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

[Infinitron]

Oh shit this thread.

You wanted this, Brother None! YOU WANTED THIS!

 

[Lord Andre]

Risen 2 is better RPG than everything on that list.

 

[Brother None]

Oh shit this thread.

You wanted this, Brother None! YOU WANTED THIS!

I did, yes. I always enjoy this. Codex' thread on GB's GotY is a classic every year. Including this whole discussion if "best" has a "minimum goodness" requirement, which we seem to have every other year, and to which the answer is still basically "no".

Note I didn't vote or really join the discussion except to say "Risen 2 probably shouldn't win anything". I didn't really play much of anything RPGwise this year.

 

[IronicNeurotic]

Name me a triple-A studio that made a more promising, more "hardcore" RPG this year.

Can't do it, can you?

What the fuck was promising about Kingdoms of Amalur?

I found way more promise even in Dragon's Dogma.

 

[Minttunator]

That's a pretty goddamn disappointing list - it's nice to see Grimrock get some well-deserved respect, but I think GameBanshee could've just abstained from making a GotY article altogether, given what a dismal year 2012 turned out to be for RPGs.

 

[evdk]

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

Vodka is not our best export article, though.

 

[Minttunator]

What rpg that came out in 2012 had good writing?

The Secret World. If they're going to give writing awards to MMORPG-s, might as well be this one - obviously it's not in the same league story-wise as good cRPGs, but it's way, WAY better than the absolute borefest that GW2 was.

 

[hoverdog]

Stick to walkthroughs, guys. please.

 

[Minttunator]

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.

The entire 2003-2008 period was pretty horrible. 2008 had the sort-of-RPG King's Bounty, which I think was pretty nice. On the other hand, I can't remember a single good game from 2005 or 2006.

 

[Infinitron]

The entire 2003-2008 period was pretty horrible. 2008 had the sort-of-RPG King's Bounty, which I think was pretty nice. On the other hand, I can't remember a single good game from 2005 or 2006.

 

[felipepepe]

He said "Good", not "good for what it is".

 

[evdk]

He said "Good", not "good for what it is".

KOTOR2 is good.

 

[felipepepe]

I like it too, but it's just like New Vegas, could be so much more...

 

[Bruma Hobo]

He said "Good", not "good for what it is".

Well...

 

[racofer]

If you think this is bad, you don't want to see RPGWatch's GOTY

HAHAHAHA

oh no they didnt

For added atmosphere, play this while reading the lists.

Fixed that for you.

 

[Minttunator]

KOTOR2 is good.

I'm sorry, I did forget about KotOR2 - my active dislike of anything Star Trek/Wars-related has kept me from playing it thus far. I'm sure it's great.

 

[sea]

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

Steven Carter played Dark Souls but I don't think he played far enough to judge the DLC. We wanted WUE's opinion, but he took too long to get back to us. The rest of us didn't play it.

Risen 2 is better RPG than everything on that list.

Even though everyone on the Codex bashes it for being major decline over the first game?

(naw, I haven't played it either, just saying that this stuff is always so subjective that if we awarded it GOTY stuff then we probably would have ended up with just as many people citing decline because "consolefaggy Risen 2" won)

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

It sounds like you guys should have played more games - I'm sure Darksiders II is a perfectly fine game, but if you have to go into Zelda-clone with rpg elements for an rpg best of, it really seems like it should be because you played all (reasonable) rpg candidates and found them wanting.

ETA: Not just talking about Dark Souls which is amazing, but I have no problem excluding it from an RPG list. Game of Thrones seems like a more glaring absence. It may not have been a great game, but I saw enough people find redeeming qualities to make it seem like as good a candidate as many selectees.

Double Edit: This is a criticism of process, not necessarily results.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Why give out awards to games just because they are less mediocre than the remaining entries? If last year was "crap" in terms of quality RPG´s, then why promote said crap by giving it an award, makes no sense.

 

[Micmu]

Risen 2 is better RPG than everything on that list.

