GameBanshee - GotY 2010

I forgot to post GameBanshee's Game of the Year Awards, so head on over. They cover a number of different categories: Best Story/Writing (Alpha Protocol), Best Graphics (Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer), Best Sound/Music (Mass Effect 2), Best Expansion/DLC (WoW: Cataclysm), Most Anticipated (Witcher 2), Indie RPG of the Year (Din's Curse), Hybrid of the Year (ME2) and RPG of the Year (F: NV).
More information.

Wow! Avernum 6 runner up as best RPG of the year? And no mention of DKS?

Not sure what "hybrid" is defined as...

Definitely agree with their choice for Most Anticipated....

Great list - showing that Game Banshee still got what it takes

And kudos for bringing Alpha Protocol up.

As for Witcher 2 ... Probably the most anticipated game in whole after Guild Wars 2

Why is ME2 a hybrid when NV isn't?

They both have weighty elements of other genres, most notably the shooter genre.

If it's about what element weighs the most, then surely ME2 is a shooter

Personally I regard ME2 as a city builder.

Says Pibbur who in general is not to be taken seriously and who sometimes writes very lame things.

pibbur said:

Personally I regard ME2 as a city builder.

Says Pibbur who in general is not to be taken seriously and who sometimes writes very lame things.

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I think its best defined on what you do spend most of your time while playing. In ME2 you run along corridors and shoot. And have lenghty dialogues. And then theres the probing. If there was a unique name for each game then ME2 might be somthing like shooter with dialogues and probing.

zakhal said:

I think its best defined on what you do spend most of your time while playing. In ME2 you run along corridors and shoot. And have lenghty dialogues. And then theres the probing. If there was a unique name for each game then ME2 might be somthing like shooter with dialogues and probing.

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Makes sense to me. (And now I'm serious)

Lets just call it a probing game.

Probing RPG ?

Alrik Fassbauer said:

Probing RPG ?

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The player is then awarded a card that rates your performance. For exceptional probing, the player is rewarded with a small trophy.

... And once again the old saying proves to be true :

"Your own level of imagination is only surpassed by the reality" ...

OK, it's not Game of the Year if you give out the award to eight (8) different games. Man of the Year is one man (or Person of the Year is one Person), that's the whole point of the Person or Game being singular. If you want to give out eight (8) separate awards, then call them something else.

I hate everything.

Thrasher said:

Wow! Avernum 6 runner up as best RPG of the year? And no mention of DKS?

Not sure what "hybrid" is defined as…

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Just wanted to say Avernum 6 is a fantastic RPG and I'm glad it got some recognition somewhere.

Yes, but isn't it the same game as the first 5?

That depends on how you want to define it. I know some people will say "yes" (come one, crpgnut - you can let this one go ) but I'd say "no".

I'd argue that more importantly, 90%+ of our readers* (*pure guess - but do you think I'm wrong?) haven't played an Avernum to completion ever, or at least, for several years. In that instance, is it relevant if they share similarities?

As a final comment, I see plenty of people who claim they would be happy with BG3 made with the exact same engine, or ToEE 2 with the same engine. Avernum 6 has more content than most RPGs and better content than many - certainly some of the best content ever released in an indie RPG. It's worth a look and it's a shame a whole bunch of people just repeat "aren't they all the same?" (no, not you crpgnut) without properly trying any of them.

I certainly can strongly recommend that everyone try at least one of them. I played through A5 to completion and loved it. Same thing for Geneforge 5. But I am not strongly interested in replaying them, nor the other incarnations because there just isn't enough variety in the gameplay.

Well, that's fair enough. Though I'm not sure why you seemed surprised at GameBanshee's nomination?

I roughly agree with the awards. Haven't played Avernum 6, nor is TW2 my most anticipated for 2011, but other than that it seems fine.

Thrasher said:

Yes, but isn't it the same game as the first 5?

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Lol that is awfully nasty! I have played some but only a bit of Avernum 6 and in fact all I played had a rather different gameplay design approach.

If I have one to advise it's Avernum 1 because it is an amazing example of successful open world design. The Avernum 2 overall design is more in the spirit of some JRPG with a mix linearity and successive open world area. But it ends a bit in the spirit of Avernum 1 but is far to reach the same accurate open world design. Avernum 5 was definitely setup as a run forward from an area to another area. The area design is also hugely different because it doesn't use large scale exploration like in Avernum 1. Avernum 6 seems to be an attempt to a design of a large open world like in Avernum 1, but without the multi scale approach of A1, world exploration large scale and close scale area exploration for exploring special area parts like a town, a special outdoor area part, a dungeon and so on.

I played only a part of A6 and in part for me it shows how difficult it is to setup RPG giving you a feeling of a large world area without using the multi scale approach.

For me if Avernum fails in diversity it's in game rules bases and graphics. For 6 episodes big new rules changes and total graphic resets was really needed and not have made it kill a bit the series. But economically that was also a very important point to reduce the costs of the series so well, it's still a nice set of unique RPG.