The Fifth Annual Coint and Plick Poll for Best Video Games of 2011 - Part Four: THE TOP TWENTY

tiny wings is nothing like angry birds. very beautiful and tranquilizing

i should definitely buy this "guide for tiny wings - tips and tricks" app i see in the itunes store for the same price as the game, right?

Tiny Wings is on my top 5 list of "games I won't play because I will get sucked in and I actually enjoy the sun on my face and the sound of children's laughter".

The other four games are all Drop 7.

uh oh

yay tiny wings!

jim I was mostly just reacting to whoever was lamenting how many hours it took to get Battlefield 3 working on their console. It just struck me as sad and weird that a console game required multiple hours of downloading and patching just to play single player. I don't play 360 or PS3 regularly (haven't owned either) so I was just surprised to read all that and then notice they were playing a console version.

oh the battlefield patch was fucking huuuuuuuuuge, which is unusual. i don't have it but yeah, takes a bunch of time because you don't get amazing download speeds. but it fixed a bunch of exploits so i guess people are happy.

that person was doing it wrong

silby's confusion is reasonable - i just bought a ps3 a couple months ago and was so confused as to why people kept advocating for getting the model's with larger HD's. i was like - do you guys really download that many fucking demos?

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#3: Batman: Arkham City – 360 / PS3 – 197 pts – 12 votes - 1.25 top game votes
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EZ Snappin: A pleasure to play, and a sequel that should have left the original in the dust. However, I don't think it did. Arkham Asylum was tight and focused, whereas this is sprawling and padded. Too long (though the combat is a joy), with a lesser story though a better ending. Did like the Grundy boss battle better than any in the original.

DJP: There is nothing as glorious as leaping off of a building, soaring through the air using your cape as wings, only to fire off a grappling hook and swing onto a nearby gargoyle/ledge, then leaping off and doing it again, and again, and again. Even if they'd screwed up the story (they didn't) or had made the game viciously ugly (they didn't) and didn't have massive replayability in the various side missions and Riddler trophies and challenges (they do), the simple fact that they got swinging through a dangerous city so wonderfully correct would pardon lots of sins. That they did this and then went on to make every other facet of the game awesome is just staggering.

Nhex: There was an inevitable deflation, as much like Portal, the first one set a high bar on top being a total surprise. But let's get down to it, it was absolutely worth the wait, improved pretty much every gameplay aspect from the first game, delved further into the Batman universe, nailing that legendary feeling of being Batman. Zipping across the city to prevent Zsasz from killing a prisoner, delivering people from the Saw-esque Riddler death traps, taking time out to rescue political prisoners form being raped on the street, uncovering the political conspiracy behind Arkham City, all in a single night, of course. That near-perfect fight system is pretty hard to ruin, too. Bring on the next one.

bnw: One of the nice things about Arkham City and its predecessor, is that while it emphasizes stealth- it doesn't just limit that to "avoid guards and cameras" i.e. "move when you're supposed to, dummy". batman's stealth involves more planning and minding your surroundings.

Jeff: Enjoyed all aspects of this game. I found the fighting, both the straight up and stealth extremely satisfying. It is so blissful to string together a couple of dozen hits, batarangs, freezing, grapple, etc. Equally as satisfying to take down an entire room without a single person seeing you. Huge open world is just fun to zoom around. Catwoman parts were not as satisfying, but a nice add on to have.

Jordan: SO MUCH FUN. And then it's over.

Salsa Shark: I don't know what to say about this that other people haven't already said, so here are some scattered thoughts (very much tl;dr style):

+ Everything about this game felt so much more wider and expansive than Arkham Asylum, from the setting to the weapon and fighting repertoire to the characters who come and go throughout the story.
+ Playing as Catwoman was fun and refreshing; I'm not sure everyone was a fan of this but I thought she was a good addition to the game.
+ The side quests involving various villains were mostly fun and provided a break from the main storyline, although the punishing number of Riddler trophies and riddles is a bit overwhelming (the Riddler sidequest is the only one I haven't finished simply because I've maxed out the number of riddles and trophies I can get without using a walkthrough).
+ The villains/boss fights included as part of the storyline were also mostly fun, and a couple were unexpected. I especially loved the subway city, both in design and in the way its villain contributed to the storyline. I was initially a bit disappointed that the Joker had such a huge role again (it goes along with my general tiredness towards the Joker in contemporary Batman canon), but I got over this by the end of the game when the Joker's story began to unfold.
+ The controls were generally responsive enough that any of Batman or Catwoman's failures were entirely my own (unfortunately there were a lot of failures because I am a button-masher, not a strategic fighter).

