GamingLives Game Of The Year 2010 – Part The First

It’s that time of year again. The weather is colder, Christmas is coming up faster than ever, and the games publishers have made their big last throws of the dice in their bid to separate you from your money during the holiday season.

It’s around this time of year when games critics and websites start to think back over the past almost twelve months, and consider which game has really stood out, and deserves the title of game of the year. Here at GamingLives we’re no exception. What we are going to do though is make it our own and do it a little bit differently.

We believe that the only game that we can truly call our collective game of the year is the one that is chosen overall from not only our writers, but by our readers. The rules are simple: choose your favourite game of 2010, which must have been released either at retail or as a download in the UK or Ireland during 2010, and then email in and tell us briefly why you think it was awesome enough to be our game of the year. The game that gets the most suggestions, across all platforms, wins.

Please send your emails to goty@gaminglives.com by the 31st of December, with your game of choice and one or two short paragraphs on why you’ve chosen it. The best of these reasons will be published here on the site in a follow-up article when the winner is announced in January. Regardless of whether your comments are picked, they all add up to decide the GamingLives Game of the Year 2010. This is YOUR chance to say what game you liked the most this year.

In the meantime, we’ve asked all of the writers to choose their game of 2010. So without further ado, in order of their release…

Mass Effect 2
(January 26th – Xbox 360/Windows PC)

Iain
My choice for game of the year has to go to Mass Effect 2. I loved the original Mass Effect when it was released, so much so that it’s one of the few games that have prompted a third and fourth playthrough, but it wasn’t without its flaws. The combat was pretty weak and most of the non-story related planets felt a bit too samey, so imagine my delight when Bioware took constructive (and not so constructive) criticism on board and improved both of these areas immensely in Mass Effect 2.

It’s hard to find fault with Mass Effect 2. The voice acting is top notch, the story is well told, the graphics and art direction are superb, and the shooting mechanics feel much more solid than the original. Mass Effect 2 not only surpassed its predecessor in scope, it also surpassed my playthrough count (I’m currently on number six). Plus Miranda’s arse is the nicest set of polygons ever to grace my screen.

Lee
For me there can only be one, it’s not even a hard choice and no – it isn’t Halo Reach. My game of the year was Mass Effect 2. There have been lots of great games this year but none of them drew me in like Mass Effect 2 did. It’s full of pure “whoa” moments right from the start. When the Normandy’s hull has been tore open and you walk out onto the command deck and look up to see the planet Alchera through the big gaping hole in the ship you know you’ve spent your £40 wisely.

It’s very much a personal game too, anybody who has ever sat and watched somebody else play Mass Effect 2 will know what I mean, it’s weird, you can’t help but think things like “What, no! Shepard wouldn’t do that!” and “Hang on, he died in the first one”. It’s also home to some of the best characters ever to grace the Xbox 360, I know a lot of people love Mordin, or Miranda (for two perfectly formed reasons), but for me Legion was my wingman. I know he’s a direct rip-off of the Borg but I don’t care – “We are Legion” is just too much of a cool line. If you get talking to him enough you can learn so much about the “baddies” from the last game, there is a lot of emotion in him with the way he acts and how he phrases his sentences. That and he’ll eventually dance like a robot for you.

Ultimately though Mass Effect 2 is my game of the year because it made me scream, made me gasp in awe, made me laugh and made me cry. Rest in peace Yeoman Kelly Chambers.

Adam
In a year where sequels have dominated the top of the charts, only one game has dared to run harder and faster than we could ever have dreamed: Mass Effect 2. Bioware simply knocked my socks off, unhinged my jaw and blew me away with its incredible level of polish and enthralling storyline. It was a sequel I knew I wanted to play but couldn’t appreciate just how much that was until I finally got it into my Xbox 360.

Launching straight out of the 2010 stalls, no game has come close to replicating that “must play more” feeling I got from playing through its two disc adventure and I doubt any game will. Until Mass Effect 3 of course.

