I guess I just have higher standards for Game of the Year than a repetitive six-hour game that tries to be a fancy, dramatic story, not to mention the expectation of being able to buy the game at a store and actually play it.
But when it comes to indie darlings like TWD, apparently whether or not a game works isn't part of the lower-standards scale.
I guess I just have higher standards for Game of the Year than a repetitive six-hour game that tries to be a fancy, dramatic story, not to mention the expectation of being able to buy the game at a store and actually play it.
But when it comes to indie darlings like TWD, apparently whether or not a game works isn't part of the lower-standards scale.
The sour grapes in these threads are always the best. Especially anime avatar dudes telling the rest of us our games are terrible
Yeah, there are plenty of not-so-good things about The Walking Dead. It doesn't play too well and the story is disappointingly static. In fact, I'm sure if someone were to read the plot, that person would be far from impressed. But it's incredibly effective as an interactive tale. As cliché as some of the elements are, it's clear that a lot of thought went into designing the story and the evidence of that is Clementine. She isn't just a character, she's a storytelling mechanic. She makes the player feel responsible for their actions, and that's something that's hard to do in a video game.
0
lilyWhiteDual-class Red Mage/PaladinRegistered Userregular
*never ceases to be amused when people can't discern the gender of a username*
0
reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
Jesus. I guess I need to track down a retail copy of The Walking Dead. If I haven't immersed myself in a single bit of TWD (the show, comics, etc.) is this the correct course of action, or should I jump on something else first?
The game is the only really good thing to bear the Walking Dead name.
Jesus. I guess I need to track down a retail copy of The Walking Dead. If I haven't immersed myself in a single bit of TWD (the show, comics, etc.) is this the correct course of action, or should I jump on something else first?
The game is the only really good thing to bear the Walking Dead name.
I dunno... I caught up through both book compendiums, and thought those were pretty awesome. It is best to just pretend there is nothing after season 1 of the show, though.
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
Mass Effect 3 didn't suffer so much from its ending as I thought, but I cannot help but be immensely pleased to see this forum follow the general trend and Walking Dead and XCOM: EU rate so very highly. Both were fantastic games and it's great to see "dead" genres take top honors here (Adventure Games and Turn Based Strategy).
Concerning Mass Effect 3 and Far Cry 3, one thing to keep in mind is that a voting system such as this one inherently favors a game which is played by the largest number of people - it works opposite to how a lot of award systems do (rewarding games later in the year which are fresh in the mind), but rather tends to favor games which came out earlier in the year. This would help to explain Far Cry 3's position - ME3, on the other hand, was legitimately high on a number of peoples' lists, but it's also fair to consider the fact that more people had more time to play it, which allowed it to land on more lists.
Concerning turnout, might some mods on the forum have any info re: forum traffic compared to earlier years? I'd be mildly curious as to whether there's a correlation.
Got any insight you can share on that matter, @Tube?
The forums feels as active as ever to me, but it's hard to tell without the actual traffic figures.
The story beats I saw in the first two episodes of TWD were always predictable and sometimes implausible. The ones that were believable were at least executed well, but there's not a whole lot to the overarching narrative - you realise immediately that you're in a shit situation that will only get worse as the season continues. The character work with Kenny and Clem showed promise, but coupled with technical issues that wasn't enough to keep me playing.
3DS: 2234-8122-8398 | Battle.net (EU): Ladi#2485
0
reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
Jesus. I guess I need to track down a retail copy of The Walking Dead. If I haven't immersed myself in a single bit of TWD (the show, comics, etc.) is this the correct course of action, or should I jump on something else first?
The game is the only really good thing to bear the Walking Dead name.
I dunno... I caught up through both book compendiums, and thought those were pretty awesome. It is best to just pretend there is nothing after season 1 of the show, though.
Well then you miss out on season 3, which is some of the best stuff the entire zombie genre has to offer.
Cool. Knytt Underground got 7 votes (more than I expected) and Botanicula got 22! Someone else picked Botanicula as their top game, too. Though Knytt replaced it as my GOTY shortly after I voted.
And I'm really happy to see Hotline Miami in the Top 10! Score one for pretentious indie games with no merit, I guess :P
2012 was probably my favorite year for games in a really long time.
