Game Awards 2011 - Results!

Mr E

OK... done and dusted for another year. Did your favourites win?

Winners are listed below.
To see how they compared to the runners-up (and to see how close some of the categories were) click here to look at all results (Flash required).

Notes:
- Some categories that only had one nominee were not up for the public vote.
- I know Minecraft was listed twice in best game design (but it was still a distant second anyway)

Xbox 360

Category_______________________|Winner
360: Best Sports|FIFA 12
360: Best Racing|Forza 4
360: Best Strategy/Puzzle|Portal 2
360: Best XBLA|Bastion
360: Best Action Adventure |Batman Arkham City
360: Best RPG|Skyrim
360: Best Overall|Skyrim


PS3

Category_______________________|Winner
PS3: Best Action/Adventure|Uncharted 3
PS3: Best RPG|Skyrim
PS3: Best Sports|Fifa 12
PS3: Best PSN|Mad Blocker Alpha: Revenge of the Fluzzles
PS3: Best Strategy/Puzzle|Portal 2
PS3: Best Racing|Dirt 3
PS3: Best Overall|Skyrim


PC

Category_______________________|Winner
PC: Best Action Adventure|Portal 2
PC: Best Sports|Fifa 12
PC: Best RPG|Skyrim
PC: Best Racing|Dirt 3
PC: Best Strategy/Puzzle|Shogun 2
PC: Best Indie|Bastion
PC: Best Overall|Skyrim


Wii

Category_______________________|Winner
Wii: Best Wiiware|Hydroventure
Wii: Best Racing|Trackmania
Wii: Best Sports|Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games 2012
Wii: Best RPG|Xenoblade Chronicles (only nomination - wins by default)
Wii: Best Strategy/Puzzle|No nominees
Wii: Best Action Adventure|Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Wii: Best Overall|Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword


Portable

Category_______________________|Winner
PSP: Best RPG|Persona 2
PSP: Best Action/Adventure|Third Birthday
PSP: Best Sports/Racing|No nominees
PSP: Best Puzzle/Strategy|Corpse Party
PSP: Best Overall|Persona 2
DS/3DS: Best RPG|Radiant Historia
DS/3DS: Best Sports/Racing|Mario Kart 7
DS/3DS: Best Puzzle/Strategy|Professor Layton and the Last Specter
DS/3DS: Best Action/Adventure|Ocarina of Time 3D
DS/3DS: Best Overall|Super Mario 3D Land
iOS: Best Sports/Racing|Football Manager 2012
iOS: Best Puzzle/Strategy|Scribblenauts Remix
iOS: Best Action/Adventure|World of Goo & Infinity Blade (Joint)
iOS: Best RPG|Chrono Trigger
iOS: Best Overall|Infinity Blade 2


Fun

Category_______________________|Winner
Fun: Hottest Female|Catwoman - Batman Arkham City
Fun: Best Story|Portal 2
Fun: Best Graphics/Art Design|Rayman Origins
Fun: Biggest Disappointment|Duke Nukem Forever
Fun: WTF Were They Thinking Award|Duke Nukem Forever
Fun: Best Character|Wheatley - Portal 2
Fun: Best Sound/Sound Design|Battlefield 3
Fun: Hottest Male|Captain Price - Modern Warfare 3
Fun: Best Boss Fight|Batman Arkham City - Mr. Freeze
Fun: Pleasant Surprise|Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Fun: Best Game Design|Portal 2


Overall

Category_______________________|Winner
Overall: Best Download Only Game|Minecraft
Overall: Best Sports|Madden 12
Overall: Best Fighting|Mortal Kombat
Overall: Best RPG|Skyrim
Overall: Best Strategy|Portal 2
Overall: Best Action/Adventure|Batman Arkham City
Overall: Best Online Game|Battlefield 3
Overall: Best Racing|Mario Kart 7


Game of the Year 2011
Position________________________|Winner
1st|Skyrim
2nd|Portal 2
3rd|Dark Souls

calex71

Hoorah for the lack of MW:3 love

eh..... hottest male award

Disappointed not to see Deus Ex in there somewhere or Dead Island those deserved a mention.

johnny_ultimate

****ing Skyrim.

That is all.

