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

i had to double-post that to correct the ranking on the gif, but hopefully a mod will fix it soon.
d'oh-dy-d'oh d'oh

3. Salsa Shark’s Biggest Disappointment:
999: 9 hours 9 people 9 doors (DS)
I have few good things to say about this game despite the rather confusing near-universal hype it's received. Here are the few good things:
- The visuals, while limited, did help set the atmosphere, along with some of the soundtrack choices.
- The puzzles were done well and their difficulty was nearly spot-on. This was the most enjoyable aspect of the game.
- The dialogue between the characters during the puzzle scenes was relatively interesting.

Most of my dislike for 999 stemmed from how useless and poorly-written most of the 'story' sections were. The writing is awful. The blocks and blocks of text, written (or translated?) in a dull, amateurish way, often repeat what other characters have said or done and are overly, unnecessarily descriptive. These sections take up a huge chunk of 'play' time without adding anything at all to the progression of the story. It's a shame because the concept behind the game is actually intriguing, but the only time you can start piecing together how the story might unfold is through character dialogue, especially during the puzzle scenes. It boggles my mind as to why the useless 'story' sections weren't heavily edited down in favour of a more dialogue-led approach. And for what it's worth, the character dialogue is slightly better written than the blocks of story, though there are a couple of characters who are a bit too unbelievable and the swearing is a bit too awkward and OTT. Which brings me to my next qualm: your character is a bit of a dick and his 'love interest' is uninteresting, which makes it difficult to really care about what happens to either of them. And then, to make matters worse, there are six (!) possible endings to 999; getting the 'true' ending requires two separate playthroughs through two specific paths which are nearly impossible to discover without a walkthrough. My first and second playthroughs both had dud endings; the thought of having to sit through the game two more times was just too much for me. The happy ending for me is that I sold the game on eBay and nearly broke even.

i've been drinking all afternoon and it's beginning to show, sorry. the 3. by Salsa Shark means nothing, i was just numbering them to see how many total disappoints we had so i could evenly disperse them throughout the top 20 (yes, i typed them out using a keyboard rather than just scanning the screen and counting in my head, i don't know wtf is wrong with me sometimes) (and yes, i realized that i didn't end up evenly dispersing them throughout the top 20 because i just totally forgot for the last 7 results or so, whoops), and Salsa Shark happened to be the third one down.

$50 to anyone who can read that paragraph without barfing

The best ending of 999 is very satisfying and you should look it up on youtube if you didn't get it. There are enough hints to its path that it's not so bad. The first ending you're required to get is more obscure, but if you do the "best" path first the game flashes the door numbers of its path on the screen.

Yay BULLETSTORM!

Oh geez guys sorry for that blurb, I didn't realise how long it actually was :S

I think the endings I got were sub, knife, and axe. Then I gave up, sold the game, and watched the real ending on YT and yeah it was alright, but I'm def glad I didn't bother playing through again (twice!) for it.

I was kind of hoping that BULLETSTORM would actually crack the top ten, but having it in the top 20 is pretty awesome. Sl0ck1 were you the other goty voter?

Btw thanks to my months of being obnoxious, my iPhone now autocorrects BULLETSTORM to all caps, so I am not actually trying to be this consistently irritating. But I am lazy. Also, BULLETSTORM!

If I'd participated I'd have top voted Mario 3D Land. "a 3D Mario which actually emphasizes running and jumping as opposed to 3D itself" is perfectly true and why it's ultimately the greatest 3D Mario even if individual levels won't reach the heights of some delirious Galaxy moments. I think it's one of the best Mario games, period, because it retains those huge architectural masterpiece levels of Galaxy while being about platforming at all times. The first 8 worlds, Mario as a toy, are about the fun of platforming, while the latter 8 are about the devilish challenge of platforming and honing your skills.

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#10: Dark Souls – 360 / PS3 – 74 pts – 4 votes - 1 top game vote
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DARK SOULS: if you need me i'll be in an induced coma so octover comes tomorrow

Roberto Spiralli: you will notice that, in blatant contravention of the guidelines, i gave dark souls 40 points. given that i have decided it is my favourite game of all time, as explained at length on the dark souls thread, i could not in good conscience give it anything less than slightly more than the maximum. IF YOU CHOOSE TO NOT ALLOW THIS EXTRAORDINARY STRATAGEM then lower the score to 30 and i will gladly forfeit the 10 remaining points from my total score. i will be able to sleep at night knowing i did the right thing. will you? (Z S: the score was lowered to 30. forks and i sleep soundly knowing that you were glad to forfeit the 10 remaining points from your total score. all hail the noble voting rules)

tomofthenest: with shame, I loved this until it kicked my ass one too many times and I realised I just couldn't be bothered fighting 10 minutes through the same foes before dying within 5 seconds of the boss fight yet a fucking gain. I'm happy with dying lots, but please just let me save before the boss for crying out loud. Thankful I only rented tbh.

polyphonic: The combat in this game is so satisfying. When you kill some undead bastard you really feel like you earned it.

bamcquern Biggest Disappointment
Hammerfight (PC)
Finishing was like eating a whole can of Planter's cheese balls. The commercial indies were so forgettable this year. The only game I fell in love with was a shitty little dodge-'em game.

