felt that Jeff's abject dismissal of Red Dead last year made far less sense than anything that Brad argued for this year or Ryan's less than enthusiastic decision.

I don't agree though, because for every knock Brad had against St. Row the Third, or defense for Skyrim, Vinny especially had a counter.

@LiquidPrince: I feel that they properly explained why Uncharted 3 wasn't on their list. They thought the story wasn't as interesting, the new characters went nowhere, and when compared to the rest of the sequels on the list it felt like too much of an iteration.

Gears of War 3 provided an expanded and much improved multiplayer experience, with a story that actually provided a bit of closure to the series.(Something they repeatedly said they liked)

Although yes I will agree that with so much discussion, them just saying " Well alright Skyrim" kind of sucked.

@Sooty: So they couldn't just say PC/XB360 versions win GOTY? The PS3 versions of multiplatform games almost don't even count because they're almost always terrible. Should Oblivion not have won awards when it came out because it didn't launch with a PS3 version?

@Sooty: Jeff has gone on record saying that their choice of Skyrim excludes the PS3 version.

@wewantsthering said:

@Sooty: So they couldn't just say PC/XB360 versions win GOTY? The PS3 versions of multiplatform games almost don't even count because they're almost always terrible. Should Oblivion not have won awards when it came out because it didn't launch with a PS3 version?

I don't really care, if they give it to Bethesda they should at least have gotten into how fucked up it is that the game turned out how it did for PS3.

and no.

@President_Barackbar said:

@Sooty: Jeff has gone on record saying that their choice of Skyrim excludes the PS3 version.

Bethesda still deserve to be getting way more flak over it.

I am enjoying Skyrim on PC, it's a good game, but this kind of stuff shouldn't happen. There's people that do not have a PS3 with Internet access, they are screwed.

Patrick is a PS3 gamer anyway so I have no idea why he still chose it. His platform of choice got duped.

@wewantsthering said:

The PS3 versions of multiplatform games almost don't even count because they're almost always terrible.

This hasn't been true since like 2008...

@President_Barackbar said:

@Sooty: Jeff has gone on record saying that their choice of Skyrim excludes the PS3 version.

I think he/she feels that maybe that shouldn't have been the case and should have been taken into consideration

Brad refusing to back down on a point during GOTY discussions?

Unheard of.

This thread is useless

@LiquidPrince said:

I don't agree though, because for every knock Brad had against St. Row the Third, or defense for Skyrim, Vinny especially had a counter.

Maybe, but I didn't really agree with all of my Vinny's counters either. Especially when he said that Skyrim is less impressive after playing the Witcher 2.

Its like the WWE, it was all a set up and they went M night on all of us with that twist. 

@Grissefar:

@LiquidPrince said:

@wewantsthering said:

The PS3 versions of multiplatform games almost don't even count because they're almost always terrible.

This hasn't been true since like 2008...

bayonetta, Skyrim, Rage

@Sooty said:

I don't really care, if they give it to Bethesda they should at least have gotten into how fucked up it is that the game turned out how it did for PS3.

But they did. They mentioned during the GOTY podcast about how broken the PS3 version of Skyrim was. Hence why it wouldn't have even made the top ten.

@spazmaster666 said:

@LiquidPrince said:

I don't agree though, because for every knock Brad had against St. Row the Third, or defense for Skyrim, Vinny especially had a counter.

Maybe, but I didn't really agree with all of my Vinny's counters either. Especially when he said that Skyrim is less impressive after playing the Witcher 2.

I can see what he meant from a story perspective, The Witcher 2 does cutscenes and moments much better than Skyrim could. I think they talked about this in an earlier podcast, it's just a limitation of the tools Bethesda uses.

But still, Skyrim is impressive in its own ways.

@spazmaster666 said:

@Sooty said:

I don't really care, if they give it to Bethesda they should at least have gotten into how fucked up it is that the game turned out how it did for PS3.

But they did. They mentioned during the GOTY podcast about how broken the PS3 version of Skyrim was. Hence why it wouldn't have even made the top ten.

Wonder how different that would have turned out if they had someone who played it on PS3. I'm guessing Patrick has a 360 to play it on, as a PS3 gamer (Patrick is, right?) I'm a bit surprised he didn't have a stronger opinion instead of going along with what Brad said.

@Dany said:

@LiquidPrince said:

@wewantsthering said:

The PS3 versions of multiplatform games almost don't even count because they're almost always terrible.

This hasn't been true since like 2008...

bayonetta, Skyrim, Rage

Would you like me to make a list of games that were better on PS3? I can list more then 3... Obviously there are always bad games on one side or another, but they are more or less equal now.