Retr0gamer

**** Skyrim. Dark Souls is way better!

Also Catwoman from Arkham City? I just hope it's because votes were split over Catherine/Katerine :P

Also Best boss fight is bull****. Anything but a Dark Souls boss winning that category is a travesty.

Biggest Surprise being Deus Ex? Even when all previews pointed to it being something amazing all year? Vote for a real pleasant surprise next time.

Other than that my annual ranting is finished.

Skerries

how old is Chrono Trigger??
Deus EX:HR just didn't do it for me, I got bored and went on a killing spree
I must actually get round to playing my copy of Demons Souls to see if Dark Souls is worth it
BF3: yeah! a multiplayer game I actually like so much that I haven't even played the SP

Magill

Good enough list, was a good year for games.

Tho... bit odd that fifa12 won best sports game for the main 3 platforms yet madden12(How many people have actually even played this ?!?!?) won overall.

Zero-Cool

Excellent, fair play the Open Emotion Studios boys for winning with Mad Blocker Alpha!

Josey Wales

I've never even heard of the PSN downloadable game Mad Blocker Alpha. I must check it out.

I'm a little disappointed not to see Deus Ex: HR represented anywhere. For me it was probably the best game of last year. Although I still have many of last years big games unplayed on my shelf.

Zero-Cool

Josey Wales wrote: »

I've never even heard of the PSN downloadable game Mad Blocker Alpha. I must check it out.

It's a great puzzle game made by local Limerick lads. Well worth the few quid.

NinjaK

no shooter category, fail

ShadowHearth

I knew we have alot of McDonald's fans in here so skyrim won...

Ah well, still fair play for doing these awards m8! Roll on 2012!

pablomakaveli

Dont know why people are bitching about Skyrim like its some sort of travesty it won. I guess we'll always have the hipsters who won't like the popular opinion.

I'm not surprised by any of the results anyway. I think it mostly fair overall.

hypersquirrel

pablomakaveli wrote: »

Dont know why people are bitching about Skyrim like its some sort of travesty it won. I guess we'll always have the hipsters who won't like the popular opinion.

I'm not surprised by any of the results anyway. I think it mostly fair overall.

You don't have to be a hipster to say that Skyrim didn't deserve it. I'm a huge elder scrolls fan and I will very happily say that Dark Souls was more deserving. Having played through two playthroughs on both games I can say it will be a long time before I get the urge to play Skyrim again but I end up playing Dark Souls almost everyday. Skyrim won because more people played it but that doesn't necessarily mean it is the best game. Just look at MW3.

pablomakaveli

hypersquirrel wrote: »

You don't have to be a hipster to say that Skyrim didn't deserve it. I'm a huge elder scrolls fan and I will very happily say that Dark Souls was more deserving. Having played through two playthroughs on both games I can say it will be a long time before I get the urge to play Skyrim again but I end up playing Dark Souls almost everyday. Skyrim won because more people played it but that doesn't necessarily mean it is the best game. Just look at MW3.

Which is the better game is subjective as well. So just because more people played Skyrim doesnt mean that it is any less desrving of its win.

Retr0gamer

pablomakaveli wrote: »

Which is the better game is subjective as well. So just because more people played Skyrim doesnt mean that it is any less desrving of its win.

There's nothing subjective about it. Dark Souls is the daddy. Fact!

ShadowHearth

Retr0gamer wrote: »

There's nothing subjective about it. Dark Souls is the daddy. Fact!

unfortunately i havent even played dark souls yet, but i played demon sauls. so if dark souls is demon souls 2.0, then it is already better game then skyrim.

even if something is very popular, it does not mean its an quality product.

NotorietyH

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Biggest Surprise being Deus Ex? Even when all previews pointed to it being something amazing all year? Vote for a real pleasant surprise next time.

Deus Ex had terrible previews coming out of E3, pretty much every podcast I listened to at the time mentioned how average and unimpressive it looked. Made me completely discount the game, so it was a surprise how much I liked it.

pablomakaveli

Retr0gamer wrote: »

There's nothing subjective about it. Dark Souls is the daddy. Fact!

The award results suggest otherwise.;)

pablomakaveli

NotorietyH wrote: »

Deus Ex had terrible previews coming out of E3, pretty much every podcast I listened to at the time mentioned how average and unimpressive it looked. Made me completely discount the game, so it was a surprise how much I liked it.