Bioshock 2
(February 9th – Xbox 360/Windows PC/Playstation 3

Ste
Being a huge fan of the original Bioshock, I followed the development of the sequel very closely. Upon its release it was an immediate purchase. The world of Rapture is amazing, a hell of a lot of detail and effort has gone into designing the environment that I could have very easily walked around Rapture with nothing else to do but admire the scenery. The story was also very pleasing, even if I was secretly disappointed that Andrew Ryan would not be making a return and did not resurrect himself via a bio-chamber as the conspiracy theorists had suggested.

Whilst originally sceptical about the multiplayer element I was somewhat pleased to discover that it wasn’t all that bad. Bioshock’s strength was always going to lie within the single player story however, and the mix of guns and plasmids worked well. I found that I could even compete against higher levelled opponents due to the balance being so good. I never did manage to level my character all the way, but nevertheless I enjoyed my stay.

I think Bioshock 2 is a worthy game of the year contender because it gets everything just right. Rich storyline, solid multiplayer and a fantastically detailed gameworld.

Napoleon: Total War
(February 26th – Windows PC)

Samuel
I was originally going to go with either Mass Effect 2 or Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, but realised that there was also a third game that has eaten a great deal of my time to come out this year, and that it was one that would probably not get the same kind of attention those two games are almost guaranteed when thinking of who to dub game of the year.

Napoleon: Total War is the culmination of everything that the Total War franchise has been building towards, and one of the best, most in-depth, and historically accurate grand strategy and management games ever made.

In ways it’s an evolution of the concept behind my favourite game of all time, X-COM/UFO: Enemy Unknown, with the overview of 18th century Europe where you can manage your armies and resources and outposts replacing the Geoscape, and the action-packed battles that take centre stage when you encounter enemy forces. The scale of some of these battles is genuinely epic in a way many strategy titles just aren’t, and the new naval engagements introduced to the series for this game really float my boat, pun intended, as a bit of a buff on naval combat from this era and a massive fan of Patrick O’Brian’s novels.

Just Cause 2
(March 26th – Xbox 360/Windows PC/Playstation 3)

Jace
I know what you’re thinking; anybody who puts a sandbox game other than Red Dead Redemption at the top of his yearly list can’t have played much. In fact, while I also loved Red Dead, it’s the difference between these two games which makes Just Cause 2 so good. For all its charm, Rockstar’s “follow the story” gameplay has taken a turn backwards since GTA IV. The feeling of being hemmed into the narrative, while beautifully executed, is derogatory to the whole concept of sandbox gaming.

The breakthrough made by Just Cause 2 was not only giving you an amazing huge world with all the weapons and vehicles you’ve loved in every other GTA inspired title, but giving you a framework where you could literally do what you like with them. Each town, military installation or base features a certain number of collectibles and explodables. Each item found, or part of the sector destroyed, nudges the percent meter towards completion. Though they are there, there is no need to bother with the familiar bodyguard and assassin missions, just tool up, get an awesome vehicle, and go attack Cape Canaveral. Seeing your 100% complete markers littering the play map as you rampage through the area is very satisfying.

If you’re finding things too easy, just set off on an epic journey to the other side of the world, where defences are much harder. The scenery is astonishing, from tomb raider style jungle hideouts, to fortified underground weapon compounds. And your back-pack parachute, and Bionic Commando inspired grappling hook would give James Bond a run for his money. Use your grappling wire to attach any two items to create hilarious situations. Need to move on to a new area but don’t want to lose your tank? Well just tie it to the bottom of your jumbo jet, and take it to the next place with you. So many possibilities, so much fun. While Crack Down began the free roaming “mission free” revolution, Just Cause 2 takes it to a new level, and is thankfully also 100% Zombie free!

Splinter Cell: Conviction
(April 16th – Xbox 360/Windows PC/Apple Mac/iPhone)

Kat
This award would have been easy if it was for the biggest disappointment of the year. Aliens vs. Predator, anyone? However I’ve found choosing my personal “Game of the Year” a toughie. Last year it was a piece of cake as I’d enjoyed everything about Batman: Arkham Asylum but nothing I’ve played so far in 2010 has had that same impact. Fallout New Vegas is a contender but I’m not far enough in, Fable 3 has too many disappointments, and I’ve spent all my time in Red Dead Redemption’s multiplayer and hardly scratched the surface of the campaign. It’s a tossup between Halo Reach and Splinter Cell Conviction and my heart tells me to vote for Splinter Cell.

