Nukezilla’s 2011 Game of The Year Awards

Every site has some form of game of the year award, so here, at long last (mostly my fault) is Nukezilla‘s. To be considered, the game had to have been first released in 2011 (in other words, no Platinum Hits or GotY Edition re-releases). Each writer (or editor, or whatever) was allowed to submit a ballot of their top three games. They had to have played the games they voted for at least to the point they felt they could write a review if asked. Points were assigned by placing, votes were tallied, and here are our top five.

Number 5 – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Yes, it’s stupid fun. And John didn’t like it as much as Black Ops. And it mainly got one of my votes because I was broke all year and it was one of the few games released in 2011 I played that wasn’t horrible. But it cobbled together just enough points for our fifth spot on the list.

Number 4 – Batman: Arkham City

Rocksteady’s follow-up to the 2009 hit Batman: Arkham Asylum delivered one of the best superhero games ever made. Even comic book fans couldn’t find much to bitch about. Even though some jackass at Yahoo may have given it a 6/5, it was only good enough for fourth place on our list.

Number 3 – Deus Ex: Human Revolution

It’s always tough reviving a classic, but Eidos Montreal did an exceptional job of recapturing some of the magic that made original Deus Ex so popular. The outsourced boss battles drew the ire of some fans, but the game was still good enough to win third.

Number 2 – Portal 2

The original Portal was something of a mystery when The Orange Box launched in 2007. Here was a prettied up remake of a student project bundled alongside heavy-hitters like Team Fortress 2 and the newest installment in the Half-Life franchise. To everyone’s surprise, Portal may have been the breakout success of that pack. You see a hell of a lot more people talking about it than you do HL: Episode 2 at least. Portal 2 manages to keep the wonderful writing and headache inducing puzzles of the original, while adding a separate co-op campaign that’s just as strong as the single player.

Number 1 – The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

As good as the other games on this list are, Skyrim won in a landslide. Its open, engrossing world drew gamers everywhere in and wouldn’t let go. The game can play drastically different, depending on how you play it, but its always excellent. It may have given us that stupid “arrow to the knee” joke, but it also gave us infinite dragons and giants herding mammoths. Excellent, excellent, excellent game.

So there you have it. Nukezilla‘s top 5 games of 2011. While the above games (or at least the top four) are deserving of their praise, many other games received votes as well. Though they may not have made the top 5, here are the other games of 2011 Nukezilla‘s staff felt were worthy for consideration.

Honorable Mentions:

Bastion

Bulletstorm

Saint’s Row: The Third

LA Noire

Shadows of the Damned

Binding of Isaac

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Super Mario 3D Land

Uncharted 3

Train Simulator 2012

Battlefield 3

Xotic

An excellent year for videogames all around, and here’s to an even better 2012.