0
Iron WeaselDillon!You son of a bitch!Registered Userregular
Thanks for doing this once again @mcc. I always look forward to the results and your analysis.
Currently Playing:
The Division, Warframe (XB1)
GT: Tanith 6227
More of you clearly need to play Tiny and Big since it only got 3 votes. Brilliant game.
Also, mcc, I look forward to this every year and you're great for doing it.
BionicPenguin on
0
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited January 2013
Really? The Walking Dead? Like, I get it, it had a good story, but as a game it's decidedly sub-par. It's a visual novel with QTE's. All this BS about it not being a "game" or whatever is silly. It's a game, I just didn't think that purely as a game, it was very good. I also loathe QTE's, so I have some bias.
I'll keep considering XCOM my Game of the Year.
Also, vindication for Diablo 3. There were, in fact, people who enjoyed it.
I am crushed that Crusader Kings II didn't do better. It had everything it takes for a game to be great. More sudden and tragic deaths of beloved characters than any of the RPGs on the list. Greater ability to stab people in the back than any of the stealth games. More low stone walls than any cover based shooters. And: you could conquer France. How many other games on this list let you conquer France?
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
+3
DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited January 2013
Wonders if we'll ever have a year where people don't complain that other people liked games they didn't...
Either way, thanks for doing this mcc. Hope you do it next year too.
Also...I'm surprised we had so few people this year. Usually we break at least 500.
Dragkonias on
0
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
There's a thin line between complaining someone liked something you didn't, and simply stating why that game wasn't your top game. Lets be clear about that. If you actually expect people not to post reactions to the game list, that's a silly expectation.
There's a thin line between complaining someone liked something you didn't, and simply stating why that game wasn't your top game. Lets be clear about that. If you actually expect people not to post reactions to the game list, that's a silly expectation.
I know it is. Isn't going to stop me from commenting on it.
I guess I just have higher standards for Game of the Year than a repetitive six-hour game that tries to be a fancy, dramatic story, not to mention the expectation of being able to buy the game at a store and actually play it.
But when it comes to indie darlings like TWD, apparently whether or not a game works isn't part of the lower-standards scale.
The sour grapes in these threads are always the best. Especially anime avatar dudes telling the rest of us our games are terrible
It's worth noting that this really, *really* was not a remotely close poll. TWD won in kind of a landslide, and it wins by every method of counting I've got. It won in first place votes, it won in number of list inclusions. Out of 471 voters, 194 put TWD on their lists. That's like nearly half of participants, it's 41%. TWD got more second place votes than ME3 got first place votes. This game won because it was incredibly popular.
Also, LOL at the idea Telltale is "indie". Telltale is a LucasArts spinoff, they've been distributed by UbiSoft, I walked in a GameStop last week and found multiple boxed copies of their games featuring franchises like Back to the Future sitting on the shelf for multiple console platforms. The Walking Dead is based on *The Walking Dead*, an incredibly mainstream and popular tv show that wikipedia says holds the Nielsen record for a drama show on basic cable (which, if something external to the game itself were hypothetically causing people to overlook quality issues in TWD, it would be more likely be the association with a very popular TV show that than because people are thinking of Telltale as "indie"), I don't think you really see indies working with that kind of license. I mean I really don't know what "Indie" is supposed to mean but if anything is indie it isn't this. If you want to know what the *actual* pretentious indies are into (and that would be me, thank you very much) if you look at the full per-forum breakdowns on my blog I ran this poll on two actual indie forums and they didn't really rate TWD all that highly. They liked Hotline Miami and Super Hexagon.
I am crushed that Crusader Kings II didn't do better. It had everything it takes for a game to be great. More sudden and tragic deaths of beloved characters than any of the RPGs on the list. Greater ability to stab people in the back than any of the stealth games. More low stone walls than any cover based shooters. And: you could conquer France. How many other games on this list let you conquer France?
Crusader Kings II, like most Paradox strategy games, has a learning curve that can charitably described as "steep" and less charitably described as "stranding you, blindfolded and naked, on a deserted island populated by nothing but giant carnivorous lizards and poisonous plants".
