Welcome to the 2011 OXM GOTY Awards! We’ll be running down our picks from the best in gaming all week long, concluding on Thursday by naming OXM’s Game of the Year 2011. Check back here for the full list of winners.
Our look at the best in 2011 continues, awarding best-in-class honors to the best shooter, Kinect game, RPG and more. Oh, and the absolute worst game of the year is named.
Best Action-Adventure Game: Batman: Arkham City
What made this superhero odyssey the best in its genre? This handy-dandy pie chart breaks down Batman's action-adventure dominance:
Best Original Game: L.A. Noire
(Runners-up: Catherine, Dead Island, The Gunstringer)
For a game that seemed to come out of nowhere, Team Bondi’s investigation-flavored actioner sure held our attention. It dazzled us with its fiercely nuanced tale of how guilt and other human foibles born of extraordinary circumstances — in this case, the horrors of World War II — could be just as frightening an enemy as any fire-breathing beast. Sure, the game’s action sequences and its ending fell a bit flat, but no one would argue that L.A. Noire wasn’t wildly creative compared to most of 2011’s other offerings. In a year of countless two- and three-quels, we loved all four games for their bold originality — but we’d be lying if we said we didn’t want a sequel to each one of them.
Best Fighting Game of the Year: Mortal Kombat
Winning a fight takes three things: the guts to face down your enemy, the intelligence to play it smart, and most importantly, the will to endure. This year saw plenty of beautiful brawlers, but when the dust settled, the one with the most heart claimed the prize. Mortal Kombat, with its deep suite of modes and dogged devotion to its fanbase, made us love it — thus securing it its knockout victory.
Kinect Game of the Year: Dance Central 2
(Runners-up: Child of Eden, The Gunstringer, UFC Personal Trainer)
You don’t always dance because no one’s watching. Sometimes it’s because you know everyone’s watching; sometimes it’s to trounce the person next to you. And sometimes it’s to take down a megalomaniac riding around town in a blimp. Its predecessor took last year’s Best Kinect Game award, but legacy had nothing to do with Dance Central 2 edging out close competitors Child of Eden and The Gunstringer. Neither Eden’s emotional and visual impact nor Gunstringer’s terrific gameplay could surmount DC2’s sheer breadth; you could enjoy DC2 whether you were a gamer, a dancer, or neither. Simple routines went gentle on those new to Kinect or dancing (or both); complex routines — which featured intricate, fluid movement — challenged even good dancers.
And for those who prefer to game sitting down, but revel in the adrenaline surges of competitive play? Dance Battles showed us the joy of hip-hopping your way to absolute, soul-crushing victory. DC2 even had a career mode to get our hearts pumping and shirts soaked: never before have we sweated so much to triumph in a boss battle. And the whole time, we never resented being brought off the couch to play. Fact is, we loved it.
Racing Game of the Year: Forza Motorsport 4
Here's why Forza won, by the numbers:
1 - Pair of pants you’ll soil when playing from the amazing cockpit view
2 - Control methods (controller plus optional Kinect functionality)
3 - Other nominees: Dirt 3, F1 2011, and Shift 2: Unleashed
16 - Players who can race online together simultaneously
60 - Gloriously smooth frames per second the game runs at
100+ - Hours you could easily spend playing it
500+ - Number of cars in the game…plus dozens more, courtesy of DLC
Role-Playing Game of the Year: Deus Ex: Human Revolution
(Runners-up: Bastion, Dark Souls, Dragon Age II, Torchlight)
Successfully pulling off “emergent gameplay” is challenging enough, but Deux Ex: Human Revolution bore another burden as well: living up to one of the single greatest games of all time. Somehow, Revolution does an admirable job in both respects, reminding us why we love this conspiracy-driven sci-fi series, and more important, why we revel in player choice. You can truly be the Adam Jensen you want to be: your decisions dictate every scenario, whether it’s the level design, dialogue trees, weapon loadouts, gadget use, or general play style. Original creator Warren Spector would be proud, and that’s easily the highest compliment Revolution’s creators could receive.
Shooter of the Year: Gears of War 3
(Runners-up: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3)
Almost, Battlefield 3. Not this year, Modern Warfare 3. Sorry, Spartans. In 2011, Gears of War 3 took everything we loved about the bro-mantic series — chainsaws, Horde mode, and sarcastic Delta Squad banter — and polished it to a blindingly bright sheen. It has heart, with a heaping helping of huge setpieces, memorable boss battles, dedicated servers, and multiplayer unlocks. But it’s also got soul, with a gut-punch story moment at the end of Act III, a trilogy-wrapping ending, and a revamped Horde mode that’s guaranteed to make you love your teammates by the time you clear Wave 50. Even Beast mode turned out to be one of our favorite multiplayer modes of the year. Gears 3 was well worth the extra wait.
Sports Game of the Year: NBA 2K12
(Runners-up: FIFA 12, Madden NFL 12, Fight Night Champion, Top Spin 4)
The past twelve months may have been great for other sports series — Madden NFL 12 made some big strides and the stellar FIFA 12 very nearly netted this award — but it was an amazing year for the NBA 2K franchise. NBA 2K12 builds on an already winning formula by reeling in some the greatest hoops players ever (Larry Bird, Magic Johnson) and improving the gameplay to make sure your pick-and-roll is executed as smoothly as a Dr. J finger-roll. The whole package is one no sports fan could — or should — resist.
Soul-Crushing Game of the Year: Dark Souls
It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to unapologetically stick it to gamers and still leave them begging for more. From Software’s Dark Souls forced you to take it countless times in the family jewels with its brutal action-RPG emphasis on battling seemingly impossible enemies, large and small. It was this year’s hardcore stamp for card-carrying masochists suffering for their gaming-nerd cred. But the craft and thought that clearly went into Dark Souls’ unique brand of punishment reveals clever method behind the soul-crushing madness. We couldn’t get enough.
Worst Game of the Year: Hulk Hogan's Main Event
(Runners-up: Hole in the Wall XBLA, Days of Thunder: Arcade, Family Game Night 4; The Game Show)
This atrocity earns the loudest jeers from us for not only being the least interactive Kinect game to date, but also wasting a great idea (mimicking lavish pro-wrestling entrances) and taking up precious landfill space that could’ve been filled with something more pleasant, like hazardous waste. This game would have been a strong contender for the year's worst game if it were a $5 XBLA download. At $50, it's the financial equivalent of being smashed in the head with a steel chair.
