2010 GWJ Community Game of the Year Results

Some years, the battle for the community's game of the year is hotly contested. This year, there was no contest or competition. The winner was clear before the first dozen members had voted and only backed up what everyone had been saying all year long.

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1.) Mass Effect 2

With more than double the votes of the second place entry, Mass Effect 2 was a shoe-in GWJ's 2010 Community Game of the Year. So many people loved this game that it was more remarkable when someone didn't include it in his top ten. What more needs to be said?

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2.) Red Dead Redemption

In an effort to make Rob Zacny cry, or perhaps just to ingratiate themselves with Certis, voters gave a nod to Rockstar's Grand Theft Horse saga. By all accounts, the zombies just helped things along.

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3.) Tie: Super Mario Galaxy 2 and StarCraft II

In some way, these two titles are opposites: one is a family-friendly largely single-player Wii game, the other a PC exclusive defined by its cut-throat multiplayer. However, each is the pinnacle of its respective genre and provided magnificent variations on the gameplay we've come to expect from their franchises. Each also successfully found ways to challenge new and veteran players alike.

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5.) Civilization V

That the sequel to Civilization IV is in this list should be no surprise, but the community grumblings about this game were largely negative. This game made regular appearances on people's lists of disappointments, but there was enough love against the grain to put this in the top five.

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6.) Minecraft

To hear the folks in the IRC channel talk about it, Minecraft isn't a game but a digital drug habit. It's likely that more man hours were poured into this officially unreleased, little-indie-that-could than anything not named World of WarCraft or Team Fortress 2.

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7.) Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

In hot competition with Batman for the character who makes you feel like a bad-ass, Ezio returned with friends for a game that seems to have caught everyone by surprise. Neither Assassin's Creed 3 nor Assassin's Creed Arena, Brotherhood somehow has an interesting multiplayer mode and a robust single-player mode.

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8.) Battlefield Bad Company 2

No year would be complete without a multiplayer military shooter or seven, but Bad Company 2 stood out head and shoulders above the competition in our little community. By comparison, Call of Duty: Black Ops landed in just one person's top ten (near the bottom) and Medal of Honor was completely MIA. Must have been the happy face on the grenades.

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9.) Heavy Rain

Twiddle the left thumbstick to scroll down to the number nine position on our list. Admire the handsome banner by pressing the triangle button. Quickly, select your reaction from the following options: shock, delight, confusion. Now, press the square button to have the whole story spoiled for you.

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10.) Bayonetta

Both dismissed and lauded for her hyper-sexual antics, our very own Venus in Furs mocked and titillated her way into the top ten. Bayonetta, alongside Vanquish and Infinite Space, put Platinum Games on the map as developers to watch.

The Next 10:
11.) Bioshock 2
12.) Rock Band 3
13.) Just Cause 2
14.) Dragon Quest IX: Sentinel of the Starry Skies
15.) Halo Reach
16.) World of WarCraft: Cataclysm
17.) Alpha Protocol
18.) Darksiders
19.) Kirby's Epic Yarn
20.) Fallout New Vegas

(The voting thread can be found here.)

Yay! I won!!! Oh, wait, wrong contest .... Yay! We all won!!!

Good job with the banner images.

Wow, you put a lot of work in to this. Nice job. Two Christmas thumbs-up!
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Couldn't push NCAA into the top 20. I tried.

That is some creepy art for Mass Effect 2.

Wow, Very well put together!

I likey.

Very well done! I would have voted, but I don't tend to play games the year they come out

Great to see Bayonetta in the Top 10.

A few other statistics of note:

The highest ranked iOS game is Angry Birds at #24.

Four games tied for the dubious honor of lowest ranked (i.e., a single tenth place vote): Splinter Cell Conviction, Sin & Punishment: Star Successor, Picross 3D, and Mega Man X Collection.

DSGamer wrote:

Couldn't push NCAA into the top 20. I tried.

#28.

garion333 wrote:

Good job with the banner images, Adam.

They're all shamelessly stolen via Google Image Search. I've gone back and made them links to their sources.

Aaron D. wrote:

Great to see Bayonetta in the Top 10.

And great to see Cataclysm not in the top 10.

CptGlanton wrote:

That is some creepy art for Mass Effect 2.

A shame it's art from ME1.

/geek

Nicely done. I can't say I'm surprised or disappointed with that list, though I'm surprised Galaxy 2 ended up as high as #3 with the amount of discussion that surrounded it, at least compared to most other games in that top 10.

Blind_Evil wrote:
Scratched wrote:
CptGlanton wrote:

That is some creepy art for Mass Effect 2.