Reach is amazing fun but that’s partially because I’m playing with friends and less to do with gameplay or storyline. Splinter Cell was a rare occasion of me gaming happily on my own. I loved all the creeping about and trying to silently despatch my enemies. I admit it reminded me of a slightly less cool Arkham Asylum. Give Sam Fisher a cloak and some gargoyles and I’d have been in my element. The ‘mark and execute’ feature made me feel like a badass despite not being all that great at these games and I even almost completed it on the Expert mode until one part near the end had me scuppered. Co-op and Deniable Ops were the icing on the cake as it brought in some multiplayer action and creeping about hunting a friend instead of an AI character floated my boat.

Splinter Cell Conviction may have been considered an average game by most, and I’ll stand alone with this, but I name it my Game of the Year.

Alan Wake
(May 14th – Xbox 360)

Lorna
It has been a tough choice between the two games which made the most impact on me this year; however, I have to say that Alan Wake has just edged it. It appealed to me on so many levels; from the tormented writer character to the sinister, albeit beautiful Stephen King-esque setting of Bright Falls, to the themes of light and dark and the power of the written word to shape reality.

The chapter or “episodic” style of the content made for an absorbing and quirky framework for a game which also boasted a strong lead and supporting cast, a twisting story, and a superb setting – not to mention the standout licensed soundtrack. The gameplay was innovative and absorbing, offering some adrenalin churning moments along the way as Wake uses light to beat back the darkness and burn off the shrouds around the Taken in order to destroy them.

The story and the wealth of questions that it raised stuck with me long after the Xbox had been switched off and prompted countless replays and many evenings musing as I contemplated the possibilities. Ultimately, that is the measure of a good game for me – how much it takes over my head and whether it lingers, irrepressibly in my mind when I’m trying to sleep. Alan Wake stole a significant chunk of my gaming time this year, whether through playing or musing on the story or characters, wondering what the truth was, and it still hasn’t quite let go. Just edging out Amnesia, it has to be my game of the year for that reason alone.

Super Mario Galaxy 2
(June 11th – Wii)

Edward
Nintendo always spend their time crafting masterpieces for their flagship games, and Super Mario Galaxy 2 is no different. Taking the same engine and idea as the first game, Galaxy 2 improves on it in every single way. The music is better, it’s possibly the most beautiful game I have ever seen, and the gameplay is so perfectly tuned that despite being harder than the first it never feels punishing.

The most important thing is this, though: Super Mario Galaxy 2 is always fun. It knows it’s a game and it delivers upon gamers’ needs time after time with some of the most intelligent designs and gameplay ever conceived. I never found a moment when I didn’t have a massive smile on my face or I wasn’t having fun. It’s one of the best games I’ve ever played, let alone this year.

Victor
Which was my favourite game of 2010? I have to say that honour falls on Super Mario Galaxy 2. It’s bizarre to think that my most disappointing console gave me my gaming highlight of 2010. I haven’t touched the game in a little while, so my recollection is a tad hazy, but Mario holds a special place in my gaming heart. Everything from his familiar look, that familiar jingle, his trademark method of dispatching of enemies, his ever inventive power-ups; all of that is like visiting your favourite massage parlour and getting your favourite masseuse to welcome and relax you in that special way that nobody else can.

Thinking back to my first Mario game, from way back in 1992, I think that game awakened the obsession that I have for finding EVERYTHING in a game. 18 years later, that obsession has died down a lot. Or perhaps it is just my skill. Or the amount of free time that I have. But I certainly feel a little disappointed that I wasn’t able to complete Super Mario Galaxy 2 100%. It was an awesome game, with each level being challenging, engaging and stimulating. But after having beaten Bowser by arriving at world 8-3, or whatever it was, I had had enough of stomping on my enemies and hearing the high-pitched ‘wa-hooo’ that Mario shouts out all the time.

Which leaves me with this thought; was 2010 actually poorer than any gaming year in my gaming memory? Or am I just getting boring? But yes, favourite game of 2010, in a field that included Red Dead Redemption, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Crackdown 2, Alan Wake, Super Street Fighter IV, Just Cause 2 and others is definitely Super Mario Galaxy 2. A combination of nostalgia, fun and challenge in a package that spoke to me like no other game this year.

