The editorial staff and most regular contributors of TheSixthAxis have cast their votes. We’ll be telling you what we think is our Game of the Year for 2012 very soon. But every year, when we run our Game of the Year series on TSA, we want to include our community in some way. With the hectic end-of-year workload we have – making sure there’s fresh material on the website, even when game releases and news slow down – that hasn’t been possible. This year, we’ve made it possible.
The categories are the same as the ones we used for the staff vote and, while it’s impossible to perfectly define modern videogames into easily recognisable boxes, we think they’re fairly representative.
There’s a category for each of the genres that we felt were well represented this year and, because some genres don’t have a specific category (Fighting and Platform, for example, because there wasn’t a great wealth of games in those genres in 2012), there’s a category called “Genre Agnostic”. This is the place for games which weren’t easily deposited into any of the other categories, for whatever reason.
Some games may appear in more than one category. Uncharted: Golden Abyss was a great Action Adventure game which some of our staff felt should be included in that genre’s Game of the Year discussion but it’s also a great handheld game. Football Manager is a great Strategy game but it’s also a Sports game. As I said, genres in modern games are tricky to define so we had to just do our best.
Likewise, it’s worth mentioning the Mobile and Handheld categories. I think that this might be the last year they’re worth considering as separate categories, because of the great leaps forward mobile gaming is making and its immense popularity. But this year, it didn’t feel right to consider games like Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation alongside games like Super Hexagon. So we did our best with defining categories.
There’s a space for you to enter any game title you wish (please try to be accurate with spelling, it helps with collating results!) but there’s also a drop down menu, which will hopefully make it nice and easy for most to cast their votes. The contents of the drop-down menus show every game nominated by a member of TSA staff for each category, they show what we considered for our voting but every gamer is different so feel free to add your own.
We’ll close voting on Friday the 28th, so you have time to consider any games you get for Christmas and I still have time to collate all the results before we announce your winners.
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Erroneus
Done. Hitman Absolution should have been as a choice in some of the categories though, seems like you forgot it.
yiddo
Yeah I noticed it was absent on the Overall GOTY category list.
Youles
Agreed, I thought the same.
I also thought Sniper Elite V2 could have been in the shooter section, although TSA only gave it 6/10.
Peter Chapman
nobody on staff nominated it but that’s what the “Other” box is for!
Motalla
Done, I hope my favourite TSA-meet game wins. Come on R1MJAW, OA and forrest, vote!
Taylor Made
Can I also say in overall game of the year section you put littlebigplanet vita twice, I know you love the game guys but be fair :p
cc_star
Doesn’t matter what you select, all votes get counted as LBP Vita anyway!*
*Not really
Peter Chapman
fixed, thanks :)
Origami Killer
Voted for all mine, haven’t played a lot of the games on each list though so could be fairly biased in a way. Anyhow Journey won a lot of my votes.
jimmy-google
Really wanted a free to play category, maybe and HD collection category would have been good too.
Certainly harder to pick some winners this year when you have the likes LBP Vita, Journey and PSASBR in the same category.
I think the voting will be a lot more spread out this year with so much choice.
Personally I’d keep mobile and handheld separate. It’s very hard to compare a game like Uncharted to Angry Birds but then it does seem to strange to have mobile/handheld categories with out home console or ps3/360/wii categories.
Peter Chapman
it’s so tricky to know what categories to use because the landscape is so diverse these days. For instance, it’s hard to compare a game like Uncharted: Golden Abyss or AC: Liberation to something like Super Hexagon but it’s also very difficult to compare something like Velocity to Uncharted.
Some mobile games are at least the equal of some 3DS/DS/Vita/PSP games too.
And genres are so spread out as well. Sound Shapes is technically a platformer, I suppose, but is it comparable to New Super Mario Bros 2 or LBP Vita? What about Rayman Jungle Run?
So, yeah, there are always going to be grey areas (which indicate a positive in the industry, just make this kind of thing difficult) and we just have to do our best with it.
I personally like the idea of movie-style awards though. Things like best art direction and best original script rather than focusing on the mechanical and technical aspects of games, focus on the artistic ones. I was trying to do an alternative awards thing like this in January last year but I got really sick and couldn’t dedicate the time to it. Perhaps I’ll get time this year.
jimmy-google
That sounds great.
Putting together the categories must be a nightmare of a job. Glad I didn’t have to do it.
Kennykazey
Yeah, I felt the categories were rather open, you should try to narrow them down next year. I agree that mobile and handheld games should be kept separate, and minis and PSmobile games can be separated from handheld aswell.
I love the idea of a more artistic take on the awards, separating best original score and best soundtrack could work. Sleeping Dogs has a great soundtrack (radio music, for example) , but not a very memorable score.
Nocure-fd
Done. Surprised how often I voted for Torchlight 2 after a quick mental review of the games I played this year….
ron_mcphatty
Voted! I really like these features, its often a surprise to see what you guys have been enjoying and what you haven’t. It’s a shame no one nominated FTL: Faster Than Light, though hopefully some of you tried it out!
Peter Chapman
Oh man, I forgot about FTL when we were doing this and now I’m really gutted. It’s a great game!
ron_mcphatty
Bugger! Never mind, I’m fairly positive it’ll get some votes. There are so many indie strategy/puzzle games around now, I don’t buy many but I can imagine for you guys its hard to remember them all.
avengerrr
Votes done. Do you know how long I spent on the agnostic section? Really? I mean putting that many good games in to one section is just cruel. lol.
jimmy-google
Having looked at all the games I could have voted for I’ve realised I still have a lot of games to play. I’m sure in 12 months time I would have voted differently.
I’ve always wondered what would happen if voting for GOTY happened say 5 years later. Most people will still be waiting to play some games at Christmas and some games don’t stand the test of time that well. I only played MGS 2, Jak and Daxter and the original Ratchet and Clanks for the first time this year. I think the results would be quite different. Would GTA IV win all the GOTY awards now that it won back in 2008?
jimmy-google
TSAs weren’t bad looking back at 2008.
http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2008/12/29/tsa-awards-2008/
I can’t find the community awards
Moshbag
Just so you know, Twisted Metal should be in the shooter section, not racing.