A shame it's art from ME1.

/geek

I believe the AC: Brotherhood picture is from AC2. No stubble.

It's actually AC1. Geek points for me!

Jeff-66 wrote:
Aaron D. wrote:

Great to see Bayonetta in the Top 10.

And great to see Cataclysm not in the top 10.

They're all too busy slaving, er, playing to vote.

Scratched wrote:
CptGlanton wrote:

That is some creepy art for Mass Effect 2.

A shame it's art from ME1.

/geek

I believe the AC: Brotherhood picture is from AC2. No stubble.

Damnit, SpacePPoliceman!

Awesome. Thanks for compiling this!

Mad props ClockworkHouse!

Mass Effect 2 wins! Reave skill for everyone!

Hm. I can't remember a year where my list has diverged so much from the communities'. I still remember the great L4D vs Fallout 3 battle of 2008...what a year. Still, my list pretty much reads like this one in reverse order, so it's not so bad. Dissapointed that Heavy Rain didn't make it higher, but given how few platform exclusives made the list, I shouldn't be surprised.
Another strong year for the PC! Go GWJ voting community!

I've tallied points for a "10 points for #1, 9 for points for #2, etc." type thing like this before (for another forum), and it's a pain in the ASS, but I also think it's the best way to get a sense of the overall community on things like this, so thanks for putting in the time, Clockwork.

Crap, I was just looking at the other thread thinking up my votes. Super Mario Galaxy would have been my top vote, w/ SC2 down around 3-5 maybe. Guess my one vote would have counted for something!

mrtomaytohead wrote:

Crap, I was just looking at the other thread thinking up my votes. Super Mario Galaxy would have been my top vote, w/ SC2 down around 3-5 maybe. Guess my one vote would have counted for something!

Didn't you learn anything? Now Robot Nixon is going to take over the planet!!!

Damn, I procrastinated too much. I'll make some time now to make a top 10.

Thanks for the effort, everyone involved!

I should have thrown in a vote for Star Trek Online. Oh well.

Thanks for putting this together. It is always interesting to see a collective perspective on what was good in a given year.

I think that it is notable that of the 10 games in the collective top ten that have been officially released*, a whopping eight were released before the mid-August release of Madden that historically has signaled the beginning of the "primetime" fall/holiday video game release season. So is this really a sign that publishers are seeing the wisdom of releasing year round, simply an anomaly caused by the incredibly large number of Fall 2010 games delayed into the first half of this year, or a voting phenomenon caused by the fact that we voted right at end of the year when many of us haven't yet had a chance to try all the October & November releases?

*Minecraft excluded

Nice work. Knew ME2 would come out on top (as it deserves).

Big-time thanks to ClockworkHouse for putting this all together.

Jasonofindy wrote:

Thanks for putting this together. It is always interesting to see a collective perspective on what was good in a given year.

I think that it is notable that of the 10 games in the collective top ten that have been officially released*, a whopping eight were released before the mid-August release of Madden that historically has signaled the beginning of the "primetime" fall/holiday video game release season. So is this really a sign that publishers are seeing the wisdom of releasing year round, simply an anomaly caused by the incredibly large number of Fall 2010 games delayed into the first half of this year, or a voting phenomenon caused by the fact that we voted right at end of the year when many of us haven't yet had a chance to try all the October & November releases?

*Minecraft excluded

I think it might also have something to do with the fact that two of the big anticipated releases this fall (Fable 3 and Fallout: New Vegas) were seen by many as disappointments.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Good job with the banner images, Adam.

They're all shamelessly stolen via Google Image Search. I've gone back and made them links to their sources.

You didn't have to do that, I just meant good job on finding them.

Jeff-66 wrote:

And great to see Cataclysm not in the top 10.

This.

Also interesting that CODBLOPS isn't even in the top 20. [size=1]f*ck Bobby Kotick[/size]

If the original post wasn't so well done I'd be more upset that me2 is the #1 pick. I feel like I played a different game than everyone else...

trueheart78 wrote:

If the original post wasn't so well done I'd be more upset that me2 is the #1 pick. I feel like I played a different game than everyone else...

Nah, there's a few of us around.

trueheart78 wrote:

If the original post wasn't so well done I'd be more upset that me2 is the #1 pick. I feel like I played a different game than everyone else...

I felt the same way at the time, but now that I'm going back and playing again in order to experience the DLC in a more natural fashion I'm much more positive on the game.

I think my insane love for Dragon Age and its proximity to ME2's release somewhat tinted my impressions of the latter.