I put Deus Ex as my pleasant surprise too. I hadnt played the original version and hadnt read any previews of the game so didnt really know what to expect so was a pleasant surprise for me on playing through it.

Retr0gamer

ShadowHearth wrote: »

unfortunately i havent even played dark souls yet, but i played demon sauls. so if dark souls is demon souls 2.0, then it is already better game then skyrim.

even if something is very popular, it does not mean its an quality product.

You can take that comment with a pince of salt as well. Sure I haven't played Skyrim either. However I very much doubt Skyrim is the better game although I know I'll love it, Dark Souls is just that good. If you like Demon's Souls then you owe it to yourself to get Dark Souls. It's a massive improvement on what is already an amazing game.

NotorietyH wrote: »

Deus Ex had terrible previews coming out of E3, pretty much every podcast I listened to at the time mentioned how average and unimpressive it looked. Made me completely discount the game, so it was a surprise how much I liked it.

I was listening to 1up and reading Eurogamer, they all loved it before and after E3. All I kept hearing about was how amazing that E3 demo was and how you could choose to sneak into the police station or re-enact the police station scene from Terminator. I didn't read anything bad about it and even in interviews the team really knew what they were doing and were on the ball with everything from the art direction to making sure choices mattered.

Grumpypants

For once i pretty much agree with(or at least can see where people are coming from) this years winners.

Magill

While Skyrim is a great game, its always going to be a numbers game. No doubt far more people that voted have played skyrim compared to darksouls, thus it was bound to win.

Simple math really.

johnny_ultimate

My problem with Skyrim is that it's only a minor refinement of Oblivion and Fallout 3. The rough edges - poor combat, laughable uncanny valley - remain. Good stuff, but compared to the far tighter design of other games it seems rough and Ho-hum in comparison.

But yeah, certainly a case where more people played it, therefore it's popularity is unsurprising. But the having played most of the big and small titles this year on all formats, Skyrim was one of the games that felt lacking.

Retr0gamer

Still there's far worse games that could have won, it's still a great game. Just disappointing it swept the board and left no room for others

Also no Tactics Ogre for PSP anywhere to be seen. It's one of the best games ever made but unfortunately on the PSP so nobody played it.

Burning Eclipse

Big thanks to Mr E for all his work on this as usual.

NotorietyH

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I was listening to 1up and reading Eurogamer, they all loved it before and after E3. All I kept hearing about was how amazing that E3 demo was and how you could choose to sneak into the police station or re-enact the police station scene from Terminator. I didn't read anything bad about it and even in interviews the team really knew what they were doing and were on the ball with everything from the art direction to making sure choices mattered.

I was listening to Giant Bomb, Joystiq and Game Informer at the time and they weren't impressed, or at least said it was very forgettable. So it was a pleasant surprise to me at least. Don't think there was unanimous praise or negativity for it, but depending on who you were paying attention to it could've been a surprise.

Potential-Monke

I'm going to take the other angle and say that Skyrim was better than Dark Souls for one simple reason: it was more accessible. I played, and really tried, to get into Dark Souls but it just did not click. It was too punishable, made you work really hard even at the start. Whereas Skyrim was more easy to get into, and got hard for a while before making me feel like i was an untouchable God! That, in my opinion, is why it is perceived as better.

As i said in another thread, i prefer games which do not require persistent, precise gameplay to get reward. A few steps beyond pick-up-an-play, but nowhere near ending credits on Tetris hard. And most gamers, i believe, would also prefer that style.

But i do give kudos to those who prefer the harder challenge, and prefer to work hard for the rewards.


As for the results, disappointed not to see Dead Island feature, and Deus Ex feature a bit more (best soundtrack ever!), but overall happy.

Retr0gamer

Potential-Monke wrote: »

Skyrim was better than Dark Souls for one simple reason: it was more accessible. I played, and really tried, to get into Dark Souls but it just did not click. It was too punishable, made you work really hard even at the start.

