Editorial Gamebanshee Game of the Year 2012 Awards: Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel Edition

[RK47]

Grunker take your meds and have a good break. You were sick, don't get sick again.

 

[Grunker]

Grunker take your meds and have a good break. You were sick, don't get sick again.

It wasn't the piece that me comment, it was Eric's weak defense of it, which I hope indicates he somehow realizes himself it wasn't the greatest thing to come out of GB. Anyway, why do so many people discourage others from ranting on an internet forum? It's pretty much the reason I joined, and I'll have my rants as I like them, thank you very much.

That I found a sweet Blood Bowl league was just a lucky coincidence, my dear RK47 ^___________^

 

[RK47]

You should try some tea mixed with honey. I heard it's good for you if you are feeling under the weather.

 

[SearchEngine]

What is the shittiest rpg year anyway? I personally thought 2008 was the worst. This year is not good but at least Dark Souls made it to PC,Telepath RPG is a good tactical srpg, and Game of Thrones was actually a decent storyfag rpg. If Crusader Kings II and FTL counts (rpg elements, rougelike, etc.), they certainly made up for Mass Effect 3 and Risen 2.

 

[RK47]

 

[Excidium]

You people are acting like Gamebanshee actually matters.

 

[SerratedBiz]

"So if you ignore the branching storylines, the faction quests, the large amount of C&C early on, etc., and have played it seven times, then it's terrible." Alright then.

Moar like, if you look past the hype for what the game really offers, you'll see the end result is completely unsatisfying and terribly executed considering the amount of work that went into the initial content.

And wtf, am I to understand that you're praising the game's C&C and branching storylines even though you haven't played it enough times to experience the consequences of your choices and the differing content? Games journalism indeed.

 

[Metro]

On FTL... well, we didn't cover it. I suggested it months ago but it never really happened. I wouldn't really consider it much of an RPG either.

Yet you would consider Darksiders 2 one?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Well, Darksiders has swords.

 

[bonescraper]

Best Story/Writing: Guild Wars 2

I'll never, ever visit Gamebanshee again.

 

[EG]

Wait, people visit Gamebanshee?

I'm ashamed to be among you now.

 

[bonescraper]

What? They have a nice collection of guides for pretty much every major cRPG, form Arcanum to Wizards & Warriors

 

[RK47]

 

[sea]

I recognize that there's a shitty list of games to choose from, but first of all, yes, Game of Thrones has infinitely better writing than that fucking crap you listed, and secondly, if you recognize that the year was shit for RPGs, say that instead of crowning what you yourselves, according to your own words, consider shit.

I didn't play Game of Thrones, I can't comment on it. I think we only had one person play it and he didn't mention it, so he must not have thought much of it.

Take note as well that I'm not your usual Skyway-everything-is-crap-Codexer. I have plenty of tolerance for mainstream games and most of the RPGs some of the "angry" Codexers hate. But your list is pretty much all completely generally agreed upon awful games here at the Codex, no matter which type of poster you are, so of course we're calling you out for glorifying them. If you like those games, fine, but then don't come here defending GameBanshee by saying you had a crap selection. Own up to the fact that you like these games and consider them good RPGs. If you don't, don't write the piece, or write it differently.

I'm not so sure of that. I genuinely think that the games we did award honors to this year deserved them - relative to the other releases this year. For instance, yeah, I'd say Kingdoms of Amalur did have the best character system of 2012's RPGs, I do think Darksiders II had the best visual direction, and yeah, I thought Mass Effect 3 had great sound and music.

Your sin, mr. Schwarz, isn't that you had no games to work with - it's not your fault that this year was crap - but that you actually make a site-piece to glorify that bullshit instead of saying it like it is: 2012 was perhaps the worst year for cRPGs in history - in the very least, it was a terrible one. "Hello, fellow Banshees, we think 2012 was crap, Kickstarter looks promising, these games are perhaps worthy of mention, but that's it." You do not do "game journalism" any favors by scraping shit of the floor and crowning the best of the worst of it. Especially when you don't even write that that's what your doing. Excuse me very much, but your "game list this year was shit" rings very hollow when your Games of 2012 piece does nothing but praise the games in it. Hell, you fucking praise Darksiders II - an RPG on your RPG Awards list - for having "more RPG elements" than its predecessor. Isn't it self-evident that when you have to praise a game that wins an RPG-award for actually having a couple of RPG-elements in it, something is fucking wrong?

This may come as a shock to you, but Game of the Year awards aren't really intended to be "all these games suck" articles. We already critiqued the majority of those games in their respective reviews and other coverage. It simply isn't the place for that sort of thing, although a discussion that is worth having is whether it's a good idea to have a GOTY article at all if the selection is poor. And you know what? Maybe that would have been a better alternative, given the releases this year.