Edit: And now I'm being auto-awesomed by the forum killbot. Well, it was nice while it lasted.
Really? The Walking Dead? Like, I get it, it had a good story, but as a game it's decidedly sub-par. It's a visual novel with QTE's. All this BS about it not being a "game" or whatever is silly. It's a game, I just didn't think that purely as a game, it was very good. I also loathe QTE's, so I have some bias.
I'll keep considering XCOM my Game of the Year.
Also, vindication for Diablo 3. There were, in fact, people who enjoyed it.
Diablo 3 owned
0
DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
Mass Effect 3 didn't suffer so much from its ending as I thought, but I cannot help but be immensely pleased to see this forum follow the general trend and Walking Dead and XCOM: EU rate so very highly. Both were fantastic games and it's great to see "dead" genres take top honors here (Adventure Games and Turn Based Strategy).
Concerning Mass Effect 3 and Far Cry 3, one thing to keep in mind is that a voting system such as this one inherently favors a game which is played by the largest number of people - it works opposite to how a lot of award systems do (rewarding games later in the year which are fresh in the mind), but rather tends to favor games which came out earlier in the year. This would help to explain Far Cry 3's position - ME3, on the other hand, was legitimately high on a number of peoples' lists, but it's also fair to consider the fact that more people had more time to play it, which allowed it to land on more lists.
Concerning turnout, might some mods on the forum have any info re: forum traffic compared to earlier years? I'd be mildly curious as to whether there's a correlation.
Got any insight you can share on that matter, @Tube?
The forums feels as active as ever to me, but it's hard to tell without the actual traffic figures.
I think the reason for this is that...some people might just not notice the poll thing in the announcements.
I know my first year I think I entered G&T and missed it quite a few times before I decided to take a look.
0
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Really? The Walking Dead? Like, I get it, it had a good story, but as a game it's decidedly sub-par. It's a visual novel with QTE's. All this BS about it not being a "game" or whatever is silly. It's a game, I just didn't think that purely as a game, it was very good. I also loathe QTE's, so I have some bias.
I'll keep considering XCOM my Game of the Year.
Also, vindication for Diablo 3. There were, in fact, people who enjoyed it.
Diablo 3 owned
I agree, but with the amount of shit that game takes on these forums, you'd think everyone who played it hated it. The poll shows otherwise.
I am crushed that Crusader Kings II didn't do better. It had everything it takes for a game to be great. More sudden and tragic deaths of beloved characters than any of the RPGs on the list. Greater ability to stab people in the back than any of the stealth games. More low stone walls than any cover based shooters. And: you could conquer France. How many other games on this list let you conquer France?
Crusader Kings II, like most Paradox strategy games, has a learning curve that can charitably described as "steep" and less charitably described as "stranding you, blindfolded and naked, on a deserted island populated by nothing but giant carnivorous lizards and poisonous plants".
That's not completely true. . .
It also breaks both of your legs.
And yes, it's less forgiving than XCOM and slower paced than Civilization V. But seriously, once you get the hang of how to murder family members and usurp titles, it's a great game accessible to people of all ages, with no fast-twitch trigger fingers or high APM or good moment-to-moment situation awareness necessary. Great game to play with the family.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
Really? The Walking Dead? Like, I get it, it had a good story, but as a game it's decidedly sub-par. It's a visual novel with QTE's. All this BS about it not being a "game" or whatever is silly. It's a game, I just didn't think that purely as a game, it was very good. I also loathe QTE's, so I have some bias.
I'll keep considering XCOM my Game of the Year.
Also, vindication for Diablo 3. There were, in fact, people who enjoyed it.
I don't think anyone voted for TWD for its gameplay. Perhaps "Interactive Electronic Entertainment Experience of the Year" is a more apt description.
+2
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I'm a little disappointed that Torchlight 2 lost to Diablo 3 but I suppose that's a matter of exposure.
I agree with most everything on the top 10 that I've played. Don't think Diablo 3 should have ranked that high but whatever... People enjoyed it and it clearly ranked so that's the end of that. TWD was truly game of the year though.
