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NeoGAF Games of the Year 2012 Awards

Neiteio

Member
WOO WOO

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RandyMarshJizz.jpg
 

Kritz

Banned
The affinity data is so great!
These people are all good people in my book. Drinks are on me.

Sony best publisher and Gravity Rush #2 on the Sony list....
Luv you GAF hivemind!
My men.

The affinity list is so neat. We like the same games?! Whoawesome!

1. Steve McQueen (113)
2. ibu (100)
3. GillianSeed79 (99)
4. dogmanstaruk (94)
5. I NEED SCISSORS (92)
6. Sulla1980 (86)
7. rouken (85)
8. Deadly Cyclone (84)
9. Kritz (82)
9. WickedLaharl (82)

Having just joined GAF, I only know one of these people, and barely, at that. Every affinity seems pretty high, though.

How does this work? Just the higher the better?


Y'all some welcome motherfuckers. Unless you didn't put Journey as number one. Then I'm thinking y'all just ordinary motherfuckers. But GAF chose the right game.

It's a shame I didn't play VLR last year as I get the feeling it'd be in my top 10 now.
 

Riposte

Member
No, I haven't tried Yakuza. Don't tell me you can eat food in that game, too. I don't know if I can find time to squeeze yet another series into my gaming habit! :O

Hmm, I'm thinking if you were to go and play Yakuza 3 or 4, you'll be gushing about it afterwards.
 
My numbers seem higher than everyone else's, I must have a bland ass list or commenting on every single game I finished this year in the mentions section counted.

MegaKungFuRadio
1. Sulla1980 (136)
2. Dmax3901 (133)
3. Shorty11857 (121)
4. PinkCrayon (120)
5. therealminime (115)
6. Interfectum (111)
6. JBuccCP (111)
6. Maccas (111)
9. Guerrillas in the Mist (109)
9. kitzkozan (109)
 

WhyMe6

Member
No, I haven't tried Yakuza. Don't tell me you can eat food in that game, too. I don't know if I can find time to squeeze yet another series into my gaming habit! :O

The food/alcohol porn and trivia in Yakuza 3, 4 and 5 is just wonderful. Yakuza 3 got me into bitter melon, and that sidequest got me drinking the bitter melon shakes.
 

Nert

Member
I think he's referring to people making the same joke over and over again, not the games themselves.

Right. People are more justified in making the Wah wah remarks because Nintendo just keeps on doing it (including putting two games with it last year) and the poor soundtracks are dragging the games down, whereas Portal 2 completely dropped the cake shtick and the people clinging to it are just weird.
 
Awesome work as always, timetokill+Cheesemeister. A solid top ten.


My affinity list. Bros for life.
I don't know who any of you are

1. Phoenixazure (96)
2. FStop7 (95)
3. MikeE21286 (94)
4. I speel my dreenk (92)
5. HiddenSentry (91)
6. Sallokin (84)
7. Jay-B (83)
7. kidko (83)
7. SaitoH (83)
10. Duke Togo (82)
 

braves01

Banned
My homies. Affinity data is neat.
1. anon_mastermind (110)
2. SaintMadeOfPlaster (100)
3. LoftyTheMetroid (96)
4. Snowden's Secret (95)
5. Darryl (93)
6. stalker (91)
7. Andrew J. (88)
8. TheWesker (81)
9. LOCK (78)
10. SpokkX (77)
 
Right. People are more justified in making the Wah wah remarks because Nintendo just keeps on doing it (including putting two games with it last year) and the poor soundtracks are dragging the games down, whereas Portal 2 completely dropped the cake shtick and the people clinging to it are just weird.

I've been sick of the Tomb Raider "protect" jokes for a while now and that game hasn't even come out yet.
 

Alex

Member
Kind of sad that NSMBU didn't even chart. I know not a lot of people have Wii Us or are burned out of Mario platformers, but it's easily the best Mario game since Galaxy 1.

It takes a little too long to get going and it wasn't all that memorable to me, in the end, but it was a good game. The whole time it felt like it was on the cusp of being something special, but they were too afraid to stray from their formula or break any new territory. The level design eventually heats up to be great but still feels really limited to it's own sub-series parameters.

Don't agree that it was better than SMG2 or 3D Land, though, personally. It was the best of the NSMB kit, but even that had reduced impact due to NSMB2 simply being so close to it, especially in conjunction with the weak early worlds in U, by the end of Layer Cake I was outright bored. I think that weighed down on it really hard. Was a mistake to open not only so soon after another NSMB game and with such a standard introduction and probably wound up causing quite a slight against it's reception.

