Am I On Crack?
While the “Game of the Year” discussion has already been pointed out as ridiculous (especially without having played Massive Loading Time Effect and Assassin’s Crossing Creed), I’ve found the range of suggestions interesting. Here are the games I’ve been hearing the most GotY talk about:
- Bioshock: This is the clear favorite in official awards, and for good reason. Tts thematic and gameplay elements are wound tightly together, each informing the other. The Little Sister/Big Daddy relationship is central to the story. It’s also the primary path to character advancement, it’s the core player choice, and it’s the primary combat element. Bioshock shows the power of picking only a couple core themes, and relentlessly iterating on them.
- Portal: I’ve heard a lot of developer support for Portal as GotY, while others have accused me of being “on crack” for making the suggestion. (Or, perhaps fairly, the “on crack” statement was referring to my mention of Zelda: Backtrack Hourglass.) Portal is much more relentlessly minimalist than Bioshock, and the result is limited in scope but almost flawless. Which makes this a surprising developer favorite, given that it makes their favorite pastime– bitching about the best games around– quite difficult.
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: This was a huge surprise to me, after hearing about the game’s early beta-quality release (and subsequent patching that brought it up to… late beta quality). In spite of this, I’ve heard quite a few people say it was their favorite game they’ve played this year. (In a strange twist, an acquaintance just tried to play through the extensively fan-patched Vampire: the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Even the hot vampire chicks couldn’t get him all the way through. So either STALKER is less buggy, or it has something even better than V:tM:B’s core mechanic of running around as a sexy vampire, seducing everyone in sight.)
This isn’t the post to go into it, but it’s also been a strong year for indies. Everyday Shooter and Dwarf Fortress have grabbed a lot of buzz, even if people probably clocked in the most time on Desktop Tower Defense.
November 21st, 2007 at 9:16 pm
I feel like it’s a little early; aren’t there still some games to come between now and Xmas?
Or maybe I’m just saying that because I’ve bought lots of these games but haven’t played them yet. Damn, girl.
November 23rd, 2007 at 1:07 am
It’s definitely too early– I mostly just wanted to highlight STALKER, which I think I heard you recommend first, but now I’m seeing it pop up all over the place.
I think I need to take a few weeks off to play everything that needs playing. What a great year.
November 28th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
You’re playing Easy Mode in Desktop Tower Defense? I expected more from you Matt.
This year’s a weird one for GOTY… nothing has really stood out for me as the obvious front runner. I think that Bioshock is massively overrated. And Portal was awesome, but it seems kind of small potatoes compared to the epic nature of other titles on the list. But maybe that’s the point? Maybe it would send a message to everyone that bigger is not always better?
So far I think Ass Creed is my favorite game so far. I know it’s flawed, but the free running really feels like a genuinely new experience. Innovation has to be worth something in a sea of sequels. And Bioshock is, afterall, a sequel to System Shock 2… which was a sequel.
And Erik… I think that every game worth considering is already out. All of the publishers crammed them in to hit Black Friday. :\