Huh, I was totally expecting this higher. I haven't played it yet, it doesn't seem my kind of thing, but people were really going nuts for it.

I didn't play it till after I voted, but I would have threw some points its way.

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#9: Minecraft – PC / Mac – 83 pts – 7 votes - 1 top game vote
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tomofthenest: spent far too long on minecraft. better not talk about it as i'm in remission. put off a bit by the crazies on line with their globe planets and 16-bit CPUs.

Will M: Fuck Skyrim. This is my kind of open world.

Diamond Dave: haven't played this one for ages but it probably stole a good 100+ hours from my life this year

note that 3 of the votes, including the top game vote, and 33 of the points come from the 2010 poll. the other 4 votes and 50 points come from this year's poll. in the results spreadsheet, the two are intentionally added together, so i'm just posted them in the order that forks had.

woah, w/ dark souls out of the way this a total toss-up as to what'll get #1. arkham city? is slowly stutting around as catwoman as enjoyable to me as it is you guys? goty for that reason alone? can i get a holla?

It's between that and skyrim. I'm guessing skyrim edges out arkham.

I would have voted for Minecraft (maybe even as top game) but I didn't start playing it until after the poll.

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#8: Binding of Isaac – Mac / PC – 84 pts – 6 votes - 1 top game vote - Top Exclusive PC / Mac Game
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fennel cartwright: Binding of Isaac is polished and fun. It's not quite as mentally stimulating as Terraria, but it creates an absurdly compelling metagame out of figuring out all the items, powerups, and mechanics.

Diamond Dave: 13 hours of playtime before i finally finished my first playthrough

Nhex: A badly programmed roguelike oozing with personality, taking good bits from Zelda and Shiren the Wanderer, the brief time I had with this was memorable.

should i get that game

There's an in-browser demo.

jamescobo’s Biggest Disappointment
Sword & Sorcery (iOS)
Looks cool as shit but I have yet to have two consecutive seconds of fun with it.

otm :(

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#7: Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword – Wii – 90 pts – 6 votes - 1 top game votes
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Ian F: Coming out as it did in December, I haven't finished this yet, although I've already spent longer on it than almost anything else on this list (28.5 hours so far). So it could move a place either way. I can already say with some certainty that it's a fine reinvigoration after the epic but stale Twilight Princess, that it only takes a very short period of adjustment from HD graphics to realise that it is really, really gorgeous, and that it has the best alternate world mechanic of any Zelda yet. Piloting a ship across a desert ocean was such a massive WOW moment. Also, the directional sword fighting mechanic makes fighting so much more fun than it was in previous games, and if you tried to do it with buttons alone would be a fiddly pain in the arse, so yes, it does make a fine belated case for motion controls. Also, I love the game's commitment to having you do something fun at all possible times, cutting things up into tiny bite sized pieces without dumbing down excessively, and am happy to lose a few side quests and a joined-up map to get it.

Remy Bean: I’m not even done with this. I just love everything about it; the difficulty curve, the puzzles, the wiimote interactivity, the collecting, the fetch quests, the mini games, the art style, the absolutely amazing level design. Perhaps the Wii is on its way out, and this is the grand finale –– and I hope it shows up as a launch title for whatever comes next. I haven’t had this much fun with an adventure game in years. My Serious Gamer friends tease me – because I significantly prefer cartoony games over realistic ones, whimsy before intensity –– and this game was pitched perfectly to my tastes. This feels like a spiritual successor to Link To the Past; a game that is light-hearted and frustrating and weird in equal measure

Salsa Shark: This one's been a bit of a slow burner. I like the way it makes pretty good use of the Wii's limited graphics capabilities and I love the weirdness of the desert area with the robots, but so far the game has failed to really grab me in the way I expected it would after reading all its gushing reviews. Based on previous Zelda games I just have that much faith that it'll pull through and impress me in the end. Whether or not the way the game unfolds can make up for the terrible control system has yet to be determined. This game is proof that just because you can map controls to a Wiimote doesn't mean you should.

CraigG: It falls short of my expectations that this might finally be the 3D Zelda game to match Ocarina of Time, they finally brought the mechanics into this century. Being able to run and climb and actually make your way around the environment without inexplicably being unable to get up a waist-high wall, etc, was long-needed. I've not completed it, but put in a fair amount of time so far. I haven't hit any of the bugs or annoying return-to-an-old-temple bits that seem to have infuriated others yet either, but so far it's good. I hadn't expected another Zelda to come on the Wii, so for it to be of this high quality was a bonus. I got the sweet gold Wii Remote Plus too, as I'm a soft target!