My main wish, going forward, is that the Mario 3 thematic, be it visual or mechanical, could just take a rest for awhile. It was admittedly a little annoying how the promo materials for NSMBU tried to make it look more of a deviation upon SMW and it just wound up in the exact same fencing as NSMB/SMB3 in the end.
 
I've been sick of the Tomb Raider "protect" jokes for a while now and that game hasn't even come out yet.

Joke's on them when next year, the game comes out and it tops all their lists saying they felt an unbelievable urge to want to protect her leading to the best experience of the year, possibly generation.
 
Joke's on them when next year, the game comes out and it tops all their lists saying they felt an unbelievable urge to want to protect her leading to the best experience of the year, possibly generation.

I mean, it worked with Clementine. Telltale just had the good sense not to say it out loud.

(Yes, I know the difference between presenting a small child in a zombie apocalypse as someone to protect and a grown woman armed to the teeth.)
 

d00d3n

Member
Interesting list. As many others have mentioned, a peculiar list by neogaf standards with few undeserving triple a games at the top.

I am glad to see Sleeping Dogs doing so well. Did not include it in my list, but started playing the last couple of days and it is great. Great arkham asylum imitation combat, insane production values when it comes to main path missions and some inventive touches such as the augmented reality waypoint system.

I am slightly annoyed by the runner-up spot for the walking dead. The neogaf hivemind seems to be obsessed with non-interactive story elements these days. Last year we had the "comedy game" enthusiasts who elevated Portal 2, and now a similar situation with the walking dead. I personally don't get it.
 

Ashler

Member
I'm very OK with the final results, great top 10 list. I also enjoyed seeing ZombiU recognized as the Horror game of the year.
 

TwiztidElf

Member
Yay.
No disrespect to the games that came top, as they are very, very good, but GOTY - Journey?
2012 - Worst year in gaming in a long time.
2013 save us!
 
D

Deleted member 125677

Unconfirmed Member
A fantastic list! Glad to see the indies doing well, and happy about Kid Icarus getting the credit it deserves! (First post, hi gaf!)
 

Dawg

Member
I know that feel. I was the only person to vote for Clash of Clans for ios.

Could you explain why? I don't wish to insult your choice, but I've played the game and it just seemed like the typical city builder with a slightly different combat system. Maybe I missed something, but like every city builder (excluding simpsons tapped out, I actually like that one) it became boring quite fast.
 

Eusis

Member
Yay.
No disrespect to the games that came top, as they are very, very good, but GOTY - Journey?
2012 - Worst year in gaming in a long time.
2013 save us!
At least XCOM's pretty badass when you decide to cut out the (initially) downloadable and "nongame" titles, and has been winning at least a few GotY awards as I recall that weren't taken by Journey or Walking Dead.

Anyways, my affinity list:
1. Capell (102)
2. Joe Lee (98)
3. Nakayumi (97)
4. LOCK (90)
5. stupei (87)
6. A Link to the Snitch (86)
6. CronoShot (86)
8. vferrel (85)
9. kitzkozan (84)
9. SteeloDMZ (84)
I recognize about half the names there, Maybe if I saw their avatars I'd recall the rest.
 

Eusis

Member
guess the split vote hurt Xenoblade.

(this is the only answer i will accept)
If we just straight up pile up all the points it'd have moved up to third place I think, and that's it. Journey and Walking Dead got a HUGE pile of points split between them.

Although it did come out in 2010 in Japan, so who knows, maybe a worldwide release within the same year would've seen Xenoblade as an uncontested winner, or at least a place in the top 3! But probably not this year.
 

Rapstah

Member
I am slightly annoyed by the runner-up spot for the walking dead. The neogaf hivemind seems to be obsessed with non-interactive story elements these days. Last year we had the "comedy game" enthusiasts who elevated Portal 2, and now a similar situation with the walking dead. I personally don't get it.

