GOTY : What It Takes To Be the Best

It happens every year. A combination of gaming enthusiast, fanboys, and journalist alike always debate on what was that one game that stood out from the rest over the course of the year. Now while not as prestigious as being the greatest of all time, a game being crowned game of the year (GOTY) shows the collective praise a game has gotten from gamers everywhere. But what constitutes a game to be considered game of the year? What characteristics or criteria does a game need to fulfill in order to be considered among the best games out there? Forgetting about award shows and rating scales, knowing what things to look for can help anyone judge for themselves what game deserves to be seen as the best game of the year.

[Oh_Yeah]

30+ hours game play, a main character you can create/ at least customize, a story where you can make different decisions that cause different outcomes, kick ass abilities that you have to develop, kick ass battles you can approach with different play styles/ tactics..decent ai. Whatever game has most of these elements usually gets game of the year in my book. Skyrkm had all these, hence why it easily took goty 2011.

[shempo]

lenght doesnt matter and uncharted 2 show this

the game with the most winning awards to date

[Oh_Yeah]

It's around 20 hours to complete all of it ( treasures and what not) plus it has a decent multi player, I liked it anyway. As long as it has the decent multiplayer a 20 hour campaign is enough. I'm not knocking uc2, it deserved game of the year in 09. Bethesda didn't have any big games out that year so yeah.

[iNMyFiN4LH0uR]

That is a very restricted criteria for GOTY. Customization and technical diversity are awesome things to have in a game but linearity in both story and gameplay can also be crafted just as well to qualify a game for GOTY. Some great examples are God of War, Portal, Bioshock, Uncharted, Heavy Rain, Gears, Halo, Call of Duty (at least Modern Warfare 1), Starcraft etc.

[Oh_Yeah]

What you guys aren't understanding is that a game in which I described above, it feels like YOUR own game more so than others especially with mods and all. You can't get any better than your own game.. And fallout/skyrim type games are just that. They allow the imagination to unfold with a base they set in place. While I agree that linearity in games such as uncharted and God of War ( two of my favorites btw) isn't bad but it feels more like a movie game than all out gaming experience. Idk I'm just the type that likes freedom and being able to come up with my own stories/characters more so than being told this is just how it is.. Now play it.

[th3n00bg4m3r]

The AI in Skyrim is horrible, and length doesn't matter.

[TheKindRoost]

Nowadays Requirement for GOTY
Publi$her> developers > hype> the actual game

[ALLWRONG]

money

[Nocturne147]

Definetly Far Cry 3... such an awesome game.

[deafdani]

Mass Effect 3, Uncharted 3, Xenoblade Chronicles and New Super Mario Bros U are my personal GOTYs this year.

My criteria: all of them are bloody fun. :P

[th3n00bg4m3r]

Uncharted 3 came out in 2011 and already won 60 Goty awards.

[deafdani]

Crap, you're right, I didn't realize it's been more than a year already! Time goes fast. 0_o

Ok, take Uncharted 3 out of the list, then. :P

[Y_5150]

Journey.
It was a great experience! But right now I'm loving Playstation All Stars Battle Royale ( not considering that game to be GOTY though).

[DestinyHeroDoomlord]

Kingdoms of amalur is one of my best games this year

[isyourhouseonfire]

Things were pretty tight this year.. Halo vs Mass Effect 3 definately seemed possible. But Assassins Creed 3 ended up temporarily stealing the show... And Black Ops 2 stole the entire competition.

Hats off to Treyarch on dominating 2012 by sneaking in right at the end. As gamers, we win either way!

[Hicken]

Black Ops? I'll grant you it's better than its predecessors by a fair bit, but it's not even the best FPS of the year(Borderlands 2 is far better); how could be GOTY?