TheVine's Game of the Year Roundup!

Yes, on a public holiday. That's how momentous this occasion truly is. [Oh sorry Verhoeven, I moved it to Tuesday, worker bee-return-day! xo Ed] You see, it's 2012 now and to be honest, 2011 was an epic year for gaming. And gamers. And games. And whilst many of us have a loose mishmash of titles we THINK are our favourites of 2011, few of us have put any thought into what our GOTY (game of the year) is. So without further ado, here's a breakdown of my favourite games, with relevant categories and everything! These are my top five games of the year.

5. Dragon Age 2. OR: My favourite game that everyone hated and I was utterly in love with.



Dragon Age was pretty much the greatest RPG I'd ever played in my life, and I played the hell out of it. The characters were perfectly fleshed out and getting to know them, love them, hate them or bone them is part of the reason Dragon Age transcended simply being a well-written, well strutted fantasy (which it undoubtedly was) and became an obsession. Dragon Age 2, therefore, had a LOT to live up to.

Here's where it succeeded, for me. The characters were just as good, if not better; I'm talking, of course, about your party members. They're not as instantly likeable, and if you spend the game moaning about where the game mechanics have changed, or about how it's all set in one city, you're going to have real trouble getting under the skin of Varric, Isabela, Aveline, Merrill, etc. But if you make the effort, you're going to be rewarded with some of the warmest, most involved relationships I've ever seen in any game.

Dragon Age 2 also made it into my top five because, frankly, the story was fantastic. If a novel is set in the same city over a prolonged period, nobody would raise an eyebrow. With a game, however, things can get a bit samey, especially when the preceding title spanned countless wilds, cities and dungeons. But if you can look past these issues, you have a superbly told story with impact, grace and resonance. Screw the haters. I hope they never stop releasing DLC for this fantastic title.

4. Arkham City. OR: My favourite action game.



Arkham City is borderline perfect if you're into gaming, but it's utterly sublime if you're a Batman fan. It simultaneously rewards the long-time fans without alienating people new to the franchise; you can wander into Crime Alley and witness Bruce pay homage to two chalk outlines as one uninitiated into the Batman universe, and yet you can feel the full weight of decades of backstory heaving and roiling somewhere in the distance.

Where else does Arkham City succeed? Well, the voice acting is predictably wonderful (Mark Hamill has announced Arkham City is the last time he'll voice The Joker, sadly), the free-roam nature of Gotham is immersive and liberating, the combat is fluid and incredibly gratifying, and there's enough fiddly stuff to get obsessed over for weeks on end. Also, the DLC (which, sadly, is leaning away from more single player narrative based content) will have you replaying the game in a variety of fantastic suits from Batman's different incarnations.

Also, it's the first time I've actually felt like Batman. Do you have any idea how glorious that is? The first time I ignited a lightsaber, back in Dark Forces 2: jedi Knight, my inner child almost screamed a rainbow. Arkham City manages to channel that childlike wonder directly into your cerebral cortex like a laser beam.

You're Batman. Now go and kick the shit out of some bad guys.

3. L.A. Noire. OR: My favourite wish-fulfilment game



I've always wanted to be a detective. Well, more specifically, since I was about twelve, and a detective in the forties in Los Angeles. L.A. Noire's seedy, guttural and demeaning production history has been well-documented, so I won't go into it here, but L.A. Noire appeals to me not in spite of, but perhaps because of all the things many people seem to hate about it.

It's linear, but that's how a good movie should be. There's a metric crapload of dialogue and plot strands to keep track of, but that's how a good detective novel should be. There's not a lot of action, but that's not what life as a detective would be like. It manages to evoke an era I fetishise to deeply that I'm now on my third full play-through of the game, and I can't ever see myself getting tired of it. It has the best soundtrack I've ever heard composed for a game, the attention to detail paid in recreating Los Angeles is frankly staggering, and… alright, Paul, calm down.