Cow shit ... horse shit.

Best RPG: N/A
Best Character System: N/A
Best Story/Writing: N/A
Best Graphics: N/A
Best Sound/Music: N/A
Best Expansion/DLC: N/A
Most Anticipated of 2013: Wasteland 2
Independent RPG of the Year: Legend of Grimrock, Drog Operative
RPG Hybrid of the Year: N/A

 

[Grunker]

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.

Still you refuse to reply to the point. The point was that either you believe these games are genuinely good games, or you shouldn't write that article. Yet you're dancing around this with your fucking "they're the best of 2012 'cause that was a shitty year." Do you or do you not stand by calling these games excellent? I repeat:

If you do, then the Codex is right to challenge GameBanshee for its, from a Codexian perspective, shitty taste.

If you do not, then that article is balls! You don't award shit, even when its the best of the worst. You don't hang medals around the neck of people you think don't deserve them, just because "best" can also mean "the one that offended the games industry the least and gave me the least amount of groin pain." And furthermore, if you're going to do that anyway, say that that's what you're doing. Don't be a hypocrite and call the games shit on the one hand and do nothing but praise them in the article on the other.

As to whether something qualifies as RPG or not

Oh no no no no no, you are not baiting me. I didn't say something was or wasn't RPG, and I didn't mention FTL. I said that you yourselves wrote in your article that Darksiders II was praiseworthy because it had more RPG elements than its predecessor. When you actually praise an RPG for having RPG elements, don't you fucking think something is wrong with the world? It's like a Hollywood reviewer being reduced to a mockery of himself going "Today I saw a movie that actually had some acting! It was almost a movie! 2012 MOTY!"

Citing journalistic integrity? No, that's bullshit.

Do you remember all those game journos during the Dorito-crisis? Do you remember them falling over each other laughing hysterically over the mob of fools who cited journalistic integrety against them? The fact is, you are praising games that, from the Codex' point of view, are mostly terrible, terrible games that all contribute in some form or fashion to what is holding the medium back. If you agree with that opinion (based on your "2012 was shit in RPGs"), then you are fucking cowards for printing an article that puts them on a pedestal. No where it is written that you must have a Games of the Year 2012 - that was why DU didn't write a piece. You could have chosen something different precisely because 2012 was so shitty. You could have used the opportunity to give your article a critical angle. You could have done something. Instead you contributed to the Game-Journo treadmill of self-enforcing circle-wank. If you do not agree, then fucking own up to it and say that you think these games are good RPGs!

I guess Brother None's reply satisfies my curiosity though:

Including this whole discussion if "best" has a "minimum goodness" requirement, which we seem to have every other year, and to which the answer is still basically "no".

In other words: No matter what the industry does, no matter the level of shit it sinks to, GameBanshee will always be there, ready to hang medals around the necks of its pioneers of retardedness.

And it's fucking hypocritical anyway. If you think these games suck so much they can be framed in a discussion about "minimum goodness" then why do you praise them in the article? Shouldn't you be saying "the games are terrible, but they're the best of the worst!" But you don't think that, do you? You honestly think these are good games. If you do, then firstly the criticism you and sea express of the industry here rings fucking hollow, mate. Secondly, you're both hypocrites for trying to maintain this "2012 was crappy and the games are shit"-attitude here, while on GB praising the shit out of the same games.

 

[Average Manatee]

What rpg that came out in 2012 had good writing?

If every major scientist suddenly died should we really give the nobel prize in chemistry to the guy who set his dick on fire for a dare?

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

If every major scientist suddenly died should we really give the nobel prize in chemistry to the guy who set his dick on fire for a dare?

We should give it to him anyway. Except it should be the economics prize.

 

[Average Manatee]

If every major scientist suddenly died should we really give the nobel prize in chemistry to the guy who set his dick on fire for a dare?

We should give it to him anyway. Except it should be the economics prize.

Nobel prize in economics. Haha, good one