The downsides... mostly I found myself thinking too much about the likelihood of an 'Arkham City' ever being set up -- would Gothamites not protest at losing their heritage and civic buildings to degenerates? It seems like an unlikely setup to begin with, and even more unlikely that something like Protocol 10 could be allowed to occur. Also, Hugo Strange felt a bit... non-essential.

oh crap. did that pos uncharted 3 place yet?

wow

so... Portal 2 and...?

oh right. portal 2. not uncharted 3. skyrim, obv

oh yeah, duh

jjusten’s RANT OF SOUL CRUSHING DISAPPOINTMENT
You know this was one of those years where the haterade wasn't really flowing wrt games, its been a bonus year in pretty much every category and I know that there are things I haven't even touched yet that are awesome. For a while I wasn't even going to submit a biggest disappointment, or tweak it so it was either broken ass skyrim or my own shame at my inability to not bother playing the effortless and bland Fable III all the way through, but then I looked through the nom thread one more time and realized oh shit what am I thinking?

LA NOIRE came out this year.

Lets just get this out of the way first HEY DUMMIES ITS NOT A GODDAMN GAME. Just because you can jam the disc into your gamebox doesnt make it necessarily so, and this is a throwback prime offender like i havent seen since the deathly awful cdrom era of the late 90s. I am not sure what kind of ball-lapping coke baggie gift pack they sent out to reviewers for this utter piece of unfun, but it must have been pretty amazing considering the metacritic score. Basically its GTA4 with all the levity, lightheartedness, and good times removed, but this time you dont even have to actually play a game in order to get bored out of your fucking skull. Protagonist is dull, driving is wait hold on a second WHY AM I DRIVING AT ALL THERE IS NEVER ANYTHING TO DO and the free roam aspect is WAIT WHY CAN I FREE ROAM WHAT THE FUCK. This is a game for the people out there that think that the gta series would be greatly improved as a travelogue, sorta a rick steeves of the 1950s. So ok fine you say what about the amazing crime scene investigation where you meander around a scene until some random
object of great import presents itself because shit that never happened in like a million point and click adventure games before, but this time instead of glowing halos they use this amazing new-fangled vibration technology, or do they i cant remember because the shit was so fucking dull it made no impression whatsoever. Oh and did we mention that through next gen facial wank wank avatar magic dot camera face technology we have created the most terrifying facial animation on the planet? Imagine if you will that we take ACTUAL ACTORS and cover their face with REAL RUBBER MASKS OF THEIR FACES and then have them emote with the amazing magical power of OVERACTING and then we dump that into our super-pixelator machine and let you ask them SEVERAL QUESTIONS! In a row! And if you somehow miss the fact that they are eye-twitching and wiggling their face around like a meth-binger at a broken traffic light, don't worry, you get to do it OVER and OVER until you get it right. ITS LIKE YOU ARE ACTUALLY THERE except it isnt because the clues are about as subtle as a hammer to the fucking face, and honestly there was one lady that i interviewed where i swore her head was going to whip right off her neck because of her furtive glancing. But wait, I am being unfair, because i forgot
to mention the totally pointless side missions which seem to entirely involve climbing buildings or shooting teenagers in the face for joyriding a car and cracking wise. And yeah, I know, its all about the story or some such bullshit but man cmon i got 400 movies on my netflix instant queue and none of them make me patiently drive a car around or meander around a railroad yard until i find a wadded up tissue of great importance, so no thanks. IT SUCKS. ITS AN INTERACTIVE MOVIE. GET OVER IT.

phew cuz uncharted 3 was my DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE YEAR

Nathan Drake is a creepy creep

hahaha that LA Noire rant

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#2: Portal – 360 / PS3 / PC / Mac – 316 pts – 16 votes - 5.83 top game votes
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Portal 2
DJP: This is an astonishing game. I never played the original Portal and I never once felt like I had missed out on something as a result. GladOS and Wheatley make for entertaining enemies/allies and the variety of puzzles is wonderful. My only regret is not having a reliable multiplayer partner.

