Community Game of the Year: The First 10 Years - Results!

Alright, Games I've Played I Deem Rankworthy:

2007: Portal (USA, Valve Corporation)
2012: The Walking Dead (USA, Telltale Games)
2009: Dragon Age: Origins (CAN, BioWare/EA)
2011: Portal 2 (USA, Valve Corporation)
2013: BioShock Infinite (USA, Irrational Games/2K Games)
2010: Mass Effect 2 (CAN, BioWare/EA)

Games I Haven't Played (Enough Of):
2014: Dragon Age: Inquisition (CAN, BioWare/EA)
2015: Rocket League (USA, Psyonix)

Good Lord GWJ Has Some Awful Taste:
2008: Fallout 3 (USA, Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
2006: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (USA, Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks)

Haven't played enough Rocket League to feel it as much as others, and the one dose I did have of it was fun, but it's not really my type of game so in the grand scheme of things I cannot really rank it fairly. I'd basically be trying to rank it based off of checklist items of why I see and understand it is a good game, but am not really able to properly compare it here or there.

I'm totally willing to go into the logic of my choices as well, but I'll save you all the text dump for now.

Still bitter about 2013, like others have said (TLoU was robbed! ROBBED I tell ya!). Also sad not to see Red Dead on this list, but I didn't vote that year...

That aside, my ranking:

1) Mass Effect 2

2) Portal

3) Portal 2

4) Fallout 3

5) Dragon Age: Origins

6) The Walking Dead

7) Dragon Age: Inquisition*

8) Bioshock: Infinite

Can not rank/Did not play:
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Rocket League

*Did not finish DA: I, but put over 50 hours in, so feel confident putting it on my list.

I am embarrassed to say that I have only played Rocket League from that list and only one time since it was free on PS+.

*turns in gamer card and slowly walks out the door*

walterqchocobo wrote:

I am embarrassed to say that I have only played Rocket League from that list and only one time since it was free on PS+.

*turns in gamer card and slowly walks out the door*

Don't be ashamed, walter. The only people that should be ashamed are the ones that contributed to Elder Scrolls: Oblivion being forever immortalized as a best anything.

Apparently I like me some Bethesda and BioWare games!

1) Fallout 3 (USA, Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
2) Mass Effect 2 (CAN, BioWare/EA)
3) The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (USA, Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
4) Dragon Age: Inquisition (CAN, BioWare/EA)
5) Dragon Age: Origins (CAN, BioWare/EA)
6) Portal 2 (USA, Valve Corporation)
7) BioShock Infinite (USA, Irrational Games/2K Games)
8) Portal (USA, Valve Corporation)
9) The Walking Dead (USA, Telltale Games)
10) Rocket League (USA, Psyonix)

Like Shop, I've only played three of these. The same three I think. It's almost like we know each other!

With that in mind here's my ranking.

1. Portal 2
2. Portal

Gee that was easy.

I guess I played Binfinite too.

OK, wow. That is a great list of wonderment. My ranking:

1. 2010: Mass Effect 2 (CAN, BioWare/EA)
2. 2009: Dragon Age: Origins (CAN, BioWare/EA)
3. 2007: Portal (USA, Valve Corporation). - honestly you could easily switch 3 and 4, but Portal gets the nod for being the original and having an even tighter story.
4. 2011: Portal 2 (USA, Valve Corporation)
5. 2014: Dragon Age: Inquisition (CAN, BioWare/EA)
6. 2012: The Walking Dead (USA, Telltale Games)
7. 2008: Fallout 3 (USA, Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
8. 2013: BioShock Infinite (USA, Irrational Games/2K Games)
9. 2006: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (USA, Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
10. 2015: Rocket League (USA, Psyonix)

  1. Portal
    The game that launched a thousand brainysphere blogs. Not much I can add to that. (And I wanted to! I wanted to start a brainysphere-ish video games blog. It was going to be called Dialogue Trees. But I joined this forum instead.)
  2. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
    Not a proxy for Skyrim. It's still Elder Scrolls, made some advances, had some missteps, it's got that Thieves Guild questline.
  3. Portal 2
    More and better in many ways, but naturally lacks the focus and impact of the first.
  4. Fallout 3
    A sweeping technical improvement on Oblivion, but I'll always choose Tamriel over the Wasteland.
  5. The Walking Dead
    Not bad, for a zombie game.
  6. Dragon Age: Origins
    I played it, I didn't like it.
ccesarano wrote:

I'm totally willing to go into the logic of my choices as well, but I'll save you all the text dump for now.