I have read that Crusader Kings II is the most accessible of the Paradox titles. Is that true?
I've had my eye on it for a while, just never got around to actually buying it.
Hell, I'm just glad I wasn't the only one who voted for I Am Alive. Download only, low-budget, non-horror survival game that scratched a very specific itch for me.
0
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Really? The Walking Dead? Like, I get it, it had a good story, but as a game it's decidedly sub-par. It's a visual novel with QTE's. All this BS about it not being a "game" or whatever is silly. It's a game, I just didn't think that purely as a game, it was very good. I also loathe QTE's, so I have some bias.
I'll keep considering XCOM my Game of the Year.
Also, vindication for Diablo 3. There were, in fact, people who enjoyed it.
I don't think anyone voted for TWD for its gameplay. Perhaps "Interactive Electronic Entertainment Experience of the Year" is a more apt description.
And I think that's where some of the contention comes from. That something was voted game of the year while having far and away the weakest game play on the list.
There were certainly better ways to express that feeling than what we saw on the first two pages, but I get a sense that's where the rift comes in. For some people (me included) it's hard to reconcile TWD being the best game of the year, when on purely game play merits, it was the weakest of the top 10.
That said, as @urahonky said about Diablo 3, obviously people enjoyed it and ranked it there, so it is what it is.
Mass Effect 3 didn't suffer so much from its ending as I thought, but I cannot help but be immensely pleased to see this forum follow the general trend and Walking Dead and XCOM: EU rate so very highly. Both were fantastic games and it's great to see "dead" genres take top honors here (Adventure Games and Turn Based Strategy).
Concerning Mass Effect 3 and Far Cry 3, one thing to keep in mind is that a voting system such as this one inherently favors a game which is played by the largest number of people - it works opposite to how a lot of award systems do (rewarding games later in the year which are fresh in the mind), but rather tends to favor games which came out earlier in the year. This would help to explain Far Cry 3's position - ME3, on the other hand, was legitimately high on a number of peoples' lists, but it's also fair to consider the fact that more people had more time to play it, which allowed it to land on more lists.
Concerning turnout, might some mods on the forum have any info re: forum traffic compared to earlier years? I'd be mildly curious as to whether there's a correlation.
Got any insight you can share on that matter, @Tube?
The forums feels as active as ever to me, but it's hard to tell without the actual traffic figures.
I think the reason for this is that...some people might just not notice the poll thing in the announcements.
I know my first year I think I entered G&T and missed it quite a few times before I decided to take a look.
Well, that's true, but it doesn't really explain why so few people participated this year specifically.
Yeah I get where people are coming at. But when I voted: I voted for the "overall package" when it comes to a game. Sure it didn't have the best gameplay or the best graphics... But the story was off the charts good which brought it over the top for me. I actually just recently started XCOM and I can see exactly why people loved this game... I didn't vote for it because I didn't play it at the time. Wish I had now.
Really? The Walking Dead? Like, I get it, it had a good story, but as a game it's decidedly sub-par. It's a visual novel with QTE's. All this BS about it not being a "game" or whatever is silly. It's a game, I just didn't think that purely as a game, it was very good. I also loathe QTE's, so I have some bias.
I'll keep considering XCOM my Game of the Year.
Also, vindication for Diablo 3. There were, in fact, people who enjoyed it.
I don't think anyone voted for TWD for its gameplay. Perhaps "Interactive Electronic Entertainment Experience of the Year" is a more apt description.
And I think that's where some of the contention comes from. That something was voted game of the year while having far and away the weakest game play on the list.
There were certainly better ways to express that feeling than what we saw on the first two pages, but I get a sense that's where the rift comes in. For some people (me included) it's hard to reconcile TWD being the best game of the year, when on purely game play merits, it was the weakest of the top 10.
That said, as @urahonky said about Diablo 3, obviously people enjoyed it and ranked it there, so it is what it is.
I think we're at a point where a games can be more than just gameplay or at least we're getting there.
That said as far as story goes, I watched my brother play the game and while I think it was good...meh, I don't know I think the zombie apocalypse setting is just overused and I couldn't really get into myself(but I don't find the show all that interesting either). I probably would have still had it in my top 10 if I'd actually played it myself though.