Diamond Dave: fun, hilarious, and challenging. also this one gets votes simply for naming a character CAVE JOHNSON

jjjusten: The best game-length tutorial of 2012! I know I'm coming off a bit
cynical here, and I did enjoy the hell out of the game, but if you
take away the script it really does fall a bit flat. Fortunately,
it's the best script for any video game this year, so in the end its
still a win. Certainly not as entrancing as the original wrt the big
reveals, but its more portal so I'll take it.

Ledge: The flipside of Skyrim, in many ways. What it loses in scope
and longevity it gains in coherence, a pleasing compactness, and
gameplay to die for. And no stupid AI.

Nhex: I can't believe I almost forgot about this game, since it came out early in the year, when it was accurately coined Game of the Year. But yeah, what more is there to say? Not as short or quite as well-packaged as the original, but still a lovely time. Valve still has their storytelling down, and the puzzles were generally much better this time around too. The co-op campaign was even better in that department.

jamescobo: "Stare at the art."

agent hibachi: you jump in one thing and out the other. things fall apart; ok computers wreck shop.

Ian F: Portal is a puzzle game with semi-defined solutions where making leaps of logic to work out your plan, and actually carrying out that plan, are equally important parts of its challenge. I can trace my great love for those types of games right back to Lemmings, and Portal 2 executes the model every bit as perfectly as the original did. You get efficiently trained in some principles. You get presented with an impossible looking puzzle. You get a buzz when you think of a new idea of how to use the elements at your disposal to solve it. You get a delayed, but more intense, buzz when (maybe, several attempts later) you actually manage to carry out the plan. Many of the puzzles were really top notch for this - I'm thinking of dropping blue goo on the turrets, or most of all the co-op level where you have to both fling yourself across the level from opposite ends and collide with each other. Total giddy glee when playing that one. The other elements of Portal 2 outside of those core mechanics were never going to be as perfect as the original and couldn't possibly be without the element of surprise, but as a high production piece of entertainment Portal 2 was still as funny and unpredictable as it was polished.

EZ Snappin: My keyboard & mouse skills are almost nonexistent (especially for anything with an fps control scheme and viewpoint), so I reached a point in the first Portal where I know what I needed to do but could not execute the maneuver fast enough to proceed. Playing Portal 2 on PS3 meant I had no such problems, and I was able to thoroughly enjoy the story and puzzles to completion. Having finished it, I can say I would have been crushed not to experience the ending.

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#1: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – 360 / PS3 / PC / Mac – 384 pts – 19 votes - 7.25 top game votes - most votes, most points, most top game votes, GOTY
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Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

EZ Snappin: The most hours I have spent with a videogame in perhaps forever and I'm not close to finishing it. The play is the thing, and there is enough variety to it that I haven't gotten bored (though this may be because between every couple of quest lines I go walkabout and try to fill up more of my map). A grand achievement.

tomofthenest: easily the best game I've played this year or many other years. Just need to find time to have a life as well.

polyphonic: Out on the plains, on the road to Rorikstead, I consecutively killed a blood dragon, a mammoth, the giant who owned the mammoth, and an elk who had bad timing. I converted their souls into gems, which I use to enchant my weapons. I use the dragon's scales to make armor, and I use the giant's disgusting toe to make a Fortify Health potion.

jjjusten: I've hated both of the modern gen elder scrolls games, and probably
never would have bought this had it not been for fallout tipping the
scales for 100+ hour rpging. Somehow they managed to get it all right
this time, removing the pontless meandering while still giving tons of
reasons to explore the world (which is pretty much the best looking
hobbity nonsense ever), making the levelling system make sense while
still allowing you nutjob grinders to do your thing, and against all
odds managing to make first person hand to hand combat actually work.
In some ways it's even easier to keep coming back to than the modern
fallouts, despite the fact that i am more of a fallout guy by nature -
theres something much more worldly and compelling about the
environment that makes me wander up mountain passes just to see where
they go.

DJP: The world is huge. The fights are massively fun. Your character adapts to your playstyle; the more you do something, the better you become at it. The bugs are entertaining. I am sworn to carry this games burdens, but then I took an arrow in the knee.

methanietanner: A big, beautiful, boring, broken, brilliant sandbox. Loved it, then hated it, then just accepted it. Grinding away 4ever.