Take that dump!

1. Dragon Age: Origins (2009)
2. Mass Effect 2 (2010)
3. Portal (2007)
4. Rocket League (2015)
5. Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014)
6. Portal 2 (2011)
7. The Walking Dead (2012)
8. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006)
9. Fallout 3 (2007)
10. BioShock Infinite (2013)

Basically as long as Origins is on top you're good to go.

1. Rocket League

that's it and that's all

1. Rocket League (best game ever made, period.)
2. Portal 2
3. Dragon Age: Origins
4. Portal
5. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
6. Fallout 3
7. Mass Effect 2
8. Dragon Age: Inquisition
9. Bioshock Infinite (shocked this won. was 2013 that bad or do people just love the original Bioshock so much that they voted for this very average game?)
10. The Walking Dead (this is the only one I didn't play, but I really don't like these types of games and find them boring)

Of the ones I've played (Portal, Portal 2, Oblivion, Bioshock Infinite, and Dragon Age: Inquisition) the only one I really think is great is Portal.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Of the ones I've played (Portal, Portal 2, Oblivion, Bioshock Infinite, and Dragon Age: Inquisition) the only one I really think is great is Portal.

To be fair, other than Portal, all the games you have played were the wrong ones!

Games I am ranking:

1) 2009: Dragon Age: Origins (CAN, BioWare/EA)
2) 2010: Mass Effect 2 (CAN, BioWare/EA)
3) 2014: Dragon Age: Inquisition (CAN, BioWare/EA)
4) 2012: The Walking Dead (USA, Telltale Games)
5) 2007: Portal (USA, Valve Corporation)
6) 2015: Rocket League (USA, Psyonix)
7) 2011: Portal 2 (USA, Valve Corporation)
8) 2013: BioShock Infinite (USA, Irrational Games/2K Games)

Games of which I have no opinion:

2006: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (USA, Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
2008: Fallout 3 (USA, Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks)

Shadout wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

Of the ones I've played (Portal, Portal 2, Oblivion, Bioshock Infinite, and Dragon Age: Inquisition) the only one I really think is great is Portal.

To be fair, other than Portal, all the games you have played were the wrong ones!

But the right ones never won the community vote!

Here's my take.

1. 2007: Portal (USA, Valve Corporation)
2. 2009: Dragon Age: Origins (CAN, BioWare/EA)
3. 2008: Fallout 3 (USA, Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
4. 2015: Rocket League (USA, Psyonix)
5. 2012: The Walking Dead (USA, Telltale Games)
6. 2006: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (USA, Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
7. 2010: Mass Effect 2 (CAN, BioWare/EA)
8. 2011: Portal 2 (USA, Valve Corporation)
9. 2014: Dragon Age: Inquisition (CAN, BioWare/EA)
10. 2013: BioShock Infinite (USA, Irrational Games/2K Games)

I really think Bioshock Infinite is terrible. Absolutely bloated and a bore to play. Okay, that's just how things have crystallized in my mind. I don't understand the love the Bioshock games get. They do some really cool things, but they also do some really not cool things that seem to get overlooked, namely lame power and gun system.

DA:I felt ... off. Like Bioware was falling apart internally and it came through in the game.

Portal was a special game. Portal 2 took the special and crushed it into oblivion. Maybe if GlaDOS wasn't in the second game I would've felt better about it, but it felt like a tired retread to me.

