[Question] The Gamingforce Game of the Year 2011: Time to Vote

Portal 2 - 40 points

Portal 2 is probably the best game to be released this generation. An interesting story, told with humor and wit, mixed perfectly with a long, satisfying single player mode that is much longer than its processors', makes for a fantastic experience that is really my only case of "I can't put this down" in recent years. The fact that the game never feels like it's been padded or cut short is a quality more games need, but few get. The coop is just icing; less story, sure, but the same level of humor, and one of the few coop games to ever get the feeling of working together RIGHT. It is an awesome, awesome game that no one should skip.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - 25 points

A sequel years after the fact to a rather iconoclastic FPS series that never really got off the ground, really, is not something that anyone would expect to have a great chance of being good. Surprisingly enough, the DX:HR devs managed to put together a tightly wound ball of intrigue that only kinda sorta doesn't make sense, and offer honest-to-god freedom of choice in a gaming environment full of "choices" that aren't. It's a refreshingly different game amongst a sea of Call of Duty copycats, and I look forward to seeing what's next from these guys. Maybe next time they'll get to make their own boss fights.

Skyrim - 15 points

Skyrim is everything I liked about Oblivion refined, with a lot of its needless cruft removed. For the first time, I can honestly describe a Bethesda release as "elegant". The sheer amount of content is staggering, actually. I'm not going to be done with this for a while.

Batman: Arkham City - 10 points

I love how this game somehow managed to do properly two things that so many developers seem to struggle with: Making a proper sequel to your fresh hit game, and making an open world that feels open without feeling overwhelming. My biggest problem with LA Noire was how empty the city of LA felt. You were only ever going to one place at a time, so what the hell's the rest of the city for? Arkham City has shit all OVER the place, without having nearly the square mileage of a GTA or Just Cause 2 to spread it out over. It feels like you're constantly tripping over things to do, which is such a great feeling to have in a game. The combat is still best in its class, as well.

LA Noire - 5 points

LA Noire is such a bizarre thing. The sheer scale of its undertaking, both in the size of the city it takes place in and the amount of effort that went into its facial capture technology, are not going to be replicated any time soon now that it turns out the company making it was basically dead in the water upon the game's launch. It's a damn shame, too, since the game has a fantastic rhythm to it. A very casual, steady rhythm almost like an interactive 50's CSI. It's a shame we're not going to get to see any more from Team Bondi.

Saints Row 3 - 5 points

There are some gaping holes where content is going to be plugged in later, which is a real damn shame, because the portions that actually shipped on the disc are a really neat, fun to play sandbox game that doesn't take itself too seriously except where it counts. If only THQ hadn't portioned the game into oblivion.

Honorable Mentions

Modern Warfare 3

I gave Black Ops a bunch of points last year, and this year I feel like I should give MW3 some solely because of how the multiplayer still effectively grabs me. I'm not sure at this point whether it's due to habit or not, but they did at least manage to make a Modern Warfare game that isn't unbalanced as all hell. I can't really actually justify giving it points, since so much of the game came out half-assed or broken. Hopefully Black Ops 2 borrows the things that MW3 added that are neat (Kill Confirmed, Drop Zone, Strike Packages) and improves on all the stuff MW3 feels like a regression compared to Black Ops with.

Gears of War 3

Holy shit, a Gears game with competent online and a non-shit story! Will this magic never end?

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

A really neat idea for a puzzle game, and I wish I'd played it to the end. I need to.

Radiant Historia

Oh my god it's Chrono Trigger I can't believe they finally made another one holy shit

Burnout Crash

It's not the Burnout Paradise sequel we all were hoping for, but it's a fun little diversion that never gets too frustrating or too easy.

Jam it back in, in the dark.