Ah you see you were playing it wrong, my advice to people that find Dark Souls too hard is simple: Man the **** up! :P

hypersquirrel

The thing I found about Dark Souls is that if you know what you are doing it is easy. Unlike most games today it doesn't hold your hand and tell you that this enemy should be attacked in this manner (annoying sidekick screaming it in your ear, or bulging weak spot on the back). Each boss and each enemy had a weakness in their tactics that you needed to learn to exploit. If you kept your shield up and dodged for a while you would learn it and then that enemy that has had you cowering in a corner will be nothing to you.

I finished New Game + in 6 hours and only died three times

Once fighting Ornstein and Smough, once fighting the Four Kings and once in the Tomb of the Giants.

.

The only challenge Skyrim posed me was not smashing my controller after the 20th claw door. I never found myself actually caring what happened. If I died I would respawn at the last door I went through. Usually no more than 5 minutes playtime. I could explore 100 dungeons but after about 5 they felt tired. No point having hundreds of dungeons if each one has the same puzzles as the last.

Skyrim was an amazing game but it was 2 steps forward three steps back for Bethesda.

Doctor DooM

Interesting Mortal Kombat came 1st in fighting games, as it came 4th in a poll over in the actual fighting games forum! This matches the trend all over the place! It really is a game with strong casual appeal.

johnny_ultimate

hypersquirrel wrote: »

The thing I found about Dark Souls is that if you know what you are doing it is easy....

The only challenge Skyrim posed me was not smashing my controller after the 20th claw door. I never found myself actually caring what happened. If I died I would respawn at the last door I went through. Usually no more than 5 minutes playtime. I could explore 100 dungeons but after about 5 they felt tired. No point having hundreds of dungeons if each one has the same puzzles as the last.

Skyrim was an amazing game but it was 2 steps forward three steps back for Bethesda.

I'd agree with this. Dark Souls is tough but fair (bar maybe that guy with the giant arrow on the flying buttresses, and the final boss on anything but a heavy build) once you get past the slight baptism of fire it opens with. Play by the rules and tightly-honed mechanics and there's no reason for frustration to set in. Unless you get repeatedly cursed The rewards are so great in the game that it just enchants for the entirety of the playing time - earning access to yet another brilliantly designed area is far more rewarding than the characterless caves & dungeons of Skyrim (although no denying the overall world is a beautiful place - just one where the rewards are hidden beneath much more fluff).

There's always DoDonPachi Resurrection for anyone who really wants to indulge their inner-masochist :P

oxo_

When was the actual vote held ? Don't remember seeing it at all, nor seeing an exact date beforehand saying when votes could be cast

Also, why was there no nomination section (for PC especially) for best FPS ?

Mr E

Nominations were done over 4 weeks in December/January. Voting was open for a week near the start of January.

Action/Adventure is a better umbrella category than FPS (and having both would have meant very similar sets of games being voted on for each)

oxo_

Advertise the actual vote better in future, please Pissed I missed it, honestly never even saw it available at the time.

I disagree on lumping FPS's into Action/Adventure, especially so for PC.

BF3 is a FPS game, Brink is an FPS game, Left 4 Dead is an FPS game. While they all have action and some adventure in them, so does Skyrim, Settlers, Civs and Dirt 3

An FPS is an FPS and deserves it's own category, actually in fairness, it deserves it's given category of FPS to never be taken away from it in the first place.

I mean all the above with the greatest respect btw, thanks for all the work you put in !

Zero-Cool

Mr. E made a thread in the main games section linking to the awards which he updated frequently with updates about the voting. can't see how he could have made it any more visible

oxo_

Yeah I just missed it, probably because I view the site a lot via the iphone and it's fairly slow most of the time on it, that and it tends to mark threads as read when I've not read them
Personally I'd feel a site wide announcement would've been in order.
I say that because Boards has such a huge readership and I'd give more weight to a game of the year vote run on Boards than I would run from any magazine or elsewhere. The forums are user led and the votes the same and it's an Irish perspective, which to me is more important.

Ah well, no worries. I agree anyway more or less with the ultimate votes the way they came out, apart from the lack of an FPS category

funky penguin

I'm terribly biased towards soundtracks, and I think it's an incredibly important element in gaming...... so can I request a 'Best Music' award for this year? (Maybe under the 'fun' category?)

Mr E

I think that can be arranged.

Arranged..... geddit?

funky penguin

I do, and I love it!

Cheers!

monkeykm

Hello!! Game awards 2012 pls!

Mr E

Start of December.