Limbo
(July 21st – Xbox Live Arcade)

The Rook
There hasn’t been any retail game I’ve played that stands out to me as a game of the year game, or that I have enjoyed so much. I will give a shout-out though to an XBLA game that I bought earlier this year. That game is Limbo, a beautiful silhouetted world which is just one long continuous level with many puzzles to solve and numerous ways to die. I had played the demo and it left off with a cliff-hanger ending, meaning that I couldn’t wait to buy the full game. With simple controls for directional movement, jump and interact it still was innovative, and impressive with the number of puzzles and solutions it had crammed in.

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
(July 27th – Windows PC/Apple Mac)

Ben
For me Starcraft II was the pinnacle game of 2010, and for a number of reasons. A sequel getting released over a decade since its predecessor is dangerous ground; time as they say isn’t the greatest of allies. But with Starcraft II came a resurgence of what really matters, gameplay. Despite being a complete game with the great visuals, fantastic audio, exceptional musical score and a multiplayer system that is both newbie and veteran friendly alike, it’s the simple stuff that makes it so good.  It has you hooked from the moment you start, right the way to the end – and then it leaves you craving for more.

It proved that both PC gaming isn’t dead and that there is room for strategy amongst the plethora of RPG’s and first person shooters.  Simply put, it’s the complete package that has yet to be bettered and as such gets my vote for game of the year.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep
(September 10th – Playstation Portable)

Michael
When the original Kingdom Hearts on the PlayStation 2 was released, I laughed at it. Final Fantasy mixed with Disney?!? That could never work! And yet it did. Apart from the terrible Gummi Ship sections, the game was perfect. The levels are brilliantly designed to fit into whatever Disney film they were based on. And the voice acting was superb. I could even get over the annoying voices of Goofy and Donald. Kingdom Hearts 2 (with an hours-long introduction) expanded on the perfection. Except for The Little Mermaid level of course, but let’s not get into that!

Birth by Sleep is the PSP prequel, explaining why Sora, Riku and Kairi all received Keyblades, and where the Heartless originated from. You play one of 3 characters; Terra, the tank, Aqua, the mage, and Ventus, the Roxas look-a-like. It is a beautiful game, running on the same graphics as the original, pushing the PSP to its limits. The voice acting is even on par with the originals. As with the originals, you travel to different worlds all based on different Disney films, but you see them from the different perspectives of the 3 characters as they battle against the Unversed, thus making the game longer than the originals.

I highly recommend this game to be Game of the Year, and for everyone to play it.

Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale
(September 10th – Windows PC)

Ric
While I’d usually go for one of the bigger releases of the year (Brotherhood, Dead Rising 2, Fable 3), I haven’t actually felt suitably impressed by any of the supposedly AAA titles to hit stores in 2010. So my game of the year is Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale. While originally a three-year old Japanese game, it was translated into English and released in 2010, and that counts as a 2010 release in my book. It’s a game that has it all; cutesy manga graphics, movie references, randomly generated dungeons to crawl in, and a really fun yet challenging negotiation system.

Playing as young girl Recette, who has never worked a day in her life, you run an item shop in a world of adventurers, and have to earn enough cash each week to pay off the massive debt that your Dad had before buggering off to become an adventurer himself. Your companion throughout is a fairy called Tear (eagle-eyed readers may realise that Recettear is a mash-up of their names) who serves as the straight guy to Recette’s idiocy. Every character is charming in their own way, and you find yourself engrossed in the story and the running of your shop faster than you might think. The dungeon crawling is a little simplistic, but it’s easy to pick up quickly, and challenging enough to be interesting without stupid amounts of depth. If you’re a fan of the JRPG but you’re looking for an interesting take on the whole thing, check it out.

Halo: Reach
(September 14th – Xbox 360)

Mark S
There have been a few games this year that have blown me away. None more so than Halo Reach. I have been a fan of the series since I got my original Xbox. In Reach we got the culmination of nearly a decade’s worth of gaming history, that brought together everything that made the series great. The single player story brought together years of Halo games showing how it all started yet giving us a new look at the series. The multiplayer was the conclusion of years of innovation in the way first person shooters are played on consoles.