For me, Mass Effect 2's story wasn't as good as the original, even if it played better.

Oblivion is not the greatest Elder Scrolls game, but it's commendable, especially as it paved the way for Fallout 3.

The Walking Dead changed Telltale for the better. Probably changed adventure games for the better too. I like the cinematic quick time story engine stuff more than pixel hunting and combing random objects. More story, less inventory management.

DA:O is too long and was ugly when it launched, but I really enjoyed the ride.

Same for Fallout 3, even if New Vegas was better.

Rocket League is a lot of fun. I like that it won as it was a community-focused game.

2006: BioShock Infinite (USA, Irrational Games/2K Games)
2007: BioShock Infinite (USA, Irrational Games/2K Games)
2008: BioShock Infinite (USA, Irrational Games/2K Games)
2009: BioShock Infinite (USA, Irrational Games/2K Games)
2010: BioShock Infinite (USA, Irrational Games/2K Games)
2011: BioShock Infinite (USA, Irrational Games/2K Games)
2012: BioShock Infinite (USA, Irrational Games/2K Games)
2013: BioShock Infinite (USA, Irrational Games/2K Games)
2014: BioShock Infinite (USA, Irrational Games/2K Games)
2015: BioShock Infinite (USA, Irrational Games/2K Games)

How?

Spoiler:

time travel

To imitate the Action Button Dot Net style of game review: BioShock Infinite is

Spoiler:

the shark jumping over Fonzie.

I've only played Portals 1 and 2 (and finished neither)

garion333 wrote:

The Walking Dead changed Telltale for the better. Probably changed adventure games for the better too. I like the cinematic quick time story engine stuff more than pixel hunting and combing random objects. More story, less inventory management.

It's interesting to me when the later TellTale games being judged in light of point-and-click adventure games, because I really don't see them as being related. I know TellTale got their start in the point-and-click genre, and I've played a few of their early games, but the cinematic quick time games are less like adventure games to me than they are like visual novels. I see more in common between The Walking Dead and Steins;Gate than between it and Monkey Island.

And in that way, TellTale's efforts have always seemed a lot less interesting, as have descendants like Life Is Strange. Compared to visual novels, they're significantly more attractive and slickly produced, but the cost of that production inevitably limits the breadth of possibility available to the story. A lot less can happen than in even a fairly small scale visual novel.

I wouldn't disagree with any of that.

I think there's room in the world for all these types. Visual novels are more focused on story, interactive story/movie things have larger budgets to do full motion cuts cones and the like and point and click.

The intention of my comment linking them was based on where Telltale was and where they are now. When Sam and Max came back and people got excited I tried to really like it but I didn't. The closer Telltale got to where they are now the more I liked their titles.

You're absolutely correct though that I probably shouldn't have said Adventure games, but I think I lack a correct term for what they do now.

Edit: Apparently "graphic adventure" is the proper term.

My point is I like these more than point and click, so I'm glad there's more examples of these type of games than there used to be.

1. DA: Origins
2. Mass Effect 2

Played Fallout 3, I played about 30 hours and still uncompleted but it's not something I recall with great fondness.

Similarly with DA: Inquisition; played the huge starting area, had trouble running around the dragon and felt exhausted before I got very far. May revisit with a better rig.

The rest I haven't played. Portal is something I am curious about since it is held with such high regard yet it does not seem to have the bombastic in your face characteristic which typically tends to prevail in chart topping games.

I feel that Portal is as close to a perfect video game that we have seen. It introduces an interesting mechanic and iterates on it beautifully. It also has a wonderful story with a clear beginning, middle and end. It's probably about 3-5 hours long the first time you play, and I highly recommend it.

I am shocked that Skyrim was not the winner in 2011, but I see Portal 2 took the cake.

garion333 wrote:

When Sam and Max came back and people got excited I tried to really like it but I didn't.

That's not just you. Sam & Max was oddly hyped* but fell pretty flat in general.