Zora / Surfing at Work: I've got nothing to say about this game except RELEASE THE FUCKING CREATION KIT ALREADY. Ahem.

Diamond Dave: huge, immersive, it's really amazing to see how far RPGs have come

Ledge: Far from a perfect game but still a GOTY and so worthy of 30 points.
Am fairly astonished that any magazine could give it a perfect score
though, the problems with this game are quite major, quite apart from
the bugs (which never affected my games too much).

Firstly The NPCs seem expressly designed to show that AI has advanced
absolutely nowhere in the last 20 years. There's Lydia's ridiculous
door blocking; the absurd interaction detection ("come to talk to an
old woman? Do your good deed for the day?" "Actually no I was running
past you at full speed without even looking in your direction"); and
of couse the endless repeated dialogue. "I am sworn to carry your
burdens" will never get old but the inability of the NPCs to learn or
change their behaviour at all is startling. "Oh so you're interested
in alchemy?" "YES I'VE BEEN IN YOUR SHOP 100 TIMES ALREADY." "A
healing spell? Are you a priest?" "NO I'M THE FUCKING ARCHMAGE, YOU
WERE THERE AT THE TIME".

The other problem is the linear gameplay. Although it's a sandbox game
the script is very much on rails, there is no sense of properly
interacting with the world, of being an agent of change. You are very
much just a cog in the machine, grinding towards its inevitable
predetermined end. Even the different branches in the conversation
trees all end up looping back to the same point. Hugely unfair to pick
on Skyrim for this, it's a very common thing, GTA and RDR are the
same. I haven't played other more conventional RPGs - well not since
nethack etc - so I don't know how they stack up but it would be good
to find a game where there are real story choices, where what you do
really makes a difference.

These quibbles aren't insignificant but Skyrim manages to overcome
them through sheer brute force, really, just the scope of the whole
thing. The size of the map, the variety of gameplay approaches, the
richness of the world, the number of challenges and stories. I'm
nearly 100 hours in and I think I'll still be playing for a long time
to come.

Woof: I don't really have anything to add to its giant thread: I like
walking around in a big fantasy world, talking to myself about the
weather, faffing around with crafting and hitting things with my two
magic swords.

bnw: filled in so many of Oblivion's weaknesses. not perfect but is so much closer then any game around this genre has ever gotten. just imagine if they improve the combat system next.

oppet: I couldn't get into Oblivion at all so wasn't expecting this to be the 2012 game which resulted in the most "oh shit I have been playing for 6 hours straight" moments. I'm several gameplay hours (well, days) into it and I've still only done about three main storyline quests. Normally I'd be frustrated knowing that I'll never get close to 100% completing a game but with Skyrim I could happily just retire back in Whiterun today with the lovely Ysolda for company, and not give a damn.

CraigG: This is getting a nod, even though I'm "only" about level 16. Which doesn't seem like a lot compared to all the ILGers pumping 90 hours into it. While it's not the greatest game I've ever played - which some may call blasphemy - it's the only Fantasy RPG that has ever held my attention longer than an hour, as I'm more Fallout than Fable/Morrowind/etc. Don't think I need to say much more about this game, as it's all been said before.

Sondrangerbot: this game is completely unhealthy. i'm at 68 hours and still feel like i have barely scratched the surface. makes me wish i lived with my parents.

I didn't even get the appeal of the first game. Everything, everything, everything about it was generic - the characters, the baddies, the environment, the dialogue. I mean I don't even understand how people just didn't just stop playing it for a bit and go "where are there so many people on this island? shouldn't there be a bathroom here or there? some tents?"

xxpost uncharted

lol great job on the belethor .gif - i don't think there was shopkeeper i visited more.

"if i had a sister, i'd sell her in a second!"
"if i had a sister, i'd sell her in a second!"
"if i had a sister, i'd sell her in a second!"
"if i had a sister, i'd sell her in a second!"
"if i had a sister, i'd sell her in a second!"
"if i had a sister, i'd sell her in a second!"
"if i had a sister, i'd sell her in a second!"
"if i had a sister, i'd sell her in a second!"
"if i had a sister, i'd sell her in a second!"

can we post ballots now? mine:

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Binding of Isaac
Arkham City
Saints Row the Third
Terraria
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Glitch
Bastion
Tiny Wings
Temple Run

I love that Portal gif! well done.