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#6: Deus Ex: Human Revolution – 360 / PS3 / PC – 100 pts – 7 votes - 0.33 top game votes
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oppet: The sequel to my favourite game ever, so had a lot to live up to. Which it mainly did, although I wouldn't have minded if they'd improved on the terrible voice acting and dubious racial stereotypes.

Jordan: Its flaws are wide-open to criticism, but it was still one of my most memorable gaming experiences of the year. It may not be the ultimate in open-world decision-making, but I always had the sense that the game was letting me figure things out at my own pace (which seems all too rare these days).

Diamond Dave: who knew i'd enjoy hiding behind a box and waiting so much?

abanana’s Biggest Disappointment
Limbo (PS3)
The video game equivalent of a movie that uses noir lighting just because it's cheap, this used silhouettes because art is expensive. The physics-based (why?) block-pushing puzzles (again?) did not help.

that's it for today. Top 5 will be either tomorrow or tuesday. probably tomorrow.

shit, I didn't use the correct system on the gif for deus ex!

awwww fuck it.

huh. were there much fewer blurbs this year than usual?

oppet: The sequel to my favourite game ever, so had a lot to live up to.

So just checking, is this some "Star Trek V never happened" happening here?

I don't know why HR wasn't working with me. I've played Deus Ex 2x and consider it to be a fucking triumph for the medium. HR I went into with an immediate distaste for the overindulgent color-pallete as well as absolutely hating the fact that conversations always played out in some sort of separate game engine. And then the actual gameplay: Am I alone in thinking it was uncommonly hard? Seems like all the NPC's are unbelievably hyper-aware of whether I'm peaking out of the corners of things, and the fact that you were some superengineered megacyborg and yet required a candy bar each and every time you knocked someone out a bizarre game facet.

NPC's kill you seconds on sight and the hacking minigame assumed too much that the player was a william gibson fan and found natural joy making icons light up. it was just as bad as that tiring pipe-hacking minigame from bioshock. (funny enough, the only hacking minigame I've continually enjoyed is ME2's generic match-up: mostly b/c I feel like I've *earned* the right to hack into this and wasn't left to the devices of some randomized bs)

I'm a huge Splinter Cell/MGS fan and find both games far easier in terms of stealth... i eventually returned HR w/out having finished it b/c i was so frustrated with the idea that a bunch of generic 80s-mohawk streetpunks of the future were actively keeping their eyes centered on the corners of boxes so they could shoot whatever it is without first processing whether it was a threat or not. could've been mom, ffs, here to bring you your lunch.

best hacking game is still the droid takeover thing in Paradroid.

Based on previous Zelda games I just have that much faith that it'll pull through and impress me in the end. Whether or not the way the game unfolds can make up for the terrible control system has yet to be determined. This game is proof that just because you can map controls to a Wiimote doesn't mean you should.

Also, having to battle 'the Imprisoned' not once not twice but THRICE!! was DUMB. Battles 2 and 3 are WAY too close together and it's a pretty ridiculous and unbelievable boss to begin with >:(

BUT I've really liked the designs and gameplay of the various desert/mountain/forest areas, the dungeons (esp the desert ship) and the dungeon bosses (esp the sword robot). I also like the silly side quests <3 <3 side quests

Stoked.

Battles 2 and 3 are WAY too close together

otm. this pissed me off enough that i haven't really played the game since /:

i stalled during the tadtones bit, but i loved everything until that part. is it worth it to power through to the next part?

The last dungeon was easily my favourite in the game. Don't remember anything particularly annoying between tadtones and there.

later zeldas seem v keen on the repetition; i've seen at least one review arguing that the dungeon-repetition in the first ds title was A Good Thing, which strikes me as awfully strange

remy if you loved it all up until the tadtones then yeah, do it. the other song gathering bits are good.

this pissed me off enough that i haven't really played the game since /:

― diamonddave85, Monday, April 16, 2012 8:17 PM (2 hours ago)

later zeldas seem v keen on the repetition; i've seen at least one review arguing that the dungeon-repetition in the first ds title was A Good Thing, which strikes me as awfully strange

― thomp, Monday, 16 April 2012 19:38 (2 hours ago) Permalink

I never finished Phantom Hourglass for that reason. The Ocean King levels were fucking infuriating, and that you were being timed in the midst of all of them unbelievable. Plus, there came a point where it offers you a save-point/teleportation-device - but considering you gained that during your first haphahazard run-through of the temple's levels, you only have about a minute left on the clock. As such, it necessitates that you do the entire stage over again to gain a couple extra minutes - long story short, miyamoto had no qualms with fucking with you.

otherwise, i loved that game and the ship sailing bits were almost heavenly

There's always been a (welcome?) element of repetition in the Zeldas though - one of their defining characteristics for me was the notes I was taking re "must remember to come back to this spot when I have arrow / bombs / hookshot"

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#5: Glitch – in browser – 104 pts – 7 votes - 2.25 top game votes- top in browser exclusive game
play it here
glitch: a wacky new mmorpg played in browser
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tomofthenest: totally addictive land of doing nothing at all except holding left or right. I'm not sure how it even functions at entertainment but yeah I'll give it some points anyway..