Have you tried Wadjet Eye's stuff? They're pixelly, but the in-house games tend to be much more story focused with less emphasis on inventory shenanigans.

*EDIT: Ok, maybe not that oddly hyped. There's probably some resemblance between Sam & Max Season 1 and the hype around Broken Age when it was first announced. Namely, a sizable gap since the last adventure game in that style with an actual marketing budget. Grim Fandango in the case of Sam & Max Season 1, and Back to the Future in the case of Broken Age.

The Good Games I've Played:

1. Mass Effect 2 (2010)
2. Dragon Age: Origins (2009)
3. Portal 2 ( 2011)
4. Fallout 3 (2008)
5. Rocket League ( 2015)

The Lesser Games I've Played:

6. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006)
7. Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014)
8. Bioshock Infinite (2013)

The Unplayed Games (Unranked):

-- Portal (2007)
-- The Walking Dead (2012)

I feel as if I could rank Portal as it is going to be, at worst, a small step down from its sequel. This would place it above Rocket League, at the least. This is mere speculation, mind. The proof is in the playing. It's a similar story for The Walking Dead. I feel confident in saying it would knock Rocket League down another notch, to seventh, at its least. Alas, they're unplayed, and they may even be better than I can imagine.

Rocket League is the odd one out, for me. It's only #5 because I haven't played two of the titles, and the three lesser games were either broken or garbage. Rocket League at least works and can be enjoyable.

I, too, am still disgruntled that Bioshock Infinite stole the glory from The Last of Us in 2013. At least Red Dead Redemption lost out to Mass Effect 2 in 2010.

RnRClown wrote:

I, too, am still disgruntled that Bioshock Infinite stole the glory from The Last of Us in 2013. At least Red Dead Redemption lost out to Mass Effect 2 in 2010.

It was pretty incredible that it managed to get #2 on the GWJ list. This is a very PC-centric audience. See the Bioware/Bethesda/Valve release list above to confirm.

I can't recall any other console exclusive game getting higher than #3 on a GWJ overall list (could be wrong on that point), at least since I've been on the site. Dark Souls and Red Dead are the only ones that come to mind, as Dark Souls' PC port wasn't released until the following year, and they appeared on both PS3 and 360.

TLOU managed to grab the #2 slot as a PS3 exclusive. A single platform console exclusive game breaking the top 5 here is pretty awesome. You can be happy about that, or you can be bitter because it lost to Bioshock Infinite

Edit: Forgot about Red Dead.

Hmmm...

1. Mass Effect 2
2. Portal 2
3. Portal
4. Dragon Age: Inquisition
5. Dragon Age: Origins
6. BioShock Infinite
7. The Walking Dead
8. Fallout 3
9. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
10. Rocket League

1.) Mass Effect 2
2.) Rocket League
3.) honestly, I don't care.

Two thoughts:
I noticed that in most accumulated lists, this GWJ collection of 10 years included, very seldomly do games make it to the top purely because of the gameplay, if there's no story or anything of the sort to latch onto, just being outstanding in terms of pure gameplay either doesn't provoke the same emotional response that a decent story does or is something that is hard to agree on - my guess would be the former. In that way, Rocket League is the exception in this list, which is unfortunate in so far as that I do not care for that game in the slightest, but hey. (Maybe it is the latter after all? )

As far as the Bioshock Infinite conversation is concerned, I actually believe that the whole series was never good to begin with, and I'd be surprised if many people would disagree, were they to go back to the original today. They both (I never played 2) have exactly the same arc - a stunning opening, followed by an utterly mediocre game. Depending on how much you get sucked in by their respective opening, mileage on how much you are bothered by its issues may vary.
Also, if anything, it was XCOM that got robbed in 2013! Or Super Mario 3D World, Stanley Parable, Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, Rayman Legends, DMC, Brothers or Brave New World. Hey, apparently 2013 was a damn good year!

1. Rocket League - The best pure gameplay experience I've ever had by quite a distance & probably top on my all time favourite games list! Pure addiction.

