Looking at all the GOTY winners, which one was most deserving?

Between Elden Ring and Trump 2024. Not sure which, and i hope Maroxad helps me out a bit.

Donald Trump is just insanely talented, wish he made more games

Tough to beat Elden Ring, it really is From software's formula perfected.

Same could be said for BOTW being the Zelda Formula perfected.

@nod_calypse: I voted for "The Last of Us Part II", and I haven't played it.

My reason is that it made a huge splash both in and out of the video game industry, and even Sony's biggest rival (MS) was like "We want to be able to make a game like that."

@R4gn4r0k: Them the faces of a Boss, G.

Yeah but they did Joel dirty

Toss up between Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring.

No one one has been more deserving than greatest POTUS of all time Donald J Trump

Guess what? MS doesn't have the talent needed to approach TLOU2 quality.

Yeah, that's fair.

The Last of Us Part II, easily. I could have said Elden Ring, but here's my logic:

Elden Ring > TLOU2, BUT: The gap between the best game of 2022 (Elden Ring) and the second best game of 2022 (God of War Ragnarok) is MUCH smaller than the gap between the best game of 2020 (The Last of Us) and the second best game of 2020 (Ghost of Tsushima or Hades).

Therefore I'd say TLOU2 is the most clear win in history. But Elden Ring is top 3 best game ever made and TLOU2 is top 10, maybe top 7 best game ever made.

Let's look at the other years:

2022: Elden Ring as mentioned

2021: Not a single masterpiece released this year and no game derserved GOTY, so why not ITT

2020: TLOU2 as mentioned

2019: Sekiro vs Death Stranding is a coin flip. The former is the king of gameplay/combat and nothing else. The Latter is a 10 in everything except gameplay and combat. IMO Sekiro is the superior game and fully deserved GOTY, but Death Stranding is not a bad choice.

2018: God of War is one of the best games ever, but so is RDR2. So similar situation to 2022, this time its GOW that slightly edged RDR2. but both are top 15 best games ever. I honestly don't know which is better. I guess GOW, but they are right next to eachother in my best ever list.

2017: I'm not a huge fan of BOTW and all the sticky iPad kid noises the game makes, but I can understand why this one won. so its deserved. Better than that shitty Mario game winning.

2016: LMAO biggest fluke in TGA history. Get the **** out of here. Give that to Dark Souls 3. Or at least Uncharted 4.

2015: For some reason the GOTY went to third best game of the year. The Witcher 3. The two best games of 2015 are Metal Gear Solid 5 and Bloodborne.

2014: a garbage year just like 2021. No game deserved GOTY this year. How unfair is that MGS5 and Bloodborne got no GOTY but fucking Dragon Age Inquisition did??? Nullify the 2014 award and give it to MGS5 or Bloodborne pls.

Witcher 3 still holds up to this day. Impressive work, that one was.

That’s too much mental energy for me to put into analyzing GotY awards. 😅

@nod_calypse: David cage should mocap him to add more emotions(tm) in his games.

@R4gn4r0k: Press ∆ to Grab by the pussy

@kathaariancode: lol

None of them but saadly Witcher 3 even its mediocre game is best on list and most deserving of all.

I mean generally these are *mostly* all equally deserving in so far that you get the award for being the best game of a year so picking the "best" of this list doesn't really apply since they're all just competing with the games of their years not each other.

It's easy to pick the least deserving though: Overwatch. It came the same year as The Witness and that's a perfect game.

elden ring.

don't know if i can say it's fromsoft's magnum opus but making a game of that quality with that size and scope from their formula is a crazy impressive achievement despite some, forgivable, peaks and troughs in pacing and repetition.

tlou2 should've took it because it's gameplay highs are naughty dog's magnum opus but there were just too many detractors that overshadowed those sequences

TLOU2 garbage story elements sour the whole experience. However, that gameplay is straight fire. As far as third person action goes, it doesn't get better than that.

Why does everything gotta be political nowadays?

@Jag85: Because it's not politics anymore.

Yep...

@dabear: you voted wrong. Tlou2 was trash, especially when compared to tlou1

I liked TLOU2 but I don't think it deserved GOTY. For me that went to Ghost of Tsushima. That game holds a special place in my gaming heart.

There's a thin line between entertainment and politics nowadays.

I voted for the Witcher 3. Also Trump is the worst POTUS in history by far and a horrible person and a criminal who should be in prison. not sure why that POS is even on this list other than as a bad joke. F that POS.

Fun fact: I haven't played any of those games, but I own 2 of them. Which 2, well wouldn't you like to know.

Easily the Witcher 3! A true masterpiece in every department!