Yes we knew Noble team was not going to last, but god damn it we would show the Covenant that humans won’t lay down without a fight. Reach saw the end of Bungie’s relationship with Halo, and man they went out with a bang. That’s why Halo Reach is my game of the year.

Rob
Looking back over the year, it is quite hard to nail down one game that has done it for me. There have been some exceptional titles this year. But choosing one is difficult. Don’t worry though I am not going to be one of these indecisive writers who says I like all these games and I can’t choose, so without further a-do, my game of the year is (with no surprise really) Halo: Reach.

Why? Well being the massive sci-fi FPS fan I am, it kind of goes with the territory, but to me Reach is more than just another Halo shooter. Most people would say they like Reach because of the multiplayer and the jet-packs. Granted, jet-packs are awesome, but for me the story was the clincher. I am one of those people who love attention to detail and well thought out gameplay. Every second of the Reach campaign had me hooked, whereas Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3: ODST and indeed Halo 3 had their moments of frustration, and repetitiveness (I personally blame the Flood and a dark lonely New Mombasa for this). Reach had me gripped right till the end.

One of the major parts of the Reach campaign that makes this title game of the year for me has to be one level and one level alone; the space battle level, where you acquire a Saber space fighter and unleash hell just outside of planet Reach’s gravitational pull. This was a brand new element that was brought into the Reach franchise and is still one of my best Halo experiences of all time. The marvellous thing about it was that the game then didn’t stop being amazing after those couple of levels, the anti-gravity in the next level was amazing… trying not to give too much away if people haven’t played it, but sometimes I just go back to those couple of missions and just play them for fun.

Just based on the single player campaign, Halo: Reach is the game of the year for me. If I were to talk about the multiplayer, I would be here for some time. To finally have a Halo game that has a campaign that makes you want to play again and again with no frustration or repetition is a god send in my books.

Adam R
This is pretty much the culmination of everything great about Halo after almost a decade of games. Everything from the character models to weapon behaviour has been remodelled from the ground up. What follows is a varied, beautiful experience that had me glued to my seat for days at a time (I literally slept 2 hours and small change on day one of release).

The campaign is the most varied and most emotionally taxing of any Halo yet. Halo 1 felt like a typical episode of LOST; 40 new questions by the end with no goddamn answers.

Halo 2′s plot took a back seat in favour of cutting edge graphics and blowing the living hell out of everything on screen with new weapons and improved mechanics. Halo 3… well, I don’t honestly know what happened there. Reach was none of these. From the opening scene you know the result of your heroic actions: a glassed planet. Naturally as humans we enter a state of denial, and think we can change this. What follows is a desperate struggle to push the Covenant back and save as many lives as possible. All does not go so well, as you watch your elite team of ass kicking SPARTANs slowly get picked off one by one, each dying one heroic death after another (Emile’s heroic “I’m ready! How about you!?” comes to mind). It all comes to a beautiful close as you watch your SPARTAN put up a final valiant effort to bring down as many of the Covenant as he can before being done in himself. This scene, combined with the full circle cutscene taken right out of the opening seconds of the original Halo, was the first gaming moment since the ending of Kingdom Hearts II to have me in tears.

Fallout: New Vegas
(October 22nd – Xbox 360/Windows PC/Playstation 3)

MarkuzR
My Game of the Year would have to be Fallout: New Vegas, surprisingly. The reason I used the term “surprisingly” is because I genuinely expected the game to be a huge disappointment, nothing more than just a grossly extended piece of DLC rebranded as a full release. As much as I adored Fallout 3, and the thought of being able to continue on my journey through the Wasteland, I also didn’t want to feel like I was being cheated out of what could have been a full game by going through the motions on what amounted to more of the same. Thankfully, it wasn’t. Although the controls and GUI were, for the most part, identical… there were enough changes to make New Vegas an entirely different beast rather than just a clone. It was more sinister in some areas, funnier in others, but the dialogue certainly set this apart from its predecessor by providing a much more in-depth look at the characters along the way, and the characters themselves had much more interesting back stories and personalities.