2. Portal 2 - Played this before the original & was blown away by the genius use of the teleportation gun to solve puzzles, navigate levels, the amazing physics, great writing & masterful world building make this a masterpiece.

3. Mass Effect 2 - Completely absorbed would be an understatement, this had its hooks in me hard. Fleshed out & unique characters that had great back stories, dialogue was top tier & the use of abilities in with really good cover based shooting was a joy to play through.

4. Portal - Brilliant but having played the sequel first it has so many more fleshed out ideas, this is still top tier though.

5. BioShock: Infinite - Story was a bit all over the place but Booker & Elizabeth were amazing characters, the sky rails provided really organic moment to moment gameplay & I absolutely loved the setting. The ending was glorious too.

6. Fallout 3 - The setting alone made this journey worthwhile, a great departure from the Elder Scrolls games, VATS worked wonderfully well & even though the wasteland got a bit samey it was a great finding tough areas & taking down powerful enemies.

7. Dragon Age: Inquisition - Really great open areas that had me hooked just clearing them bit by bit, a good cast of characters & a neat system that had you planning missions at the war table to gather resources, further the story etc

8. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - I remember being amazed walking out of the sewers for the first time & being able to go in any direction in the search of caves, castles, little towns, majestic lakes & more. I was enamoured with it but wooden characters, average combat & a weak story kept this from greatness.

9. Dragon Age: Origins - Better story than Inquisition but felt like an undercooked 3D Baldur's Gate, at least mechanically. Still enjoyed a lot of what I played though.

Haven't played The Walking Dead even though it's sitting in my steam library....usual story there

Gravey wrote:

Take that dump!

Your multi-faceted argument is compelling and has convinced me to bore you all with video-gamey opinion slathering.

My list again, for reference:

Spoiler:

Games I've Played I Deem Rankworthy:

2007: Portal (USA, Valve Corporation)
2012: The Walking Dead (USA, Telltale Games)
2009: Dragon Age: Origins (CAN, BioWare/EA)
2011: Portal 2 (USA, Valve Corporation)
2013: BioShock Infinite (USA, Irrational Games/2K Games)
2010: Mass Effect 2 (CAN, BioWare/EA)

Games I Haven't Played (Enough Of):
2014: Dragon Age: Inquisition (CAN, BioWare/EA)
2015: Rocket League (USA, Psyonix)

Good Lord GWJ Has Some Awful Taste:
2008: Fallout 3 (USA, Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
2006: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (USA, Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks)

For me, the only game I definitively would have picked to be on this list at all is Portal. It was different when we needed it to be different, and compared to the experimental Mirror's Edge, a flawed experience that didn't convince anyone to do anything differently, a perfectly executed package like Portal was a great item to have in the gaming zeitgeist. Yes, it got tiring hearing jokes about cakes being lies and it still happening oh my God people stahp, but it allowed its audience to rethink the first-person shooter genre, to rethink games writing and villains, and just when the test chambers are becoming a bit overdone, the game drops in a twist that forces you to rethink the game itself. Granted, every puzzle could just be reskinned into another test chamber, but the game and story is given new "Oh sh*t, I gotta keep playing!" life by dropping you outside of the chambers and into a scenario where you get to really imagine the possibilities of the Portal gun. In addition, have we ever had a villain like GLaDOS since Portal? Not really, and a lot of that has to do with what MomGamer wrote in She's Always a Woman.

Of course, that brings me to Portal 2, because as funny as sticking GLaDOS in a potato was, there's always a danger of excess, and we got an excess of GLaDOS' history. Did we need an origin to GLaDOS? Not really, and by doing so you started to realize there's a wizard behind the curtain. Why did I score Portal 2 so low? Because it was a good sequel, but it was a typical sequel. We got more Test Chambers. More tools with which to solve obvious puzzle rooms. More GLaDOS. More Aperture Science. More more more, but they forgot to do something important. They forgot to thematically expand on the original. I knew Portal 2 would start back in Aperture Science, but old Aperture didn't have that same sudden shift that the second half of Portal had. Everything was still a test chamber. It was obviously test chambers. And while Valve managed to keep those gimmicks going a really long time without getting boring, and while having Wheatley's puzzles be absolutely terrible was a great end-game pace changer, it was still just test chambers. So maybe part of this is my expectations, but really, the only time I felt like Portal 2 reached outside the box was the very final Portal you had to launch to win the game. Otherwise, it was a typical sequel, just really really well focus-tested and refined.

