This is it. This is where it’s all been leading. We’ve got our sparkly gold envelope in hand and the two best celebrities we could afford* are about to take to the stage and announce the grand winner.
This final overall winner is the game which we thought was the absolute best, the most enjoyable or impressive, of the year. It could have been from any platform, any distribution method and any style of control. In this category Angry Birds faced off against Halo: Reach, Dance Central stared cooly into the eyes of Mass Effect 2 and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood stabbed God of War III in the throat and disappeared into the crowd before the police cruisers from Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit could arrive.
Obviously, this category was hard-fought. Our sub categories have seen some truly exceptional games beat out the opposition and rise to the top of a specific platform’s (or specifically multi platform’s) fare. But that was all just a prelude to the main event.
The inclusion of the Community Team member’s votes mixed things up a bit with several of them favouring some of the year’s big multiplayer hits and adding a little variation to our list. In a year that has seen so many top quality game releases we’re pleased that we’ve been able to recognise so many with titles and inclusion in our lists.
As with the categories that have gone before, any one of these games would have been a justifiable winner of the overall award. Black Ops’ exceptional production values, Halo: Reach’s imaginative immersion techniques, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood’s compelling storyline, Red Dead Redemption’s atmosphere and style, Starcraft II’s balance and tuning or Mass Effect 2’s narrative could all have been reason to pick them over any other. Gran Turismo 5 and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit with their stunning (in two very different ways) visuals would have been worthy winners, as would God of War III with its gargantuan setting and visceral scenes.
None of those games emerged victorious though. There can be only one overall winner of TheSixthAxis’ Game of the Year 2010 and that winner is: Heavy Rain.
*We couldn’t really afford celebrities and we haven’t really got a stage. The magic of showbiz.
nichotshoter
Angry Birds faced off against Halo: Reach, Dance Central stared cooly into the eyes of Mass Effect 2 and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood stabbed God of War III in the throat and disappeared into the crowd before the police cruisers from Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit could arrive. LoL TSA have to say I loved that line.
gazzagb
Haven’t played Heavy Rain so can’t comment, but RDR and ACB were lower down than I expected, especially as I voted for them! :P
Dan Lee
Thanks to Cb for all the hard work getting these together!
TSBonyman
Great result! I knew Heavy Rain was going to be something special ever since that first ‘Audition’ tech preview and it didn’t let me down. Second only to The Last Guardian in terms of Wow factor.
Kennykazey
A somewhat surprising result, but well deserved.
ARUMIR
No Demon’s Souls *cries*
I’m starting to dislike many games I don’t know if NFS, GoW or Cod would be contenders but I’m glad to see Heavy Rain has a Goty even though I would continuously scream for Monster Hunter Tri but then again its always about teh graphics in the tragic mainstream lands.
Dan Lee
I enjoyed Monster Hunter Tri, but felt the Wii’s online capability held it back.
ARUMIR
The online was okay, but the problem was that MHFU and maybe MHP3rd had more items to hunt for than what Tri offered which was annoying.
MadBoJangles
Demon’s Souls would be my pick too.
Heavy Rain was good, I really enjoyed it (so much so I got the Platinum trophy for it) but GOTY? Unsure personally.
Redwink
I fulle agree with Heavy Rain being the game of the year, but I thought Red Dead Redemption was going to climb a little bit higher than that.
jayjay119
Heavy Rain? Really? I’m rather surprised as, to me Heavy Rain is more one long interactive cut-scene than an actual game, but it’s a beautiful piece of work none the less. Plus it was nice to actually be surprised, which we know we will not be next year.
jimmy-google
Next rear could be a real battle between Uncharted and The Last Guardian (as well as the yet to be announced TSA 2011 most anticipated game). I’m sure the likes of LBP2, Dead Space 2, Portal 2 (and a few others) will really challenge. If the voting is carried out in the same way there could be some big suprises.
Yahavage
Surprising result, but certainly well deserved :) I’m looking forward to playing it through again now that I have a move!
Jim H [Teabags]
Some well deserved winners there. Despite voting for HR myself, I never thought it would come out on top of Mass Effect 2 or Black Ops.
Red Dead didn’t even make my top five this year; though it started off amazing, the formula was too repetitive, and the barren landscapes were very offputting to me, personally.
jimmy-google
I went for HR too but I was expecting RDR to come out on top (I’ve been very pleased that it hasn’t). I only finished it so I could send it back to lovefilm and get something else (had I bought it I don’t think I’d have played more than a few hours).
It was a close call between HR and Modnation Racers for me but HR was almost a once in a generation type of game.