My Ballot:

Portal 2 - 30
Elder Scrolls - Skyrim - 30
Batman: Arkham City - 20
DC Universe Online - 10
Pro Evolution SOccer 2012 - 10

Mine:

30 pts for Tiny Wings

Arkham City - 30
Tiny Wings - 20
W.E.L.D.E.R. - 10
Mass Effect 2: The Arrival - 8
Temple Run - 6
Ticket To Ride - 6
Anomaly: Warzone Earth - 5
Groove Coaster - 5
L.A. Noire - 5
Where's My Water - 5

Pts: 20 Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together

Pts: 15 Minecraft

Pts: 10 Terraria
Pts: 10 L.A. Noire
Pts: 10 Saints Row the Third
Pts: 10 Catherine
Pts: 10 Fight Night Champion

Pts: 5 Frozen Synapse
Pts: 5 Brink
Pts: 5 Bulletstorm

bnw: filled in so many of Oblivion's weaknesses. not perfect but is so much closer then any game around this genre has ever gotten. just imagine if they improve the combat system next.

this just blew my mind

whatever it'll be, it'll be an improvement - just an outdated one

lol skyrim

good work ZS, thank you!
GREAT gifs, particularly like the portal2 one

not much of a gamer but felt validated by portal 2 and skyrim placing (cuz they are the only two I put any time into)

heres my ballot btw:

01 tactics ogre: let us cling together - psp - 30
02 dragon quest vi: realms of revelation - ds - 20
03 radiant historia - ds - 15
04 the legend of heroes: trails in the sky - psp - 10
05 civilization v (updates + dlc) - pc - 5
06 witcher 2: assassin of kings - pc - 5
07 batman: arkham city - ps3 - 5
08 catherine - ps3 - 5
09 marvel vs capcom 3 - ps3 - 5

^^^ gets it

altho i couldn't get into legend of TiTS

oh god that skyrim gif is making me siiiiiick

i barfed twice while making it

Seeing as we are naming and shaming ourselves by posting our ballots:

1. Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time 3D - 3DS - 20pts
2. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars - 3DS - 20pts
3. Super Mario 3D Land - 3DS - 15pts
4. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - PC - 9pts
5. Machinarium - PC - 8pts
6. Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - Wii - 8pts
7. ICO & Shadow of the Colossus Collection HD - PS3 - 5pts
8. Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP - iOS - 5pts
9. Mario Kart 7 - 3DS - 5pts
10. Jetpack Joyride - iOS - 5pts

lol ballot:

portal: 30 pts
skyrim: 30 pts

(i promise to play more games this year)

thx zs & forks, awesome work! loved the gifs.

great job. but see this is why i didn't vote. the only game on that whole list that I've played is battlefield 3, and I wouldn't even rate that highly.

You guys have tempted me into Skyrim though.

oh and Saints Row the third, again wouldn't have rated it.

thanks forks and zs, great job. gifs were outstanding. results pretty abysmal tho. surprised solitaire didn't make the top 5.

I don't remember my ballot anymore but I'm pretty sure I voted Dungeon Raid #1

hoping in 2012 to finally catch up with gaming 2009

^^ should read "console gaming 2009" fwiw

great job forks and ZS.

1) Resident Evil 4 HD (25 pts)
2) Portal 2 (25 pts)
3) Deus Ex: Human Revolution (25 pts)
4) Batman: Arkham City (15 pts)
5) Wonderputt (browser) (5 pts)
6) Dead Space 2 (5 pts)

Biggest disappointment: From Dust

Portal 2 (ps3): 30
Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword (wii): 20
Arkham City (xbox 360): 15
Bastion (pc): 15
Superbrothers Sword & Sorcery (ipad): 10
Aquaria (ipad): 10

Like I said above I would probably have put Minecraft top if I'd played it before the poll ended.

30 points: Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.
16 points: Stacking .
15 points: Tiny Wings
14 points: Glitch.
10 points: Grand Prix Story
10 points: Elephant Quest
5 points: : LA Noire

Arkham City 20
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 20
Marvel vs Capcom 3 20
Portal 2 20
Bejeweled Blitz 10
Glitch 5
Monsters Ate My Condo 5

my Glitch vote would have gone to Ticket To Ride, Dice Soccer or Yaniv had I played any of them before I voted