As for the rest? Well... see, they all have some serious flaws in the long run. In fact, looking at that list, I'm wondering if I should have knocked Dragon Age: Origins higher because I haven't liked a single damn Bioware game as much. It was interesting hearing the Conference Call crew talk about their Shepard in Mass Effect when Shepard never felt like my character. In some ways this isn't so bad. Lee was never my character either, but at least The Walking Dead was saying something about parenting, and all of its dialogue choices and characters reinforced that theme. Yes, the gameplay aspect of Walking Dead (and I'm specifically talking season one here, haven't played the rest) was terrible, particularly when it wanted to be an "adventure game". But that narrative is surprisingly strong, and the ending so perfect for its theme that I don't want to play the following episodes because knowing and partaking in Clementine's fate ruins it.

Shepard is not a character. Shepard is not interesting. This is obvious when you play BroShep, but I can understand everyone being fooled with FemShep because Jennifer Hale is a treasure. But the Grey Warden? That's the thing. The Grey Warden could have as many as five different dialogue options for half the questions, and while the answers always funneled back to a linear chain, it allowed me to define my Grey Warden. My low-born Dwarf was as Good and Good can get, but my female City Elf? Oh, she had an attitude on her, cut throat after living in such an environment, but with a sense of greater good. Just... not a sense that left everyone alive. But when she chose to let Loghain live and love of her life Alistair refused to stick around? Oh... oh, God damn...

And nothing in Mass Effect ever approaches that. Dragon Age: Origins was a fantastic Western RPG. But, it, too, did nothing with the games medium, so Walking Dead goes on top. Dragon Age was just a really good update of a genre, and even then, everything in the Dream Roads can go to Hell. As I wrote before, The Mage's Tower is to Dragon Age what The Library is to Halo. Unfortunately, while they're not as bad, The Deep Roads come pretty damn close as well. So Dragon Age gets two slogs against it, but it does say something that I remember so much else so strongly.

Which finally leaves me in my top selections with Bioshock Infinite and Mass Effect 2. Now, here's the thing. I like both of these games. But like a Zack Snyder movie, Bioshock Infinite is a fascinating mess because it tries something and fails a lot of the time. Not all of the time! I really wish to go back and replay this game because I feel like there's so much Levine was trying to do and all that excess is partially at fault. Trying to make sure the game was mainstream friendly was also its downfall. But, I actually want to replay Bioshock Infinite for all that it wanted to and tried to do.

Mass Effect 2? Yeah, I'm good. If I go back and replay it, it's just going to be so I can see how Bioware could have done their whole "organics and machines cannot coexist" bullsh*t better. Clearly not planned from the get go, but with better writing and careful planning it could have been. But Mass Effect 2's story was dumb. The Illusive Man was dumb. Shepard was a big fat dumby dumb. A lot of the characters were great. But it's kind of sh*tty to say Mass Effect 2's saving grace was the optional content. I'm not giving Arkham Knight that benefit of the doubt, and neither does Mass Effect 2 get it.

But, it's better than the "There's Stuff To Do I Guess Simulator" series that Bethesda is rolling out. I guess they just publicly call them "Elder Scrolls" and "Fallout", though? Oh, wait, I forgot, user mods. Let's award a company for content they don't make. I'm sure there's a mod that improves enemy A.I. and brings it up to at least Quake II levels, I'm sure.

So there ya go. I have relieved myself upon your thread at your request, Gravey. Now look at what you have wrought and weep.