@Sooty said:

I can see what he meant from a story perspective, The Witcher 2 does cutscenes and moments much better than Skyrim could. I think they talked about this in an earlier podcast, it's just a limitation of the tools Bethesda uses.

But still, Skyrim is impressive in its own ways.

True but I don't think anyone would argue that Skyrim is a great game because of the story. Also, I just felt that the quest system in the Witcher 2 just felt rudimentary and dated when compared to the radiant quest system in Skyrim. In an RPG, how good the quest system generally has a big impact on the overall experience and I felt that the Witcher 2 was definitely lacking in that department. Also considering how different the two games are in terms of scope and linearity, I just don't feel anything that the Witcher 2 does makes anything that Skyrim does less impressive.

@spazmaster666 said:

@Sooty said:

I can see what he meant from a story perspective, The Witcher 2 does cutscenes and moments much better than Skyrim could. I think they talked about this in an earlier podcast, it's just a limitation of the tools Bethesda uses.

But still, Skyrim is impressive in its own ways.

True but I don't think anyone would argue that Skyrim is a great game because of the story. Also, I just felt that the quest system in the Witcher 2 just felt rudimentary and dated when compared to the radiant quest system in Skyrim. In an RPG, how good the quest system generally has a big impact on the overall experience and I felt that the Witcher 2 was definitely lacking in that department. Also considering how different the two games are in terms of scope and linearity, I just don't feel anything that the Witcher 2 does makes anything that Skyrim does less impressive.

That quest log did suck. I think it's kind of dumb to compare the two really, it's like comparing Mass Effect 2 and Borderlands.

@spazmaster666 said:

@Sooty said:

I can see what he meant from a story perspective, The Witcher 2 does cutscenes and moments much better than Skyrim could. I think they talked about this in an earlier podcast, it's just a limitation of the tools Bethesda uses.

But still, Skyrim is impressive in its own ways.

True but I don't think anyone would argue that Skyrim is a great game because of the story. Also, I just felt that the quest system in the Witcher 2 just felt rudimentary and dated when compared to the radiant quest system in Skyrim. In an RPG, how good the quest system generally has a big impact on the overall experience and I felt that the Witcher 2 was definitely lacking in that department. Also considering how different the two games are in terms of scope and linearity, I just don't feel anything that the Witcher 2 does makes anything that Skyrim does less impressive.

Mostly agreed. But as a fantasy setting with interesting characters, and wonderfully spectacular world (visually) Witcher is unmatched in my opinion.

I agree, it's a war of attrition and I think it could've gone either way in the end. Brad is a great guy but seem to be a bit blinded by some elements while other slips pass him. And sometime he doesn't seem to listen to reason at all. He's an fullblood debater, for better or worse.

Why are we still talking about this?

I feel like I understand Brads point of you can't get anything else like this. Their has never been an open world rpg done that well and we probably won't see another like it for years. Saints Row on the other hand is all genius in the writing and development, a game made by a developer that knows exactly what they're making. On the other hand though you can easily see another game like Saints Row being put out and generally it doesn't represent a forward push when it comes to game development.

To sum up what I'm saying for people like TLDR, Skyrim pushes game development forward and sets a new standard for what open world rpgs need to be. Saints Row The Third is just a game made extremely well and knows what it is and embraces that.

Skyrim changes a genre, Saints Row is just a good game.

@Milkman said:

Why are we still talking about this?

Why shouldn't we? It's an interesting topic, and it presents valid constructive criticism for the bombers, should they ever read it.

I love Ryan's betrayal at the end because you can tell he just didn't care anymore. I feel that the whole debate was a piece of performance art, the point of which is that we should all care what game wins as much as Ryan does.

Like seriously, why does this stuff get under people's skin so badly?

@Irvandus said:

I feel like I understand Brads point of you can't get anything else like this. Their has never been an open world rpg done that well and we probably won't see another like it for years. Saints Row on the other hand is all genius in the writing and development, a game made by a developer that knows exactly what they're making. On the other hand though you can easily see another game like Saints Row being put out and generally it doesn't represent a forward push when it comes to game development.

To sum up what I'm saying for people like TLDR, Skyrim pushes game development forward and sets a new standard for what open world rpgs need to be. Saints Row The Third is just a game made extremely well and knows what it is and embraces that.

Skyrim changes a genre, Saints Row is just a good game.

Does Skyrim really change a genre? Feels very similar to Oblivion all around to me, and Fallout 3 of course. Same sort of formula, better polish and it's pulled off better, nothing really that new added to the 'Bethesda' genre.

