N4G GOTY WINNERS!

Here they are, the N4G GOTY winners as chosen by YOU, the N4G users! That's right, all nominations and votes come from registered N4G users! Thousands of votes were cast and here we are, the games of 2014:

News Story of the Year
LizardSquad DDoS on PSN/XBL

Best Voice Acting
Trey Parker, various, South Park: The Stick of Truth

Most Replayable
Super Smash Bros. for WiiU

Best New VG Character
Fetch, inFamous: Second Son

Best Story
Dragon Age: Inquisition

Best DLC
The Last of Us: Left Behind

Best Soundtrack
Destiny

Best Art Direction:
inFamous: Second Son

Best Single Player Experience
Dragon Age: Inquisition

Best Multiplayer Experience
Destiny

Fail of the Year
Assassin’s Creed: Unity

Best New Studio
Respawn Entertainment

Gameplay Innovation
Nemesis System, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

Best New IP
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor

Most Anticipated Game in 2015:
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End

Best Handheld Game
Super Smash Bros for 3DS

IGGY! (Indie Game of the Year)
Transistor

GOTY
Dragon Age: Inquisition

___________________
Q: But wait, how did this happen?
A: First, we called for nominations from all our users: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
Then, we opened up the voting: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...

**The random draw winner ( http://n4g.com/user/blogpos... ) will be notified via N4G ticket

[zeal0us]

GOTY
Dragon Age: Inquisition

Saw this coming from a mile away.

Fail of the Year
Assassin’s Creed: Unity

Despite public outcry this game still ended up sell well :(

2014 was an okay year for gaming but majority of its good games didn't come until the last half of the year.

[Mankey]

Decent year, but there are a number of things we need to all start watching out for and calling out people/company hardcore for doing.

I say we need to take a strong stand against micro-transactions creeping into tipple A experiences like Dragon: Age or even worse: Evolve.

And the number of games released that did not work was out of control, Drive Club, Master Chief Collection, The Crew, Call of Duty and most notably Assassins Creed Unity.

Or games that were just disappointing. For every Alien: Isolation and South Park we also got a Destiny or Watchdogs.

[TitanUp]

I had trouble with Drive Club for about 2 weeks but COD advanced warfare worked from day 1. I had no problems with that game.

I know i'm not the only person in the world but I really don't remember many complaints about that game not working.

[Stsonic]

I'm still confused why people are in turmoil over the Evolve DLC. how is having cosmetic DLC like skins any worse than the Last Of Us selling new guns which unbalance it's multiplier? Or do devs like Naughty Dog get a free pass on this stuff?

[UKmilitia]

AW worked perfect for mee from day one.
it was the 2nd patch that made things crappy on my end.

[WildArmed]

As much as I hated Destiny, I ended up nominating it for a few categories anyway :O

How long can I lie to myself?

[S2Killinit]

People kept saying it was the worst game ever, just because the reviews told them it was, and yet people are still playing it today on a daily basis.

[pivotplease]

I actually enjoyed and obsessed over Destiny for about two weeks straight (longer than most games last) despite its obvious shortcomings. It at least nailed it in terms of gameplay and audio/visual presentation while having a few different ways to play(sp, co op, "free-roam", co op strikes/raids, pvp)and incentives to continue grinding.

Off-topic: I still have to dig further into transistor I guess but the binding of Isaac was actually my favourite indie of the year.

[WildArmed]

I still play the game and have more hours than most. But that's only because I play with friends, there are really no other good coop games at all.

With that said, the loot system is the worst in this game. And it does not change the lack of content for this game.

I enjoy for what it is, the coop makes me forgive it's short comings time and time again

[s45gr32]

It wasn't a bad year if you were a PC gamer from broken age, the banner saga, the amazing Among the sleep, fatal frame successor Dread Out, Endless Legend, Divinity Original Sin, The Legend of Grimrock 2, Enola, Endless Legend, Wasteland 2, etc. oh and Consortium.

I did finish the second season of the walking dead and the wolf among us.

Guess console gamers had a rough year lol.

[MSBAUSTX]

None of those games were played by 80 percent of this websites followers. We get it though, there were good games on PC. This is the wrong website to expect any of those games to get any credit or notariety. I appreciate you mentioning them but it feels more like you are forcing them into our conversation instead of just letting this thread be about what the information in the article is actually talking about.