I have read that Crusader Kings II is the most accessible of the Paradox titles. Is that true?
I've had my eye on it for a while, just never got around to actually buying it.
It is. It's really not too much more difficult than Civ V, really. It'll blindside you every so often with "WTF just happened and how am I now a fifteen year old girl?" but for the most part it's not so bad. There's a demo that'll give you a feel for the game.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
+1
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Really? The Walking Dead? Like, I get it, it had a good story, but as a game it's decidedly sub-par. It's a visual novel with QTE's. All this BS about it not being a "game" or whatever is silly. It's a game, I just didn't think that purely as a game, it was very good. I also loathe QTE's, so I have some bias.
I'll keep considering XCOM my Game of the Year.
Also, vindication for Diablo 3. There were, in fact, people who enjoyed it.
I don't think anyone voted for TWD for its gameplay. Perhaps "Interactive Electronic Entertainment Experience of the Year" is a more apt description.
And I think that's where some of the contention comes from. That something was voted game of the year while having far and away the weakest game play on the list.
There were certainly better ways to express that feeling than what we saw on the first two pages, but I get a sense that's where the rift comes in. For some people (me included) it's hard to reconcile TWD being the best game of the year, when on purely game play merits, it was the weakest of the top 10.
That said, as @urahonky said about Diablo 3, obviously people enjoyed it and ranked it there, so it is what it is.
I think we're at a point where a games can be more than just gameplay or at least we're getting there.
That said as far as story goes, I watched my brother play the game and while I think it was good...meh, I don't know I think the zombie apocalypse setting is just overused and I couldn't really get into myself(but I don't find the show all that interesting either). I probably would have still had it in my top 10 if I'd actually played it myself though.
But is that actually a good point to get to? Should game play not be an important part of games?
There is a deeper philosophical question here I guess. One we're certainly not going to answer here.
This was a bit of meh year overall, but that's to be expected right before new platform launches. It's so great to see an adventure game that emphasizes plot over action doing so well, though.
Hell, I'm just glad I wasn't the only one who voted for I Am Alive. Download only, low-budget, non-horror survival game that scratched a very specific itch for me.
I was also one of those handful of people who voted. Although I'll admit that it is a deeply deeply flawed game but I'm a sucker for games where you get to climb really really tall things and it's kind of interesting to see a game whose bleakness is comparable to Cormac McCarthey's The Road
But is that actually a good point to get to? Should game play not be an important part of games?
I don't think anybody's advocating one over the other. The best situation would obviously be great gameplay + great narrative.
Ultimately, it's about the overall package and what the player took from the experience. Nobody's saying gameplay isn't an important part, but sometimes one aspect of a game is strong enough that other shortcomings can be overlooked. If you can't ignore those flaws, that's perfectly fine. If you can, that's fine too.
Posts
This is surely the End of the World.
Telltale are not an indie studio, you goose.
You're just as much of a goose as him. Well done.
Yeah, it's a genuine Adam Sandler comedy in here.
The game is the only really good thing to bear the Walking Dead name.
I dunno... I caught up through both book compendiums, and thought those were pretty awesome. It is best to just pretend there is nothing after season 1 of the show, though.
Got any insight you can share on that matter, @Tube?
The forums feels as active as ever to me, but it's hard to tell without the actual traffic figures.
Well then you miss out on season 3, which is some of the best stuff the entire zombie genre has to offer.
And I'm really happy to see Hotline Miami in the Top 10! Score one for pretentious indie games with no merit, I guess :P
2012 was probably my favorite year for games in a really long time.
The Division, Warframe (XB1)
GT: Tanith 6227
Also, mcc, I look forward to this every year and you're great for doing it.
I'll keep considering XCOM my Game of the Year.
Also, vindication for Diablo 3. There were, in fact, people who enjoyed it.
Either way, thanks for doing this mcc. Hope you do it next year too.
Also...I'm surprised we had so few people this year. Usually we break at least 500.
I know it is. Isn't going to stop me from commenting on it.
