Google+

GamesRadar editors’ (personal) Games of the Year 2011

The 14 different games that rocked our individual worlds

Words: , GamesRadar Staff on December 9, 2011
Back to Article

127 comments

  • MsSmith - December 11, 2011 1:47 p.m.

    Arkham City is the most satisfying and polished game of the year in my opinion. (Deus Ex in close second).

  • Darkhawk - December 11, 2011 8:59 a.m.

    Christ, Shadows of the Damned is anyone's GotY? Suda's least original, least compelling work to date (except maybe Frog Minutes) is in no way worthy of that honour. I LOVE Mr. Goichi, and would rank Killer7 among my very very top all-time games, but SotD was nothing

  • StickyLungs - December 11, 2011 8:40 a.m.

    If you guys ever fire Michael Grimm, I swear to god I'll never read this site again.

  • ultimatepunchrod - December 11, 2011 11:46 a.m.

    I second that. That was hilarious.

  • Triscuitable - December 12, 2011 6:59 p.m.

    This site is nothing without the writers. Otherwise, it's a bland, boring site full of advertisements and filler articles with... Stop me, I just described IGN.

  • Kingpin Slim - December 12, 2011 9:18 p.m.

    Swear to god, that made me laugh until I almost squirtled my pants. You figure out what the hell that means.

  • Xerxes667 - December 11, 2011 6:23 a.m.

    ARKHAM CITY and SKYRIM are neck and neck for me just because they both blew me away (in different ways, but to the same extent) Arkham City by its sheer attention to the universe of the Dark Knight and superb original story, Skyrim by its scale and variety of activities and the sheer wonderment of "how can a game this huge look so damned good and play so damned well, I'm one of the lucky few PS3 players who weren't affected by the glitch... hooray! can't we have them share GOTY this year... back in 09 i was hoping for a three way share between Uncharted 2, Arkham Asylum and Assassins Creed 2, as they were all equally (but uniquely) amazing, but alas the Uncharted and Assassin's Creed series fell short this year

  • CitizenWolfie - December 11, 2011 2:18 a.m.

    Some good choices there, although I am outraged at the decision not to include Duke Nukem Forever/Gears of War 3/Modern Warfare 3/Battlefield 3 (delete as applicable). BIAS! HATE! RAWR! ETC! But seriously, my personal favourite had to be LA Noire. It felt like an evolution of the point 'n' click game and the story had me hooked to the point where I was thinking about it even when I wasn't playing. I loved how it was more focussed than GTA or RDR and the interrogations (despite turning out to be a bit arbitrary on replay) really made me slow down my play style and consider what I needed to say. Taking your first homicide case and realising you might be on the trail of the Black Dahlia killer was one of the biggest highlights in a year packed with truly great games. Otherwise I'd also give a nod to Portal 2 (which won me over as I wasn't too fussed about Portal 1). That moment when GLaDOS reboots at the start is terrifying. And also Arkham City for being brilliant throughout. However I did prefer Arkham Asylum for being a bit more story driven and creepy - don't get me wrong, AC was great but I felt no urgency to stop anyone despite the "time's running out" nature of the main story thread. It's a shame ICO/Shadow of the Colossus doesn't count too as I fell in love with SOTC all over again in September.

  • Xerxes667 - December 11, 2011 6:13 a.m.

    sorry to say the ico/shdows pack doesn't count (although they are WONDERFUL games) because they're just a collection re-release with better graphics not a NEW game for 2011. and the same goes for COD because while its a new release it certainly isn't a NEW game, since all COD's have been the same since the Modern Warfare 1, just in different skins... I'm so sick of yearly releases, ( the AC series is the exception that proves the rule although Revelations was a bitter disappointment in my eyes), because they sacrifice development time and actual innovative storytelling to meet a deadline and satisfy fanboys who demand their yearly call of duty or madden fix. I MEAN COULDN'T THEY JUST RELEASE ONE OR TWO MADDEN GAMES PE CONSOLE GENERATION AND THEN RELEASE A DLC EVERY YEAR TO CHANGE THE ROSTERS SO THEY"RE CURRENT?! THOSE ARE THE ONLY CHANGES IN MADDEN THAT PEOPLE GIVE A CRAP ABOUT ANYWAY! I DONT WAN PAY $60 TO PLAY A GAME I PLAYED A YEAR AGO WITH THE NAMES JUST SWITCHED AROUND AND THE GRAPHICS A MODICUM BETTER THAN THEY WERE LAST YEAR!

  • Xerxes667 - December 11, 2011 6:14 a.m.

    i kinda got off topic there...

  • CitizenWolfie - December 11, 2011 1 p.m.

    Well, I did acknowledge that Ico/SOTC didn't count since they were re-releases. Even though both are still awesome today. And as for the CoD/BF3 comment, that was just a joke. Just thought it was funny how neither were mentioned despite them both being the most talked about games of the year (I like both by the way.)

  • CitizenWolfie - December 11, 2011 1:02 p.m.

    But I agree about the yearly update thing. Games like Fifa and Madden are about as good as they will ever get - I'd rather buy a definitive version of the game and buy reduced-price roster updates once a year.

  • SveedishFeesh - December 11, 2011 12:08 a.m.

    Too many games to play from 2011. I'm still catching up with last year's highlights.

  • NightCrawler_358 - December 10, 2011 9:18 p.m.

    So I'm guessing Grimm liked Dark Souls the best? Such an amazing year for games, very hard to pick favourites. I probably enjoyed Batman Arkham City the most, will have the fondest memories of Skyward Sword, and play the most of Skyrim. I loved Uncharted 3 as I do every thing Naughty Dog can put out, but it seemed too over-the-top for me, while I enjoyed the ordinary man-extraordinary adventure theme of the previous 2 games... So Batman.

  • BackwaterRifle - December 10, 2011 8:01 p.m.

    Mike Grimm with the elementary school level writing for the win.

  • FrozenImplosion - December 10, 2011 5:40 p.m.

    I'm really glad someone picked Shadows of the Damned. That game was really great, and honestly had the best soundtrack of any game this year that I can think of. Except maybe Bastion. Oh yeah and on that note, why did no one pick Bastion?! Or even Deus Ex?

  • codystovall - December 10, 2011 5:36 p.m.

    Skyrim can cool blow me.

  • Xerxes667 - December 11, 2011 6:17 a.m.

    no sir... you can blow Skyrim's big scaly dragon junk... but it wouldn't let you... cuz thats not how it rolls

  • closer2192 - December 10, 2011 5:02 p.m.

    No one chose Deus Ex: Human Revolution? Really?

  • EwoksTasteLikeChicken - December 10, 2011 4:51 p.m.

    Oh Mike Grimm. Anyway, my favorite would be Batman, if only because I'm playing all the games I want before Skyrim, because once I begin, I'll be playing it for months.

Showing 21-40 of 127 comments

Join the Discussion
Add a comment
(HTML tags are not allowed.)
Characters remaining: 5000

Connect with GamesRadar


Featured Guides

Connect with Facebook

Log in using Facebook to share comments, games, status update and other activity easily with your Facebook feed.