GameBanshee - GotY 2009

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Gamebanshee publish ther GotY list; the overall winner is Dragon Age: Origins with Drakensang: The Dark Eye being the runner up. Demon's Souls wins best graphics and Hybrid of the year.
First announced in 2004, the originally non-subtitled Dragon Age had a long time to build up expectations. BioWare's releasing of a few RPG-lite titles in the interim – Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and Sonic Chronicles – only served for people to clasp to Dragon Age as a "last hope" of another great cRPG from the company. BioWare played into these expectations, calling this game the spiritual sequel to their seminal work, Baldur's Gate II.

With expectations built up that high, it was easy for Dragon Age: Origins to fall a little short. And in a few elements - most noticeably the lack of character advancement options, the occasional filler combat, and the arguably mediocre soundtrack - well, it did. But despite a handful of shortcomings, the game excelled on many fronts that are crucial to a party-based role-playing game - and it did so without sacrificing a whole lot to today's rampant "consolification" trend. It's our opinion that Dragon Age: Origins is BioWare's strongest title since Baldur's Gate II, and it could even be argued that it rivals their former masterpiece in a few areas.
More information.
 
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My god, Baldur's Gate has truly risen high since it's mentioned with both games. After a decade and the new games still fail to conquer it. Now that's an achievement for a RPG!

Drakensang: The Dark Eye (Runner-up)

It's been a pretty solid year for cRPGs, so it was somewhat difficult to choose our runner-up - moreso, in fact, than it was to choose the winner. In the end, we opted to go not with a title that did something spectacularly right, but one that didn't really do much of anything wrong.

Drakensang was not the spiritual sequel to the classic Realms of Arkania series some people hoped it would be. Amusingly, the title is more clearly meant to copy the strengths of Baldur's Gate. It achieves this goal competently, with a solid if somewhat unexciting main story, combat system, and set of companions. But what really pulls the game into a higher tier of quality is its excellent setting and the stats-heavy pen-and-paper system that it's based on.

In all, The Dark Eye makes for a pleasant RPG experience. It's a promising first title from Radon Labs, and the primary reason why we're eyeing 2010's Drakensang: The River of Time so closely.

A bit bold choide but I'm glad that GameBanshee put Drakensang as runner up (2nd). It's the only game that has reminded me of Baldur's Gate. Especially the first impression was the same; I didn't had a clue about the rules but the game seemed so interesting. It was pleasent journey to get familiar with The Dark Eye rules and now I'm eagerly waiting for more. The other very positive side that I liked about Drakensang was the traditional design, shield should look like a shield and not a damn leaf or something.
 
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There runner up for GOTY is a bit weird since If you look at the other catagories Risen placed second best after Dragon's Age: Origins in total and then they pick a game that didn't place at all for runner up for GOTY. I think Drakensang deserves it even though I like Risen better but it is a little weird still.
 
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I'm not sure Risen's story is good enough to be the runner up in the Best Story/Writing category.
 
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There runner up for GOTY is a bit weird since If you look at the other catagories Risen placed second best after Dragon's Age: Origins in total and then they pick a game that didn't place at all for runner up for GOTY.

Yip. Because, as the description says, Drakensang didn't do anything spectacularly right, but it didn't do anything spectacularly wrong either. I liked Risen, but certain flaws, most noticeably its ending sequence, just bumped it off for me.

I'm not sure Risen's story is good enough to be the runner up in the Best Story/Writing category.

Story? As in main story? No. But the writing of the factions and main characters? Yes.

Remember it's a "best of" award, not a question of overall quality, just whether or not it is better than the rest. What game could have bumped Risen out of the story/writing runner-up position?
 
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Remember it's a "best of" award, not a question of overall quality, just whether or not it is better than the rest. What game could have bumped Risen out of the story/writing runner-up position?

That is always the confusion ... sometimes people forget the context of 'as compared to other RPG's of the year'. Personally I liked the article.
 
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