The RipTen End of the Year Awards (2010)

Holy shit, is it the end of the year already?  Gotta admit, it’s been a pretty great year for games.  That being said – it’s time to hand out some awards.  We’ve got over 50.  Come get some!!

Let’s get the fanboy nonsense out of the way first – here are the:

Best Xbox 360 Exclusive – Halo: Reach

Best Playstaytion 3 Exclusive – God of War III

Best Wii Exclusive – Super Mario Galaxy 2

Best PC Game – Starcraft II

Best Handheld Game – Professor Layton

Best Mobile game – Infinity Blade

There were plenty of big releases this year – but some of the year’s best came via download:

Best Overall DLC – RDR Undead Nightmare

Best Game (360) – Super Meat Boy

Best Game (PS3) - Dead Nation

Best Game (Wii) – Mega Man 10

Best Game (Multi-Plat) – LC & The Guardian of Light

While not every game can be the game of the year – It CAN be the best in it’s respective genre:

Best FPS – Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Best RPG – Mass Effect 2

Best Action/Adventure Game – Lords of Shadow

Best Stealth/Action game – Splinter Cell: Conviction

Best Adventure Game – Alan Wake

Best Racing Game – NFS: Hot Pursuit

Best Fighting Game – Super Street Fighter 4

Best Sports Game – FIFA 11

Best RTS – Starcraft II

Best 3D Platformer – PoP: The Forgotten Sands

Best 2D Platformer – Super Meat Boy

Best Music Game – Rock Band 3

Best Indie Game – Super Meat Boy

Best MMO Content – World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

Most Addictive Game: Minecraft

But 2010 was not without disappointment – However, there were also some surprises:

Biggest Disappointment – Final Fantasy XIV

The Final Fantasy series just can’t catch a break – we almost voted Final Fantasy XIII for this award as well.  How can you make a seemingly competent MMO (No easy feat) only a few years before, then churn out a completely broken and boring MMO experience only a few years later . . . it’s inexplicable and also inexcusable.  Get your shit together Square-Enix.

Biggest Surprise – Bayonetta

Everyone expected Bayonetta to be either be a typical female character, designed by sexist pigs or a raging, feminist dyke.  Yet, to everyone’s surprise, Bayonetta was a sassy, yet classy female protagonist starring in a great game. Plus, her clothing is made of hair and turns into things!!  I mean c’mon – imagine seeing that for the first time in real life.  It’d be the biggest surprise of your life – just like how good this game was.

Some games get overrated – while some sadly, get underrated:

Most Overrated Game – Civilization 5

Who on earth keeps giving Civ V perfect 10′s?  Did these people not play the previous Civ games?  Civilization 5 is a great game, sure – but it’s certainly not the series best and was overrated by almost everyone.

Most Underrated Game – Splatterhouse

Everyone we know who owns this game – loves it.  That includes both members of the RipTen staff and our readers.  Sure – a brutal, bloody and metal old school brawler may not appeal to a large audience -  But to under rate a game simply because you don’t fall into it’s target demographic is for lack of a better term – fucking stupid.  Splatterhouse is by no means a perfect game, but for what it is, and whom it’s for – it’s a great game, and a bloody good time.

Many games wouldn’t be so great without their storylines – here are some of the year’s best:

Best Storyline in a Linear Game – Mafia II

Many people didn’t realize Mafia II was going to be a linear experience until they played it.  However, even though some people felt duped by the games seemingly linear take on a very open genre – once they got into Vito’s classic mafioso story, they pretty much stopped caring about the game’s linearity.  Did you like The Godfather?  Goodfellas?  A Bronx Tale?  Then you’ll love Mafia II.  It may just be the best mob movie you’ve ever played.

Best Storyline in an Open Game – Red Dead Redemption

Best Voice Acting – Mass Effect 2

Mordin stole the show – hell, he almost stole the game.  Not to mention Jennifer Hale as female Shepard owns the galaxy in a totally cougarlicious way.  The rest of the voice cast was equally talented.

Worst Voice Acting - Metro 2033

Now, I understand that a game made by Eastern Europeans will feature some questionable voice acting – however, we’ve heard better Russian accents down in Chinatown!!  Luckily the graphics (on PC) and gameplay in Metro 2033 were extremely solid – so nobody really noticed . . .except us.  Is this award being given to Metro 2033 simply because we wanted to award this bad ass game with something for better or for worse?  You bet your ass it is.

Sometimes, sequels are great – and sometimes, they’re not so great:

Best Sequel – Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood

AssCreeBro improved upon Assassin’s Creed 2 in almost every way.  The great story, visuals and gameplay were all there, and they even added multiplayer that kicked ass.  Bra-fucking-vo Ezio.

Worst Sequel - Crackdown 2

Yeah, they fucked this one up.  Could have been a great sequel to a fun game – instead it was mediocre in every way.  Fail.