DJP: This game was super fun until it went live, at which point all of the whimsy and goofiness just seemed... pointless.

Remy Bean: I wanted to love Glitch. I was an alpha tester. A beta tester. I participated on the forums, offered a number of suggestions to the game, a half-dozen of which were actually, deeply, incorporated. I played and played. Different play styles. Filled out dutiful bug reports. But I was chastised by a reactive staff-member for interacting in the global chat, trying to deflect the damage done by a racist troll. The damned thing is, I really made a difference, defused a potentially injurious situation, and then got slapped for it, because they didn’t want to go after the actual troll. Then, I got in trouble for making fun of the Amish. No joke; I got called out for suggesting farcical gameplay adaptions for the Amish. Some dude (boyfriend of a dev, IIRC), called it ‘religious intolerance’ and all of a sudden the game, and community, turned on a dime. It became cuddly-mountain, San-Fran based moral one-upmanship, inclusivity-as-a-competitive-sport. Apart from a shift in the general feeling of the tester’ community, I felt like the gameplay direction itself changed. What had once been a fairly open discussion with regard to the goal and purpose of the game (and a lot of its draw) suddenly became about a discussion imposing limitations and proper play pragmatics, limiting the game to a number of Actual Functions. I have no idea whether the game is closer to what Tiny Speck wants/wanted it to be, but it is a lot farther from what I enjoyed. It was fun having an influence, an impact, a clue about the direction of the game – to feel like the meta-gaming aspects were encouraged and acknowledged, that I didn’t have to play “right” or “wrong” but rather that the world was a sandbox (unconstrained) –– and not a “sandbox” (with hard limits and proper, highly codified and politicized ethical/moral dimensions). Based on the early beta work, this would have been my game of the year. Based on its current incarnation, it’ll sulk at the bottom of the list. And I won’t be going back to playing it in any meaningful way, unless something big changes in the overall design.

Nhex: I didn't predict that the first MMO I would really play in near ten years would be some kind of cutesy casual collection junk done in Flash featuring giant headed unisex monster children, but there you have it. Like others here I funded the game during beta because of the promise it showed. Though it was one of the best games I played this year (in a great year) and I still love the writing and humor, after a long enough time, it falls prey to the same problems all over MMOs have - basically, what to do when you've exhausted the game's activity list, or when what's left devolves to endless chores. Still, before the reaching that point, it's a joy to see what the developers have cooked up. And as a living game, they still have time to add new stuff all the time, and I've got a year left on this sub anyway...

planning on finishing out tonight, so hope that's cool!

In retrospect it's hard to believe I spent so much time mining rocks in caves.

Luckily Skyrim came along and offered a more graphically impressive mining experience.

xp yes so cool

so many MMOs, and other kinds of games, have somehow stumbled onto this truth: human being subconsciously crave mining rocks in caves

but only if you can do it at a rate of about 1 cubic meter per second.

agent hibachi’s Biggest Disappointment
Battlefield 3
hey, the holidays are over, time to finally boot this up, i have a couple of hours to kill. (installing) one hours later: please insert disc 2 for hd content. sure, the graphics looked great in the promo stuff. (installing) two hours later: yes! title screen. no! title update. (installing) one hour later: yes! title..jesus fuck. 1.5 gig "multiplayer" update that it says i should install anyway because of single-player bugs. (three weeks later) finally! a few hours to try this. it's fully patched. it's gonna be awesome. (zips through first few levels) oops, that rooftop sniper just got me three times in a row. i dislike this loading screen already, it's costing me at least thirty seconds of my actual life every time i die in the game. oops, got me a fourth time. oops, HARD CRASH, xbox completely locked up. fuck this. modern warfare, you win.

You have to patch shit on your Xbox?? what's the point of an xbox then

is Radiant Historia that good? kinda tempted to import before prices go crazy again.

lamp's comments on RH are accurate:

with radiant historia i think of that old vaudeville joke that the simpsons ripped off where homer tries to by the monkeys paw: it has an innovative and reasonably challenging battle system! thats good! but it still requires some tedious grinding! thats bad! it tries to tell an ambitious, complicated story about the cost of war! thats good! it does so with dialogue shorn of any nuance or ambiguity! thats bad! &c &c &c.

I still liked it a ton.

(i promise to play more games this year)

this might be a lie btw