Gamedot’s 2011 review – Yann Best

By Yann Best on December 19th, 2011

2011 has been a quite fantastic year for us gamers. We’ve been spoilt for choice at times, with the last few months especially seeing some fantastic titles released within weeks of one another. There have also been some huge disappointments, and so because of this, all of the writers here at Gamedot were asked for their opinions on a three aspects of 2011. Who had been the developer of the year? What had been the disappointment of 2011? And what was the game of the year? The answers you expect aren’t always the ones given, especially from Yann, who gives his thoughts below;

Developer of the Year

When awarding the developer of the year, it’s important to consider more than just the quality of the game(s) they’ve released. It’s also important to take into consideration the developer’s attitude outside of development: how it treats its customers, its staff. It’s for these reasons that I find myself ruling out Ubisoft’s many studios – though responsible for some of my favourite games this year, Ubisoft’s mistreatment of PC gamers through delayed releases and draconian DRM, deserves nothing but censure. So too EA and their absurd forum-banning debacle (short version: people banned from their forums find themselves banned from their games). And then there’s Activision Blizzard. On the one hand, you’ve Bobby Kotick’s ‘antics’. On the other, you’ve Blizzard’s about-turn on cash transactions and their featuring of a thinly-veiled homophobic rant of a song at Blizzcon. So that’s a big no-no. Apologies to all relevant developers: your parent company’s behaviour has removed you from consideration.

With all that in mind, I was set to reward CD Projekt: responsible for an incredible RPG released with no DRM, they seemed a shoe-in. Only, last week they decided to go on a rampage of legal action, demanding money from thousands of people for allegedly pirating their game – based solely on the limited evidence of IP addresses. Oh.

And so it is that I’m giving the award to Double Fine Productions. A responsive, friendly developer, responsible for – this year alone – the lovely Trenched/Iron Brigade, the endearing Once Upon a Monster and the brilliant Stacking, they’ve managed to maintain both an attitude and a quality of output worth celebrating. So let’s hear it for Double Fine, loveliest developers of the year!

Disappointment of the Year

If there were plenty of choices for me to pick from for my game of the year, my disappointment of the year has been incredibly straightforward. 2011 has seen many worthy sequels released – some surprisingly so (I’m looking at you, Deus Ex: Human Revolution). And then… then there was Dragon Age 2.

Dragon Age 2 looked a bit wobbly from the off. Its trailers seemed to suggest a worryingly dumb, action-oriented game. But this didn’t worry me greatly – it’s no great secret that its predecessor, one of the greatest RPG’s of recent times, blessed with both a fantastic combat engine and a heavy, consequence-ridden plot, had been preceded by a series of increasingly awful adverts itself. Surely this was just another case of Bioware misjudging their promotional materials, thought I.

How wrong I was. Dragon Age 2 takes a brilliant, fascinating premise – an RPG fixed in a single location, yet spanning years and allows you to see the consequences of your actions, even as it puts you in a relatively powerless role, forcing you to acknowledge your own limits – and dashes it against the rocks of shoddy execution and awful storytelling. An evolving landscape which, er, barely evolves. Set in a city which subjugates mages, with said subjugation of mages being the main plot… and yet in which you may act openly as a mage without comment. Oh, and not to mention the massive steps back taken since the first Dragon Age in the game’s representation of women – aesthetically, at least.

It may not be the worst RPG in the world, but compared to Dragon Age: Origins this is a travesty. A huge disappointment.

Game of the Year

The game of the year. Always a challenging one. Not overrating those I most recently loved, nor forgetting the games from the beginning of the year is always a challenge – this year more than most thanks to a glut of great releases. The Witcher 2 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Batman: Arkham City and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. Bulletstorm and Saints Row: The Third. Portal 2. Child of Eden. So many others. It’s been a good year to be a gamer.

Any of the above could have been my game of the year. But in the end, I have to go for something a little quieter, a little more surprising – something that came out of nowhere and in the four short hours it took me to finish it, blew me away.

I’m talking about the light-hearted yet tragic, cynical yet sweet, beautiful adventure game To The Moon. Released last month too little fanfare from tiny developer Freebird Games, it’s a touching little story about going through a dying man’s memories in order to help him achieve his ambition of going to the moon. Only, what it’s actually about is unravelling the mysteries of his past, of his relationship with his wife. And of exploring your own characters’ personalities. The script is flawed, the graphics basic, but this low-budget game managed to both break my heart and raise my spirits; to move me to floods of tears, yet bring a smile to my face. It is, quite simply, the most beautiful story I have ever had the privilege to play. An absolutely essential purchase, To The Moon is without a doubt my game of 2011.

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