The Return of Duke Nukem

This year at PAX, Gearbox Software announced they owned the Duke Nukem IP and would finally be releasing Duke Nukem Forever.  A game that was lauded as vaporware of the year for over a decade.  Some laughed, others cried – some of us kicked ass and chewed bubblegum as we actually played the demo.  There’s no question that Duke is finally back – Hail to the King, baby.

But we weren’t the only ones with Duke fever.  (Way better than Bieber fever)  A small group of programmers has been given the go ahead by Gearbox to remake Duke 3D with the Unreal 3 engine and a short fan film was also made this year.  I think it’s safe to say that Duke is back – in a big way.

Our editor even spoke with Gearbox about bringing back the Duke during PAX – Read the interview here.

Long before the days of multiplayer – games were single player experiences:

Best Single Player – Read Dead Redemption

What can we say about Red Dead Redemption that you don’t already know?  It’s a great open world game featuring a great protagonist that could literally keep you occupied all year with the amount of content provided.

Worst Single Player – Metroid: Other M

Nintendo tried, they really did.  Unfortunately, they failed.  If it ain’t broke – stop trying to fix it.

Nowadays, many games are all about the multiplayer experience:

Best Multiplayer – Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Vietnam

Just when we thought the BFBC 2 multiplayer experience couldn’t get any better – they took it to Viet-fuckin-nam!! . . .and it did

Most Broken Multiplayer – Call of Duty: Black Ops

Don’t get us wrong, Black Ops single player is great and the multiplayer is a fuckin’ blast – especially with all the new modes – only problem is getting it to WORK!!  See this, this and this for reference.  /sigh

Now, we know THIS is the award you’ve all been waiting for so here it is, you fucking perverts:

Best Tits – Jen (Splatterhouse)

Yeah, They're Perfect

Best Ass – Miranda (Mass Effect 2)

"Yeah, Imma Tap Dat"

Sexiest Male Protagonist – Ezio Auditore (AssCreeBro)

"Mi Scusi!! You Want We Should Make Love Now or Later?"

Least Sexy Male Protagonist – Joe Barbaro (Mafia II)

"Who Da Fuck You Sayin' Ain't Sexy!?"

Sometimes it’s the little things like sound that make a great game:

Once again, Super Meat Boy takes home an award well deserved.  The entire staff has this soundtrack and Danny B’s cool techno grooves are perfect for getting us through the work day.  Uhn-tiss uhn-tiss uhn-tiss baby.  Here are some of our favorites:

Now on to awards that really don’t fall into any one category – the RipTen Randoms:

The Masterpiece You Have Already Forgotten

Darksiders (Editor’s Choice)

Best Hero – Commander Shepard (Mass Effect 2)

Best Villain – Bobby Kotick (Activision)

The Best GOTY Edition – Borderlands GOTY Edition

The Game We Liked That Everyone Else Hated

Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days

Funniest Game – Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue

The Most Polarizing Game – Alpha Protocol

Best Ending: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

Best Game Featuring Nazi Zombies

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Best Companion Character

Boone (Fallout: New Vegas)

Best Use of a Shitty Old Game Engine

Fallout: New Vegas

Most Overlooked Game – Singularity

Best Reboot: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

Game We Really Wanted to Come Out in 2010 but Didn’t

Gears of War 3

Best Random Use of the Trigger Buttons

(L2 To Smoke a Cig) – Vanquish

Most Mindless Fun – Splatterhouse

Game with the Most Potential Lost Due to Buggy, Unpolished Gameplay and Bland Visuals

(Insert Any Obsidian Title Here)

<3

If you’ve managed to get through the rest of our awards – congratulations – here is the one you’ve really been waiting for:

That’s right - it’s a tie. The RipTeam was deadlocked between Red Dead Redemption and Super Meat Boy.  However, once we really thought about it – both of these games represent everything that is right about gaming today, and they both deserve to be Game of the Year.

Red Dead Redemption is a sweeping open world epic.  On it’s surface it’s the Grand Theft Auto of the Wild west, but underneath you will find that it’s much more.  Rockstar has managed to improve on a tried and true formula many thought they’d already perfected with Grand Theft Auto IV.  What we got instead was a better game, one that not only looked and played better – but delivered more content per square inch than any Rockstar game that has come before.  It’s a AAA title from a AAA developer and may be Rockstar’s best work to date.  It’s well worth it’s full $60 price as it is truly a game that can keep you entertained all year long.

On the complete other side of the spectrum we have Super Meat Boy.  A $15 indie title that may very well be the best 2D platformer of all time.  Super Meat Boy is not so much the game of year in what it does right – which is everything – but in what it does wrong – nothing.  Super Meat Boy is a perfect game. The visuals are perfect, the sound is perfect, the controls are perfect.  The game is only as hard as you are skilled and you will never blame the game when you fail and will surely exalt triumphantly when you succeed.  It pays just the right amount of homage to all it’s indie brethren and also to all the great games that paved the way for it’s existence.  Super Meat Boy respects all the games of the past, while in itself re-defining the future of a genre that many thought had left no stone unturned.

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So, there you have it.  RipTen’s choices for the best and worst of 2010.  Don’t agree?  Too bad.

See you next year!!