Aside from the usual “go here, pick this up, drop it off here, then go back to where you’ve just been to tell them that you’ve done it” that you’d expect from any game of this genre, there was nothing that I could describe as being even slightly tedious in New Vegas and, regardless of whatever I expected to happen, I was usually surprised by what actually transpired. The addition of factions made for much more interesting gameplay, closing off certain quests and adventures because of decisions that had been made – something I’d become accustomed to playing through Two Worlds and was glad to see included in New Vegas. Out of all the 2010 games I’ve played thus far, New Vegas is definitely the standout choice and has given me over eighty hours of gameplay with still a plethora of quests remaining either undiscovered or open, including the completion of the main quest.

When I buy a game I want an immersive experience, I want to be wowed by the quality of the graphics if possible, I want a sense of realism that I can take with me on my journey and, most of all, I want to enjoy it for as long as I possibly can. There aren’t many games that I can say have genuinely ever ticked all of those boxes, perhaps four or five in total, but Fallout New Vegas is definitely one of those games and easily gets my vote for Game of the Year.

Stu
Despite having its bugs, glitches and hanging more often than a medieval gallows, this is my game of the year. It was a close fought battle though, with Mass Effect 2 reigning supreme until Fallout: New Vegas swallowed my consciousness for a couple of hundred hours. My interpretation of Game of the Year is not the prettiest, funniest or longest; it is purely based upon which game gave me the best overall experience. The one that had me sitting at my desk in the office nodding and saying ‘uh-huh’ to any questions directed my way because all my primary brain functions are thinking about my next session on that game.

It is for this reason New Vegas takes the crown. It wasn’t the only game to have me up into the wee hours on a work night, but it was the one that after I had spent literally a hundred and twenty hours playing through, I wanted to go again. Sure it doesn’t have multiplayer, co-op or other “extras”, but it doesn’t need it. It delivers everything I, as an RPG and single player game fan, could ask of it.

The biggest thing about New Vegas for me was the new approach to difficulty. Rather than making the world increasingly bullet-proof/immune/whatever, it introduced survival elements in the hardcore mode. Having to plan journeys, inventory, combat and concentrate on more than just health was a huge leap forward in the way that games can be made more challenging. It wasn’t to everyone’s taste but for me it is an evolution of difficulty requirements and added a whole extra survival dimension to the game. You were fighting the world itself for survival. Brilliant in that it was different and also suited the pitch of the game perfectly.

Pinball FX 2
(October 27th – Xbox Live Arcade)

Rich
In what was a frankly miserable year for gaming, the late surge on XBLA was always likely to produce a GOTY contender and, despite a very strong shout by Pac-Man: Celine Dion, Pinball FX 2 wins my vote. This would have been unthinkable a couple of months back. I didn’t enjoy the original Pinball FX at all and I’ve never liked real pinball but Pinball FX 2 won me over with a combination of excellently inventive tables that take full advantage of being virtual, and in-game leaderboards that tell you whose score you’re going to overtake next – something that makes the game maddeningly addictive.

Pinball FX 2 is a tad faster than real pinball (although the flippers are a bit closer together to compensate) and some of the tables aren’t quite up to the standards of others but at 200M$P per table this is great value for your Microsoft moon dollars. They’ve also just released a pack of four decent Marvel-flavoured tables and it looks like there will be more to come.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
(November 19th – Xbox 360/Windows PC/Playstation 3/Wii/iPhone)

Pete
Well, since Borderlands was released in 2009, I’ll have to go with Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit.

It’s a fine leap back into the world of NFS and a worthy successor to Underground, Underground 2 and Most Wanted! And it’s erased the dreary Shift from my memory too! The cars look spectacular and the graphics are fab! Driving at night is everything you’d expect with the flashing of the police lights and being able to turn headlights off!

Multiplayer (which let’s face it is what keeps me gaming these days) is SO much fun whether there’s just 2 of you messing around with Interceptor (which is basically a free roam) or there are 8 of you racing or trying to bust each other! Cheese – it has never been so overused!!




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14 Comments

  1. rich says:

    Interesting choice by Kat there. I toyed with that as well. I didn’t care much for the story mode but I had a lot of fun doing all the co-op stuff and DLC.