Time and place for everything man and talking about PC exclusives in this thread is not the right place or the right time. Please pass this information on to your PC gaming buddies. Nothing offensive or rude but please dont bring up PC games in an obvious console thread.

[MadLad]

@MSBAUSTX

So the majority of this site lives in their little bubble where PC has literally no quality exclusives, and the only games that matter are console-centric . . . but we shouldn't bring it to light in an article covering the best games of last year?
So PC has games - great ones - but let's shy away from entertaining any conversation on that because to do so is "forcing it down people's throats".

I disagree, but.

[Gazondaily]

Yeah GOTY and Fail of the Year are pretty good.

Best new studio of the year: Respawn Entertainment. YEAH! They deserve that for sure!

[PoSTedUP]

I lost. can we do a do-over?

[harikaerif]

Well deserved :)

[Concertoine]

Too bad Bayonetta 2 didn't win anything, but i know that those that did play it enjoyed it :D

[ashen122]

True not enough people played it vary fun. And transistor indie of the year .....mission accomplished

[ABizzel1]

Just got around to Transistor, and I absolutely love this game. Oh my god it's so good, and oozes style.

[MSBAUSTX]

I thought shovel knight was more fun personally. Transistor was good too though. Also i personally voted for Bayo 2. Lol

[mezati99]

Alien isolation is nowhere to be seen...disappointed at you N4G :(

[hooba93]

the users voted, you can't blame the actual website

[Mankey]

Alien: Isolation
Wolfenstein: The New Order
Shovel Knight
South Park: The Stick of Truth (well I suppose Trey Parker Won)

[-Foxtrot]

Like hooba has already said, the users voted.

Have you ever though with all the games last year Isolation didn't come close to the majority of them.

Look I've said before, it's a good game but bloody hell people over hype the shit out of it. The game is a solid (out of 10) 7/7.5 but it only looks better then it actually is because we've never had a good Alien game for a long time. So yeah of course Isolation is going to look amazing, the last game was Colonial Marines, compare anything to that and the game is going to look more amazing then it actually is.

The locations looked the same, it was repetitive, had roughly the same objectives (open doors "Shit it's locked, better head back to find a way to open it"), the Alien looses it's fear half way through the game.

Like I've said, it's not a bad game and I'm not saying it is but it's not as good as people let on, we just haven't had a good Alien game in a long time.

Plus for me as a huge Alien fan the story with her daughter....yeah not really doing it for me since in my mind she doesn't exist cannon wise.

[antz1104]

Yes she does Foxtrot there's a deleted scene from the beginning of Aliens where Burke does a background check on her so Ripley can know what happened to her after she disappeared.

[-Foxtrot]

Decent picks :)

Only ones I can't agree on is Best New Studio and Best Soundtrack

The rest are fine

[Christopher]

Destiny actually does have a pretty good Soundtrack. Best New Studio I expected to go to someone else entirely based on the nominations blog. Respawn was mentioned only four times compared to the 13 mentions of Yacht Club Games.

[coolbeans]

I'm honestly shocked to see Destiny winning for soundtrack. While it's a solid OST in its own right, the crazier tunes in something like Transistor made me believe it would be a hands-down winner.

Respawn's a nice surprise but I think it's well-earned when considering their extended dedication to the game in 2014 via updates on top of what TF brought to the table.

[Christopher]

@coolbeans: considering more people, myself included, played Destiny than Transistor, I'm not at all surprised.

[coolbeans]

Believe it or no, I haven't played it either. Soundtrack was one of the few categories I didn't feel I should limit myself only to what I had played since most were available via YouTube.

Maybe that's something special we can do for Soundtrack next year: present all the nominated choices and have specific tracks linked next to each of them for voters to decide. Just something that came to mind. :)

[98xpresent]

To me metal gear solid v should've won most anticipated game in 2015.

Uncharted doesn't excites me

[-Foxtrot]

It doesn't have the same hype that was behind Snake Eater or Guns of the Patriots.