It's worth noting that this really, *really* was not a remotely close poll. TWD won in kind of a landslide, and it wins by every method of counting I've got. It won in first place votes, it won in number of list inclusions. Out of 471 voters, 194 put TWD on their lists. That's like nearly half of participants, it's 41%. TWD got more second place votes than ME3 got first place votes. This game won because it was incredibly popular.
Also, LOL at the idea Telltale is "indie". Telltale is a LucasArts spinoff, they've been distributed by UbiSoft, I walked in a GameStop last week and found multiple boxed copies of their games featuring franchises like Back to the Future sitting on the shelf for multiple console platforms. The Walking Dead is based on *The Walking Dead*, an incredibly mainstream and popular tv show that wikipedia says holds the Nielsen record for a drama show on basic cable (which, if something external to the game itself were hypothetically causing people to overlook quality issues in TWD, it would be more likely be the association with a very popular TV show that than because people are thinking of Telltale as "indie"), I don't think you really see indies working with that kind of license. I mean I really don't know what "Indie" is supposed to mean but if anything is indie it isn't this. If you want to know what the *actual* pretentious indies are into (and that would be me, thank you very much) if you look at the full per-forum breakdowns on my blog I ran this poll on two actual indie forums and they didn't really rate TWD all that highly. They liked Hotline Miami and Super Hexagon.
Crusader Kings II, like most Paradox strategy games, has a learning curve that can charitably described as "steep" and less charitably described as "stranding you, blindfolded and naked, on a deserted island populated by nothing but giant carnivorous lizards and poisonous plants".
Edit: And now I'm being auto-awesomed by the forum killbot. Well, it was nice while it lasted.
Diablo 3 owned
I think the reason for this is that...some people might just not notice the poll thing in the announcements.
I know my first year I think I entered G&T and missed it quite a few times before I decided to take a look.
I agree, but with the amount of shit that game takes on these forums, you'd think everyone who played it hated it. The poll shows otherwise.
That's not completely true. . .
And yes, it's less forgiving than XCOM and slower paced than Civilization V. But seriously, once you get the hang of how to murder family members and usurp titles, it's a great game accessible to people of all ages, with no fast-twitch trigger fingers or high APM or good moment-to-moment situation awareness necessary. Great game to play with the family.
I've had my eye on it for a while, just never got around to actually buying it.
And I think that's where some of the contention comes from. That something was voted game of the year while having far and away the weakest game play on the list.
There were certainly better ways to express that feeling than what we saw on the first two pages, but I get a sense that's where the rift comes in. For some people (me included) it's hard to reconcile TWD being the best game of the year, when on purely game play merits, it was the weakest of the top 10.
That said, as @urahonky said about Diablo 3, obviously people enjoyed it and ranked it there, so it is what it is.
Well, that's true, but it doesn't really explain why so few people participated this year specifically.
I still need to play The Walking Dead. It's sitting on my hard drive, waiting.
I think we're at a point where a games can be more than just gameplay or at least we're getting there.
That said as far as story goes, I watched my brother play the game and while I think it was good...meh, I don't know I think the zombie apocalypse setting is just overused and I couldn't really get into myself(but I don't find the show all that interesting either). I probably would have still had it in my top 10 if I'd actually played it myself though.
It is. It's really not too much more difficult than Civ V, really. It'll blindside you every so often with "WTF just happened and how am I now a fifteen year old girl?" but for the most part it's not so bad. There's a demo that'll give you a feel for the game.
But is that actually a good point to get to? Should game play not be an important part of games?
There is a deeper philosophical question here I guess. One we're certainly not going to answer here.
Thanks for running this again, mcc!
I was also one of those handful of people who voted. Although I'll admit that it is a deeply deeply flawed game but I'm a sucker for games where you get to climb really really tall things and it's kind of interesting to see a game whose bleakness is comparable to Cormac McCarthey's The Road
XBL, Steam & Tribes: elmartino333
I don't think anybody's advocating one over the other. The best situation would obviously be great gameplay + great narrative.
Ultimately, it's about the overall package and what the player took from the experience. Nobody's saying gameplay isn't an important part, but sometimes one aspect of a game is strong enough that other shortcomings can be overlooked. If you can't ignore those flaws, that's perfectly fine. If you can, that's fine too.