BotW

No other game was such a sure GotY.

Fake Awards they are rigged! 😠

@Jag85: Wasn't it always, what do you think Rocky Vs Ivan Drago was? The Rambo movies? Nazis in the Indiana Jones movies. A big percentage of entertainment on past decades was a vehicle for American excepcionalism and ethics. I mean, unless you're talking about gutter trash level stuff, entertainment always was used to express ideas. What's really new is how the internet trained a whole generation (left and right) to be intolerant to anything which isn't part of their propaganda package.

The real crime TLoU2 commited was the terrible attempt at a deconstructed narrative structure which the director failed to execute on. Its themes are actually well explored and if people stopped reacting like brainwashed drones, its look upon the cyclic nature of conflict is pretty universal. Which is ironic considering how people felt personally targeted and reacted to the game, because right now anything that's out of an echo chamber is a personal offence.

Only the first two on the list are games I would have possibly voted for. I guess I'm going with The Witcher 3.

The problem with Elden Ring is that From Software's main strength was in making these deviously labyrinthine worlds full of unique locations and bosses.

Elden Ring totally failed to take advantage of any of that. Adding tons of open space and lots of repeat dungeons/bosses simply weakened their winning formula.

yeah the story is a hard pill to swallow. in some respects it's very good, as an overall arc its clever, but polarising for obvious stuff too.

pacing and momentum was a big issue for me as well. far too much stop, start, forcefully taking control back from the player, or building to a climax and then just before it hits yanking you out and into a flat and benign flashback scene.

but yeah when the game does take the shackles off, opens up and let's you play it really is fantastic. i do love mgsv for its third person stealth mechanics but tlou2 is a different beast. for white knuckle, desperate, survival-by-any-means necessary stealth it's in a league of its own

Hands down, like a Boss!!!

lol :P

Trump, when he's in prison will indeed be GOTY for the inmates in 2024.

Voted Trump 2024 for the lolz but honestly TW3.

@kathaariancode: There was no social media back then. Social media is the now the dominant form of entertainment today. And on social media, everything is politicized. Old movies were more subtle with their politics, while most old music and games barely had any politics. But with the rise of social media, nothing is subtle and everything is politicized.

This thread is just a microcosm of social media's obsession with politics. Why are we talking about Donald Trump in a thread about video games? There's no reason for it, other than for entertainment... Because politics has essentially become a form of entertainment.

Nah, I mean, there is no entertainment either. If you see it that way, that's your perspective. The country is not just in decline, it's about to collapse. The signs are everywhere. So it's not politics. We really need help out here.

What's funny is Elden Ring and Breath of the Wild are shells of their former selves- tossing away much of what was typical in Souls and Zelda games. Whether that's for better or worse is up to you. Personally I would rather see both franchises return to what they once were, but I'm happy to have Zelda BOTW/TOTK and Elden Ring.

I voted Breath of the Wild as I had the most fun with that one from the list.

This!!!

@Jag85: 1st, completely disagree. From Easy Rider to Rambo, before and beyond that, politics were always very present in entertainment. They weren't more discreet about it. I mean, Rocky 4 is pure propaganda, nothing discreet about it.

2nd, true that social media changed everything. Mostly changed the economics of entertainment and now you have people like The Quartering that profit immensely by making highly politicised content criticising others for doing mildly politicised content. Imagine a movie like Good Morning Vietnam being completely destroyed online for its liberal bias or Alien because she doesn't look fuckable enough on that movie or wtv. Silly times we live in.

TLOU2

@kathaariancode: You say you "completely disagree"... then you go on to agree with what I just said and say it's "true that social media changed everything." Took you a while to get there, but glad you finally got the point.

Breath of the Wild is such a massively transcendent game. It blew an entire genre wide open. Truly a masterclass in game design.

@Jag85: It's called partially agreeing/disagreeing.

I mostly agree when both Sekiro and Elden Ring won their respective years.

I mostly disagree when Overwatch won. That year was very weak fosho but Uncharted 4, with all its flaws, was a way better game than that lootbox riddled nonsense.

As an adds up, I can understand The Witcher 3 winning 2015 BUT Bloodborne was my personal favorite that year. That game was game of the gen for me

Edit: Oh damn, forgot Dark Souls 3 was a runner up between U4 and Overwatch. That game should have been GOTY that year, despite being "more souls" as if thats a bad thing... the game was great and should have won that year, not the pos Overwatch

hum, The Witcher 3 and Elden Ring... or Overwatch

@vatususreturns: Witcher 3 and Dragon Age. At this rate I will never get around to playing them.