Citing journalistic integrity? No, that's bullshit. The GOTY 2012 article discusses and rates games relative to other games released in the year. That's it. It's not a be-all, end-all yardstick of quality, it's not even a comment on the quality of the included games in an objective sense. So you thought Mass Effect 3 was a shitty game? Darksiders II That's not the point of the article to discuss, when complaints about gameplay have no bearing on what the games were actually nominated for (i.e. sound/music, graphics).

As to whether something qualifies as RPG or not, well, we can sit here forever debating that, but I'll bite. Why is FTL, a light roguelike with management elements, considered "RPG enough" even though it's barely more complicated than, say, Super Amazing Wagon Adventure? Is Super Amazing Wagon Adventure an RPG too? Why is that an RPG when Darksiders II, with its character development, random loot mechanics, quests and open-ended exploration, etc. isn't? I really don't see anything wrong with calling the games we selected RPGs, and we covered all of them as RPGs. Granted, I personally don't think Mass Effect 3 qualifies, but then, I didn't nominate it for anything either.

Now with that out of the way, let's see our picks:

RPG of the Year: Legend of Grimrock
Indie RPG of the Year: Legend of Grimrock
RPG Hybrid of the Year: XCOM Enemy Unknown
Best graphics: Darksiders II
Best sound/music: Mass Effect 3
Best expansion/DLC: D&D Online: Menace of the Underdark
Best story/writing: Inquisitor
Best character system: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

It's worth noting that the news post failed to differentiate winners from runner-ups.

Can you tell me which of those isn't RPG enough, with the possible exceptions of Mass Effect and Darksiders (in categories that are purely aesthetic), which of those doesn't deserve the awards relative to other 2012 games? Can you tell me why those games aren't deserving of it without resorting to irrelevant crap like "too mainstream"? Go ahead, specifically discuss and deconstruct each game and tell me why it's not worthy relative to other games that came out this year, and that we had enough experience with to actually discuss and consider for the awards. Give me compelling arguments why X game should have been there instead of Y.

 

[Kosmonaut]

This is why you don't make this GOTY pieces when there's no good games, or actually just games, in the genre you are focusing. Don't try to make excuses. Nobody is arguing whether those games are RPG or not. Most of them are shit, and shouldn't be on that kind of list.

 

[EG]

GOTY: Year of Shit edition.

 

[Black_Willow]

I can't remember when I last saw the Codex so butthurt about some GOTYs.

 

[sea]

This is why you don't make this GOTY pieces when there's no good games, or actually just games, in the genre you are focusing. Don't try to make excuses. Nobody is arguing whether those games are RPG or not. Most of them are shit, and shouldn't be on that kind of list.

Send an e-mail to Buck and let him know, then.

 

[Kosmonaut]

This is why you don't make this GOTY pieces when there's no good games, or actually just games, in the genre you are focusing. Don't try to make excuses. Nobody is arguing whether those games are RPG or not. Most of them are shit, and shouldn't be on that kind of list.

Send an e-mail to Buck and let him know, then.

Okay.

 

[Ulminati]

Best Story/Writing: Inquisitor​

​

Gamebanshee staff will be swimming in vodka for the whole next year. For the Motherland!

Fify

The gamebanshee staff must've sampled their bribe heavily before coming up with that list. No sober man would praise Banalur's character system

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Amalur's system wasn't bad, but it wasn't particularly great either. It was just...there, doing its job? The game's not difficult enough for it to really matter, anyway.

 

[Metro]

While technically the graphics were better in Derpsiders 2, the color scheme was eye rape. Much preferred the way Grimrock looked.

Amalur's system wasn't bad, but it wasn't particularly great either. It was just...there, doing its job? The game's not difficult enough for it to really matter, anyway.

Yep, it was no better/worse than most any other generic ARPG. TL2 could have won in that category.

 

[Mrowak]

Best Story/Writing: Inquisitor​

​

Well, the story motivated me to go thru half of chapter 2 alone before giving up so i don't think its that bad

As for me, I think it was more of a premise... To be an inquisitor carrying out an investigation, finding out who the heretics are, and eradicating them with sword and fire sounds so cool... But as for the story itself, its writing and how it unfolds... you do some trully mind-boggling stuff out there.

 

[Dexter]

I think the fact that we literally could not come up with a good runner-up DLC/expansion shows just how poor a year it was for RPGs. There were good hybrid titles like Dishonored but as far as traditional stuff goes, Legend of Grimrock was about as good as it got.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkai...video-game-dlc-of-2012-artorias-of-the-abyss/

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

My faith in Gamebanshee has been shattered. Blown away, like dongs in the wind. Switched Sea to *discouraged*.