    I agree that AvP is a contender for disappointment of the year also. Although Crackdown 2 and Dead Rising 2 were probably a bit worse.

  2. Stu Stu says:

    Really interesting to see some of those choices, good to see that it isn’t dominated by overhyped AAA titles, which overall I think have generally been a let down this year. I’m not surprised that Red Dead didn’t top anyone’s list, nor that Final Fantasy didn’t stand up to the western styled RPGs of Obsidian and Bioware. Hopefully next year a turn based JRPG might make it into my running as Lost Odessy is still one of my favourite experiences on the 360 to date.

    It’s also good to see arcade games making an impression on people, I’ve spent longer on Puzzle Quest than a large number of my retail games and had more enjoyment too, I think the Arcade/PSN/Indie arena is definitely one to keep an eye on for gaming highlights of 2011.

    So the question is will Mass Effect 2 manage to take the title this year and ME3 take next years? Has an IP ever won two years in a row with a sequel? I think Bioware has a shot…

  3. Mark R MarkuzR says:

    I said the same as Stu last night after adding all the images… that there was a very diverse range of games, and I was glad it didn’t end up being nothing but a list of blockbusters. I’ll be honest though, if Two Worlds 2 had been out in the UK then I’d likely have stepped over Fallout New Vegas and given my vote to TW2… they’re as good as each other (to me) but in very different ways and for vastly different reasons, but I’ve been more compelled to sink 6-8 hours at a time in to TW2 than I was New Vegas.

    Loved that some XBLA titles got votes, and that some pretty obscure titles were included. Wasn’t surprised to see that Reach got more votes than the others, it was always to be expected really. Agree with Rich and Kat on the monumental let down of AVP though, I was expecting so much more from it and it just didn’t deliver. Naughty Bear was also a huge let down for me, but the biggest let down of the year for me was Red Dead Redemption. Looked great, got great reviews, but when it came down to it there was just too much faffing around for my liking and I ended up quitting the single player campaign to concentrate on multiplayer… then got bored with that too. Surprising, but there you go.

    Great read though, always interesting to see what makes others tick!

  4. Mark MarkS says:

    Love this kind of collab. We all come together at this festive time of year to have a game of, “MY CHOICE IS THE BESTEST!”

    So let me start. Reach is the bestest!

  5. Ben Ben says:

    Jim Raynor could take a Spartan, any day any place.

  6. Mark MarkS says:

    A character from a blizzard game? Never! He would probably trip over his comedically over sized armor and wouldnt be able to get up again :P

  7. Adam R AdamR says:

    I gotz tingles.

  8. Adam Adam says:

    2010 has been a really cracking year and it really pained me in choosing that one stand out title that their are so many others that deserve the nod and a wink.

    Please do email us at goty@gaminglives.com and let us know what you really enjoyed this year.

  9. Mark MarkS says:

    Yeah in all seriousness, i do love this kind of article. The follow up one will only be as awesome if you send in your picks for game of the year.

    goty@gaminglives.com

  10. Victor Victor says:

    Great article and cool to see everyone elses favourite game of the year. I am very pleased to see that me and Ed share the same GOTY. Which means that he has to watch the next 5 films that I nominate. It is the law.

  11. FC360 says:

    1 Game I am surprised hasn’t been mentioned which I have sent in, I surprised Fable 3 isn’t on the list is it really that bad of a game? lol

  12. Edward Edward says:

    I love the wide choice of games nominated, and as much as some of the writers expressed disappointment in the year overall, I’d disagree it was that bad if we had such a diverse range of games nominated. Surely if it was a terrible year, we’d all have opted for 2 or 3 games. Also really interesting to see some games weren’t nominated, especially considering how much time you were all on RDR :P

    Great job with this everyone :D

  13. Splicer261 says:

    LOLOL, i’m still cracking up over the Drunken santa pic on top :D

    Great choices and yeah, it does show what a year 2010 was for gamers.

    Surprised no one has God of War 3 mentioned.. no ps3 gamers? :O

  14. Moobs says:

    Nobody said Red Dead Redemption? Shame on you all, Red Dead was by far my game of the year everything about it from the tumbleweed to the smell of Seth was sublime, best darned Rockstar game since GTA3.

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