[s45gr32]

That's sad, since is one of the best video game franchises in history plus the gameplay mechanics,game design, art direction, and visuals change in every game. On top of that, the story moves forward and the soundtrack is the best out of any videogame franchise. Is rare to see a videogame franchise with a deep realistic story that changes a lot over time. Unlike God Of war, Call of Duty, mario, zelda, halo, etc.

[kstap33]

I can't stand Metal Gear games, so don't believe it is universally loved. Its not.

[LightDiego]

Congratulations for the winners.

[TheLastColossus]

Uncharted 4 as most anticipated game of 2015 is perfect

[DoggyBiscuit]

Let be honest here the most anticipated game of 2015 is ZeldaU

[etownone]

Halo 5

[d_g]

excuse me where is knack ?

just Kidding

Great GOTY Dragon Age: Inquisition

[uth11]

Luckily for Dragon Age, Knack was 2013 ;)

[WeAreLegion]

Good picks, everyone!

[s45gr32]

The PC gamers were not allowed to vote, I am surprised Among the Sleep, The Banner Saga , or Broken Age did not make it.

[Nineball2112]

Sure they were. The nominations were open ended and anyone could nominate whatever games they wanted.

[s45gr32]

damn should of voted

[Loadedklip]

Not much in terms of Nintendo here on N4G. Seems the Nintendo fans stick to Gamefaqs.

[mydyingparadiselost]

And NeoGaf...
Honestly this is about what I expected for the awards, there's not much surprise here except that Shovel Knight is walking into the sunset, Shield Knight by his side, without an award.

[Loadedklip]

Ah true ... forgot about NeoGaf.

[JasonKCK]

No Wolfenstein? Come on N4G community.

[WizzroSupreme]

I agree with just about all of these. Last year was a better year than I thought.

[joinsideke]

I am excited by a whopping 0 of these.

Soundtrack goes to Shovel Knight, lets be honest.

[VGMMDI]

The Transistor album was amazing. I'm not sure about that Destiny album with that no name Paul Mccartney.

[Clumpy]

Great winners! The only thing that i completely disagree with is the Best Soundtrack award.

[coolbeans]

An expected list for the most part. Not a lot of my choices won but I haven't gotten around to playing many of the listed winners. Who knows, perhaps I'll agree with many of these choices down the road.

[pop-voxuli]

IGGY? smh.....

[Christopher]

Awwwww... c'mon... it took me a whole 10 seconds to come up with that :(

[schlanz]

Smash Bros and Mario Kart 8 were my 2 GotY, but I don't have a PS4 yet so I haven't played Shadow of Mordor or DA:I yet.

[jreeves82]

Good picks

[StarLord_Who]

Inafamous: Second Son won too many, Destiny won too many and Smash Bros didn't win enough. U think Left Behind should have gotten best story.

[nowitzki2004]

??????????!!!!!???!?!?!?!

Did you look at the article???? Left Behind got best DLC.... DA3 got best story. What are you talking about? Second Son wasnt great but if you played it then you know it was a really good game.

[KrisButtar]

I didn't get a chance to see the voting but who was up against Fetch for Best New Video Game character? I really didn't like Fetch.

Best soundtrack should have been ESO the music is epic even if the game is average at best.

[higgins78]

So, basically the 'winners' were all (mostly) games which appealed to the self-proclaimed 'hardcore', graphic whores and chavs. Ironic really since the Wii U and 3DS focused on GAMES, and its the games which got overlooked by the majority. Best movie? Transformers. Best TV? X Factor. Best book? Fifty Shades of Grey.

[coolbeans]

I did like where you were going with this in giving Ninty credit until...

"Best movie? Transformers. Best TV? X Factor. Best book? Fifty Shades of Grey."

...that part.

I think that's being condescending when considering how different the situation is for games. First, I did indeed vote for more of the 'hardcore' stuff on the list, but I also tried limiting myself (in most categories) to voting for what I had actually played on there to some capacity. Unlike most 2014 books, TV Shows, movies, I have to make a serious investment of another $400 (give or take) on both of Ninty's hardware just to have the opportunity of having hands-on time with those games and evaluating them.

I can understand that it sucks for Ninty to not get so much credit during a year they seemed to deliver (according to a lot of fans), but maybe try to take my kind of perspective into account; it could also be a similar case for many of the users here too.

[aDDicteD]

very nice picks everyone. great job