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.
hennerzcfc
glad its not black ops.
hazelam
good to see one of the less mainstream games getting the nod, i would have been very disappointed if something like call of duty won.
i have to get heavy rain one day. :)
mynameisblair
My personal game of the year is Rock Band 3, with God of War 3 being a close second.
boyinastairwell
A worthy winner; the only game I’ve bothered getting the platinum trophy for! I think other personal highlights were RDR and Black Ops. Biggest let down for me was GoW III, although I may give it another try…
Grey_Ghost13
Nice surprising result! Thanks too to ColossalBlue for putting the lists together and compiling the results with great articles. Here’s to 2011 stellar list of games to come!
Will TSA’s most anticipated game of 2011 take next years GOTY? Also what was last years most anticipated game and where did that score this year?
DrNate86
What a surprising but satisfying result! I was sure RDR would win from the comments, but HR firmly had my vote as it was just so different and compelling.
Darth Newdar
Never played Heavy Rain, but I’m glad something different and revolutionary won.
Beelzie14
I think it says a lot for the TSA community that something like HR can win this category over the likes of COD and RDR. We tend to embrace ambition to be different.
mugsybalone
A surprising result, but I’m quite happy about it.
Now, I wonder what game’ll win LeaderGamer’s Game of the Year award?
Tuffcub
Deserved winner.