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

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - 25 Points.

Honestly, I can't think of anything that this game does wrong. It's gorgeous, the music rocks, the story is awesome, the puzzles are clever. It has the best Pomeranian of all time in it.

YouTube Video

I mean Jesus Christ.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky - 15 points

This is criminally ignored. It's quite possibly as objectively great as Xenoblade, and it's a years late port of a PC game. But it's Falcom so. It's a touch slow to start, but it's got some solid writing, excellent characterization and a fantastic translation from XSEED. Also the combat's tight, focused, and fulfilling. A candidate for best JRPG of the last half decade, alongside Xenoblade and Radiant Historia.

Xenoblade Chronicles - 20 points

Counts, quite easily, because it's hard to believe this thing runs on the fucking Wii. And far, far better than other games of smaller scope on far more competent hardware. That says something for Monolith, but it also speaks to the hilarious QA practices for most other titles.

But I digress. This game is gorgeous. Interesting combat, THE BEST ACCENTS, and WHAT A BUNCH OF JOKERS. I haven't taken a game this slowly in years, because I'm enjoying every little thing in it so much.

Battlefield 3 - 20 points

The MP in this is fantastic, despite a plethora of balance weirdness and not-so-occasional completely fucked up whackiness. Be it a trained marine having a heart attack while he's taking a stroll, an airplane falling out of the sky for no reason whatsoever, or other "Bad Luck", the thing is still a very solid shooter. There's a controlled chaos to it that no other shooter can match, and that's something that deserves a nod.

Mario Kart 7 - 10 points

This is about the least bullshit filled Mario Kart since...well, MK64. Most of the Wii/GCN item horsefucking has been removed. Blue Shells may exist. And so do Bullet Bills, but their power and exposure have been reduced to a very manageable level. Great track choices too. The new ones, including some three parters like the Wahu stages and the new Rainbow Road, are sublime. The hang gliding and underwater mechanics are not gimmicky in the least, and actually add to the design in a way that I wasn't expecting.

No Waluigi though.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - 10 points

Honestly, I wasn't expecting this to be as good as it was. The original is so iconic and so classic, and yet such a product of it's time and platform, that I feared we'd get something halfway between Invisible War and Call of Duty.

Instead, we got something that pays definite homage to the first game, knows how to give the player some very legitimate options, and accomplishes it all across three major platforms.

Despite the reveal of the outsourced boss battles (which explains a lot), the rest of the game is amazingly well done. It maintains the spirit of the old one, even when a few odd choices (yellow borders, some very minor handholding) belie it's slight, almost reluctant pandering to modern test audiences.


Honourable mentions:

Skyrim - Game is great. No doubt. But it's also a buggy, half finished disaster. It says a lot about Bethesda that they can craft such intriguing worlds, even if those worlds fall apart and fray at the seams to the point of them disintegrating. But I can't honestly award anything to a game that's built on a foundation as solid as half set Jello.

Catherine - Very interesting game that is sabotaged by it's controls. Part of it is how Vincent reacts after changing hanging angles, part of it is the odd slight buffering you always seem to have to do, but it's offputting enough to make control mistakes when you're going for Golds. The competitive Catherine scene is AMAZINGLY BIZARRE though, holy shit.

Super Mario 3D Land - Holy cow this is excellent. I honestly just ran out of points to give this anything I wanted to give it. Doesn't get "real" until the second half, but once it does, it gets very interesting.

Gears of War 3 - Despite how well built this is, I have a hard time going back to it. I don't know why. It's very well made, it's interesting and entertaining, the campaign is good, the MP is glorious (when you're on deds) and otherwise it holds together well. But there's an underlying frustration to how Gears plays out that can turn me off of it for somewhat lengthy periods of time.

Skyward Sword - Haven't finished, can't give a final declaration on it.

Jam it back in, in the dark.