I initially had issues with nothing but the very end of the story, but I've found myself appreciating it more and more of late. Maybe it is a weird, backwards blind-alley of a game. But for me, it's pretty much perfect. Great performances, innovative and immersive game mechanics (interrogating people and trying to read their faces never gets old for me), a rock-solid story, and memorable characters. It's terrible how much of the game got cut, but maybe one day we'll get the burglary desk we've been waiting for.

2. Portal 2. OR: Favourite game that involved any kind of lateral thinking



Portal 2 is perfect. Totally perfect. It's also incredibly specific in it's subtle goals, which is why it isn't my #1, but it's damned close. It's like playing the best arthouse science fiction film you never saw. It rewards those who've played the first game, in that the insidious, cruel and artfully woven narrative rears it's head in the subtlest forms. The protagonist, Chell, has no voice, but she has eyes. They're your eyes. So you suck up every molecule of information you can. It's taxing, but it's like learning a new language.

You're also forced to negotiate your way through, frankly, the kinds of puzzles that I both fear and respect. And just when you think the notion of popping through one portal and out another has become a tad passé, they throw a new mechanic into the mix. It's like watching a cosmic, billion-piece puzzle box explode and coalesce violently back together during a dream. And the sense of accomplishment it imbues you with is touching, rewarding, and deeply edifying.

Also, a quick note: for a game which is ostensibly about entropy and artificial intelligence, Portal 2 has some of the best-written and performed characters ever. It's a work of fucking art, start to finish.

1. Skyrim: My actual GOTY.



I've spent the past month doing a weekly blog about Skyrim for TheVine, and you can read just how obsessed I got here, here, here and finally here. But Skyrim takes what Oblivion did so well - immerse you in a fictional universe - and takes things up about eighty large, scaly notches.

It's not perfect, but it FEELS perfect. It's taken me over a hundred hours of gameplay to even begin seeing the patterns lying underneath the world of Skyrim. You know how after a LOT of time playing something, you learn the language, so to speak? You can go on autopilot, and you have to put the game down and come back later to enjoy it, to see it with fresh eyes. With Skyrim (and this might be it's greatest achievement), it takes longer for this to happen. Way longer. And even when it does, about five minutes later, you'll stumble across something which will totally wipe even the slightest hint of being jaded clean out of your brain. It could be a run-in with a miner whose wife has gone missing, leading you into a tragic, labyrinthine series of events which culminate in a heartbreaking loss. It could be helping a guild regain it's former glory. Or, it could be as simple as walking out of a tavern at midnight to see the Skyrim equivalent of the Northern Lights dancing above a mountain in the distance.

But most of all, if you like games with depth, it's FUN. Which is what games should be. Skyrim doesn't feel like work; there's no grind here, just pure adventure. Which is why it's my Game of the Year.


VERY HONOURABLE MENTIONS: The only game which didn't make it in but almost did is Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which literally shares the place Arkham City inhabits on the list.



And the only reason it was beaten by Arkham is because I've been an obsessive Batman fan since I was a kid. But Deus Ex is another perfect game, and I've just finished it on my pacifist run, which should say something about it's deployability. But, again, I'm a Batman obsessive, so Arkham won by a hair. Also, Elias Toufexis (@eliastoufexis) who voices Jensen, the hero of Deus Ex, is an amazing guy and is very generous with fans. The story is ridiculously wonderful, the soundtrack is wonderful, it's... Crap. Now I'm considering putting Deus Ex in the list. STUPID AWESOME GAME.

Oh, and Bastion was brilliant, too. And Dark Souls was epic beyond belief. But I can't keep listing games I loved, or I'll never get done writing.

 Well, that's it! It's the very beginning of 2012 now, which means there's a lot to look forward to if you're a gamer. And if you're not, for the love of GOD go and play Mass Effect 1 and 2, and all the associated DLC. Because when Mass Effect 3 drops this March, you do not want to be out of the loop. Also, Diablo III comes out.

HNNNNNNNNG.

/Paul