I would really hope that those who gave Walking Dead or Journey a high spot this year, and the same for Portal 2 last year, did so because they enjoyed the games that much themselves and not because of some kind of memetic osmosis that confused everyone into thinking those games had been a lot better than their actual experience of them. If that is what happened, though, then the entire list for every single year would be broken because of that effect happening to all the memetically good games and the reverse effect happening to all the memetically bad high-budget games. A quick look at most people's lists reveals that almost everyone has an odd pick out, and having played Walking Dead and Portal 2 myself without any memetic preconceptions I really think it's a possibility those games are as good as most people seem to think. The lists you may be entirely correct about though are probably the ones that list only one game, like those people who only voted for Halo 4.
 
If we just straight up pile up all the points it'd have moved up to third place I think, and that's it. Journey and Walking Dead got a HUGE pile of points split between them.

Although it did come out in 2010 in Japan, so who knows, maybe a worldwide release within the same year would've seen Xenoblade as an uncontested winner, or at least a place in the top 3! But probably not this year.

i think the fact that it's a long-ass, original JRPG on the Wii while the Wii is on its last legs probably hurts as well.
 

grandjedi6

Master of the Google Search
timetokill said:
53. [360] The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (RPG) = 72 points, 2 honorable mentions
120. [PC] The Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition (RPG) = 16 points

Shouldn't these be combined?
 
i think the fact that it's a long-ass, original JRPG on the Wii while the Wii is on its last legs probably hurts as well.

Yeah, even reading that combined over three years, it would be third this year makes me wonder if people have just been voting for it every year it was eligible to support the game, because I would be surprised if enough people have played the game for it to be in the top 5.
 

Rapstah

Member
I thought so too, but some people were voting for one, some for another, some were unclear. The original PC edition was ineligible for 2012. It was a headache.

The 360 version is the Enhanced Edition, though. You can't really separate the expanded content from the base game.
 
The 360 version is the Enhanced Edition, though. You can't really separate the expanded content from the base game.

I feel like PC EE shouldn't be included at all. It's basically a patch to the 2011 game. A substantial patch, but no more substantial than World of Warcraft content patches, and those don't get included in GotY voting.
 

Burning Justice

the superior princess
Hmm. Hard to comment on the overall top games, since I haven't played a lot of them. Happy to see Kid Icarus make it into the top 10, though.

Also... couldn't help but notice that "The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky" and "Trails in the Sky" are mistakenly listed as two separate games in the 2011 LTTP rankings. If I'm reading the chart right, it looks like combining them would cause Trails to enter the top 20.
 

Kurtofan

Member
Good work collecting the data. It's just unfortunate that the results point to the GAF majority sliding comfortably into the Mountain Dew swilling, Spike VGA loving "gamer" stereotype. With the exception of Kid Icarus (which I don't even know how it got up there because it's a handheld game made by non-westerners), the top ten list reads like it came from IGN or something. AAA marketing budget! Indy darlings! Epic story! ART! Advancing the medium through tedium! And RPG of the year: Mass Effect 3? Are you kidding me? Clearly, 2012 was the year that the GAF userbase became what it hates the most: Games journalism.

This is why I love those threads: sour grapes.
 

meta4

Junior Member
Good work collecting the data. It's just unfortunate that the results point to the GAF majority sliding comfortably into the Mountain Dew swilling, Spike VGA loving "gamer" stereotype. With the exception of Kid Icarus (which I don't even know how it got up there because it's a handheld game made by non-westerners), the top ten list reads like it came from IGN or something. AAA marketing budget! Indy darlings! Epic story! ART! Advancing the medium through tedium! And RPG of the year: Mass Effect 3? Are you kidding me? Clearly, 2012 was the year that the GAF userbase became what it hates the most: Games journalism.

Yawn..
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Last gif because I don't want to turn this page into a slideshow.

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219. [PSV] Dynasty Warriors Next (Action) = 3 points

Was i the only one to give DW:Next any love :/ Shame best entry in the series for some time in my opinion.
 

Monkeythumbz

Communications Manager, nDreams
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04. Sleeping Dogs = 566 points, 17 honorable mentions
WOW! Awesome! This is seriously wonderful news and is massively appreciated - I mean, there's lots and lots of awards out there, but getting recognition from NeoGAF is especially validating. I think it's fair to say that even being considered in the top 10 games of the year by GAF is a huge honour, so to make it into the Top 5 is high praise indeed.

We feel that Sleeping Dogs has been really lucky to receive such amazing support from NeoGAF - many thanks to Mr Orange for the terrific OT - and I can tell you it's had a massively positive impact on the teams both at UFG and Square Enix.

Thanks again for thinking so highly of the game!
 
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