Credits where they are due, though, Bethesda are basically their own genre.

@UlquioKani said:

@President_Barackbar said:

@Sooty: Jeff has gone on record saying that their choice of Skyrim excludes the PS3 version.

I think he/she feels that maybe that shouldn't have been the case and should have been taken into consideration

I think so too. Especially if Mortal Kombat was knocked off the list due to the multiplayer not working at all when it was first released. Though that did affect all versions.

The whole point of releasing the discussions is too provide transparency of the process. I would argue that this years is the most useful. When simply reading the results of other site's GOTY, you get the impression that everyone rallied around a title and heralded it unanimously as being the best. What the GB discussions show is that sometimes people just give in just to get it out there. It shows how almost arbitrary the process is and that we as the consumers of this sort of content need to not get so caught up in who chooses what and why. It's not a science, it's just a few dudes talking about games. And after how ever many hours of sitting in a small room and talking, that these dudes just want to go home for the day so they settle on a choice just to get the process over and done with.

@MildMolasses said:

The whole point of releasing the discussions is too provide transparency of the process. I would argue that this years is the most useful. When simply reading the results of other site's GOTY, you get the impression that everyone rallied around a title and heralded it unanimously as being the best. What the GB discussions show is that sometimes people just give in just to get it out there. It shows how almost arbitrary the process is and that we as the consumers of this sort of content need to not get so caught up in who chooses what and why. It's not a science, it's just a few dudes talking about games. And after how ever many hours of sitting in a small room and talking, that these dudes just want to go home for the day so they settle on a choice just to get the process over and done with.

I guess then the solution to this problem, while making things a bit more difficult on their part, is to separate the GOTY discussion into more then one long ass day. That way people actually have the energy to back up their claims sufficiently.

I agree with you completely. Vinny, Jeff and Patrick were giving good arguments with examples while Brad just said things like "You can't get an experience like this anywhere" or things to that effect. Ryan backed a game he didn't even play which seemed dumb. Brad's arguments against Saints Row were things like how the combat was uninteresting and had the nerve to claim that Saints Row was buggy while defending Skyrim, a game that is buggy as hell of PS3.

I don't mind which they chose as game of the year but it should have been the game that had the stronger arguments for it and the weaker arguments against it in the discussion which I felt was Saint's Row 3

@Dany said:

Ryans plot twist made less sense then the ending of The Village.

they should hire new writers for the next season. or maybe they cut out a few scenes for the special features later on.

I would also like to point out that overall Game of the Year debates are strange overall. We (The gaming community) tend to focus on numbers from 1-5, where as, we are missing the point; games are still as good as they have ever been. The fact that 2011 gave us games like SR3, Skyrim, Witcher 2, Skyward Sword and Uncharted 3 is still a baffling feat. Like the GB staff has stated before, their discussion are purely subjective and arrived upon differently. That is why they show their personal top ten lists and we should simply celebrate that so many great games came out this year.

Personally, Skyrim is an alright game. It's better than Oblivion, for certain, but it's an okay game in total. After 25 hours of playing the game, I was bored and didn't want to do anything in the world. After one single Daedric quest, I'm finished. I've seen everything I need to see in this game, and it's rendered the experience pointless. I think I just want more straightforward role-playing games now, or something more akin to The Witcher 2.

But, I can see exactly where Brad is coming from even if he was arguing very poorly towards the end of the discussion (and in general seemed to take all his cuts personally). It's a new experience for some people. That's okay, but it has been done before. Morrowind and Daggerfall are games that have had Skyrim's "innovations", albeit outdated by now. The new stuff as well. This "radiant" quest system is not really effective as it is condensing the "giant" open world into waiting for the game to give you the stuff you haven't really experienced; it's inherently breaking down the purpose of open world games - to explore. I'm sorry, but I'd rather play a game where everything is somewhere and you would have to explore to actually find that stuff. Call it padding, but exploration is key to open world games and not just mindless fluff.

@themangalist: It was mostly the way he presented his arguments that bugged me. I have not played either game so I don't know but from the way they presented their arguments, I wanted to play Saint's Row More than Skyrim. I do agree with everything your saying though. Vinny's argument saying that Skyrim was nice to talk to and Saint's Row was something you wanted to fuck the shit out of wasn't good. I know Brad made some good points too. I was just saying overall but I guess I was being rather biased. Sorry.

Also I know they disregarded the PS3 version but maybe they should have considered it because PS3 audience isn't small. They also dsregarded Mortal Kombat for it's bugs so It only seemed fair to take Skyrim's bugs into account

I don't know why people care about awards from websites.

Oh this thread again. Jesus people let it rest.