The Platinum Chalice Awards 2011, Part 3 – Game of the Year

dead space should have been a nominee

I found myself in want of more than two middle fingers when I read who the winner was.

When thinking about my game of the year i also went back and forth a million times between Portal 2 and Arkham City. But I landed on Portal 2 as well. The multiplayer was what really put it over the edge for me. It was one of the best gaming experience I ever had when I played it with my room mate on LAN. I would give Portal 2's multiplayer campaign GOTY on its own merits, but when you add in the brilliant single player there is no real doubt that Portal 2 is the best game of 2011. Even if it's not particularly replayable once you know the puzzle solutions, that first time has so much impact.

Finally someone acknowledges Portal 2! It's amazing in every way, the only people who don't think so haven't played it or are still choking on Skyrim hype. Skyrim doesn't sit well with me and by my definition of a perfect game it should be just that, but it's not.. And it's not a surprise because Bethesda has built their career on buggy, grayscale games that uses the gimmick of open world random fun to compete without competent stories, visuals or REAL depth. Portal 2 has endless quotable lines, hilarious characters, emotional moments and so much enthralling mystery about it.. What other game creates such a giant dick of a character like Cave Johnson and makes me feel bad when I hear him choking on his disease? Why do I love GLaDOS more every moment while I should hate her? she tried to kill me! AND called me fat :( You quoted someone saying "skyrim is the most complete game" Maybe if it's the only game you've played this year.. It's visuals are uninspired and ugly. Races don't even have unique skeletons.. Argonians and Kahjit may as well be called lizard head and cat face because that's all they are! slapped on to a human body. The Landscape is a beautiful picture, as a single picture. only ever changing from frigid grasslands to snowy mountain range.. that's about as much range as the Borean Tundra from WoW. With that.. the mass of bugs, awkward combat system, a leveling system with a lack of heart and soul.. a skill system that rewards you for simply being, "hey you swung a sword! points for you!" and spells that may allow you to be what you want to be but in the end.. if you want to be a werewolf/Warlock resurrecting Undead to fight for you, you can.. but at what cost? None. At any point you're bored you take any investment and throw it away in order to play with more skills. When you have access to EVERYTHING it leaves nothing to hunger for. OH and let's not forget to give honorable mentions for the absolutely unimproved save system.. If you want multiple characters be prepared to sift your way through hundreds of saves to find that Paladin you were RPing. And if you want to make it easy on yourself, have fun wasting time deleting every save but your most recent. Portal 2 \m/ Go valve, not expecting modders to complete their games for them since.. whenever they started making games.

Oh dear, portal fanboy, huge rant. Definitely not the most predictable thing since WWII. Skyrim has very nice visuals, although they might not be the greatest for people who like to find fault in everything. Portal has a fantastic story, and its tireless, unique style of gameplay. Personally, I think monopoly should've been awarded the title of 'game of the year' several years in a row. But the minute you start to bitch (in paragraphs) about how other people like other games, you become an annoyance. And that gives games like portal a bad name.

As somebody who actually enjoys board games and the like, I'm horribly offended that you would suggest Monopoly is actually a good game, even in a joke. It's a long game that's designed to knock people playing out of it, potentially leaving them sitting around while the rest of their friends play for a few more hours while even those still playing get increasingly frustrated and annoyed. The fact that I've never seen anybody actually finish a game of Monopoly is pretty telling of it's poor design.

My opinion is valid. As someone who's played all of Valves games and WoW for years I have come to expect more from developers regardless of how big the game is. And I know it sounds terrible but I do like Skyrim. However I like it for what it is and what it was made to be.. a big playground for modders. And the visuals are crap. proven by the fact that the first mods people started throwing out were visual improvements. It's the best game of it's kind because it has no competition, if Blizzard got into the singleplayer open world fantasy game Skyrim would be destroyed.

You just sound like a little kid, traumatized by his loss at the hands of his parents on christmas eve.

Like I said, I've never seen anyone finish a game of Monopoly, so it would be pretty hard for me to have lost at it.

I really liked Portal 2, but come on. You guys are on crazy pills.

I like Portal, but I still don't understand what all this bending-over for it is about. I mean, it's a fun game, and an even better one if you're into puzzle games, but Skyrim delivers a fun and open world experience where you can be basically whatever you want to be WHILE killing dragons, Batman: Arkham City takes what you love about the crime-fighting hero that is Batman, and multiplies that awesomeness by 10 million, all while implementing fluid combat and a pretty awesome story, and though I haven't played it yet, from what I heard, Skyward Sword is just plain awesome. I just don't see a linear puzzle game like Portal 2 taking home GOTY.

I agree, I thought Portal 2 was an outstanding game. I had fun playing it again and again, by myself or with friends. It had the perfect pacing. GR must of had a very difficult time figuring this years winner. I know I would.

however this will be funny to hear about this on Talkradar. I hope for some inception music

Portal 2 is an acceptable choice, my personal runner-up Arkham city is still better and at least it isn't Skrim that glitchy mess or witcher because who cares.

Generic angry comment about opinions that I don't find correct in response to my own ideals!

There is no way you could me any more correct.

Fuck you all Portal haters, just because you don't like them does not make them suck.You are all entitled to your opinions so are the editors of this site.

Portal 2 deserves the honors, no doubt. However I haven't completed the game yet. Always get halfway through and stop. I don't hate the game, I merely hate MYSELF.

Portal 2? Compared to the other games that came out this year, it was mediocre. Dark Souls was GOTY.

What exactly determines the GOTY in your opinions? What factors into the decision? Cause I'm not sure you, or anyone else, should even bother to mention the very few noticeable bugs in Skyrim (which are impossible to avoid in a game so huge not even the developers know everything) when the game is so much fun that they don't even really bother you. I have not had a single bug like the random dead dragons/skeletons appearing or anything actually irritate me in the slightest, simply because the game is that good in the other 99.999%. But nonetheless, i did love portal. Not a bad decision.