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And the Winners Are…
Yes, a year has passed since we last feted our favorite pastime—PC gaming. In some ways it feels like it’s been much longer, so rich was the quantity and quality of titles that PC gamers had to choose from. That abundance served to make our job as awarders especially challenging. Nevertheless, we holed up in an office as we do every year and collectively reviewed the highlights and lowlights of the last year in PC gaming. Now it’s time for you to kick back and enjoy the spectacle that is Maximum PC’s 2011 Gaming Awards!
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
It's exceptionally rare these days that a single-player game so thoroughly dominates the gaming zeitgeist. But with an arrow to the heart (and in the knee), gamers everywhere have fallen head over heels for Bethesda's latest open-world masterpiece, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Skyrim has a bit of something for everyone. You can live out your virtual Viking fantasies, wandering the pine forests, windswept plains, and snowy peaks, hacking through any beast or bandit that crosses your path. You can walk the arcane corridors of magic, bending fire and lightning to your will. You can stalk the shadows, picking pockets, looting chests, and slitting throats. Or, better yet, you can do all of these things, as you create the character and the story you want. Oh, and there are dragons.
www.elderscrolls.com, ESRB: M
L.A. Noire
We're not sure whether to trust Rockstar Games, doubt its sincerity, or flat-out call it a bait and switch artist. You see, the publisher delivered its usual polished cinematic experience—what it didn't tell us is that L.A. Noire is more an interactive movie than an actual video game.
Still, the game's well-written script, fantastic production values, and innovative facial motion-capture technology make it more fun than ever to accuse a grieving widow of being a liar, a murderer, or a whore—or in true Noir fashion, all three.
www.rockstargames.com, ESRB: M
Bulletstorm
When you’re playing a game where you can basically kick people into the air, fill them with bullets in slow motion, then watch as they cascade off a cliff or into large, conveniently placed cactuses, well, you’ve got a winner. Aside from introducing mind-blowing FPS gameplay mechanics, Bulletstorm also features some of the most movie-like experiences we’ve ever seen in its phenomenal single-player campaign. Solid voice acting, amazing graphics, a ridiculous story and points for shooting enemies in the ass (literally), Bulletstorm is zany, bloody, chaotic fun.
ESRB: M
Portal 2
Portal won our hearts with its mix of clever physics puzzles, laugh-out-loud humor, and poignant storytelling. Portal 2 is a dazzling repeat performance, with new types of brain-twisting puzzles and an even better story. The game's co-op mode, instead of dropping another Chell into the single-player campaign, is an entirely new series of test chambers featuring two boistrous robots, and cooperation is key—you don’t want to get on GLaDOS’ bad side.
www.thinkwithportals.com/, ESRB: E
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Human Revolution, like the original Deus Ex, gives the player many different paths to success. You can choose to be a hulked-out combat specialist, a hacker, a stealth character, or anything in between. There's no wrong way to play Human Revolution. Until you come to a boss battle. The boss battles are brainless, out-of-nowhere inclusions that completely change the tone of the game, and put non-combat characters at a severe disadvantage. We never asked for this.
www.deusex.com, ESRB: M
Assassin’s Creed: Revelations
It's hard to tell when exactly a series that features glowing alien demigods and a millenia-spanning conspiracy theory involving everyone from Da Vinci, to Hitler, to Gandhi, to Adam and Eve "jumps the shark." Until, that is, we realized it’s not the game’s plot, but developer Ubisoft whose gone off the deep end.
Revelations is actually a solid game, but being the third Assassin's Creed game in as many years, the experience is starting to feel a bit like Ezio: old and tired.
http://assassinscreed.ubi.com/revelations/en-us/home/index.aspx, ESRB: M
Comments are closed on this article
Baer
March 04, 2012 at 1:57pm
How can "MAXIMUM PC" give Skyrim GOTY? I mean Maximum PC is about high end PC's right? Skyrim is a deep story and full of things to do and the ability to do anything or be anything you want but remember MAXIMUM... There is no multi monitor support. When the community releasses a hack as soon as a bug fix is released by Bethesda it breaks the hack so the community has to do it again. That worked for a while but there have been so many bugs and therefore so many fixes that the fixes are no longer available, at least not right now but when they are updated I am sure that the next bug fix will break them again.Bethesda just says disable your wide screen monitoirs and just play on one without the expanded views and then they ignore the please of those that have MAXIMUM PC's. Right, MAXIMUM, er..... Minimum you mean.
If you have a MAXIMUM PC you will be disapointed but if you have a console you will be fine but then this is called MAXIMUM PC not maximum console.
For game story and open play I agree, rate this game a 10 but for use of a MAXIMUM PC I rate it a 4 at best!
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Warrior247
February 17, 2012 at 10:30pm
Where are the "PC games"? Who ever thinks so called PC gaming isn't dead has been had. The best games on PC are console ports! Skyrim GOTY as buggy as that game was? My, my, my, how the mighty have fallen!
Hirantha
February 14, 2012 at 11:21am
oh yeah people cry as usual, i bet ya half these cry babies haven't even played many of the games that are listed here. Good selections MAX!!
Yeah real categories would have been nice though.
L0rDT1On
February 14, 2012 at 9:35am
I disagree about Duke Nukem Forever, played the game from beginning to end, thought it was fun and challenging, didn't care about the cliche plagued reviews in the media and left it all at that. I am grateful the developers actually finished the game.
straightawaykid
March 17, 2012 at 2:00pm
Wrong, not fun at all. As a long fan of Duke Nukem 3D atomic edition, I waited for DNF for years, and this is the worst game I've ever played. Played a half dozen times, twice I could not play it without using google to find out how to spend 45 minutes tweaking it and deleting some steam files before it would even run: "error - game not available now". Even in single player, it would not run. The few times I actually could play it, I could not get past the first opponent. Granted, that may be my inexperience, but personally I will not be spending my $$ to buy another Gearbox game. This game stinks to high heaven, I would love to return it. I was a fanboy & all they had to do was make another episode of Duke 3d; they failed miserably and lost a customer. Thanks for being scrupulously honest in your reviews, even though it was after I wasted my $35. I eventually used your forums to find out how to run Duke 3D (1995) in DosBox, and I'm much happier now (for no cost).
mothrpe
February 14, 2012 at 7:36am
It's on consoles (xbox and ps3) but I implore you guys to check out dark souls. A difficult, incredibly deep action rpg experience. Also the most innovative multiplayer you're likely to experience anywhere.
Ties Portal 2 for GOTY for me personally.
AETAaAS
February 14, 2012 at 1:19am
I don't know why people are wetting the bed talking about 'real categories'. By doing that, you are put into a rigid framework rather than being able to talk about the games (or aspects thereof) you are actually interested in. This is a writing style that MaxPC has had for a while and I for one, quite like it.
I enjoyed most of the games on this list, especially Dead Island bugs and all. However, BF3 is going to take the crown for me since I haven't played Skyrim yet and when Battlelog says you have spent over 200 hours, well... :)
Scatter
February 14, 2012 at 11:28am
Is there really a point to having awards for games if you don't know what they're being awarded for? I read the whole article and it just came across as an after the fact review wrap up of a handful of games.
For instance, the award for L.A. Noire, was it intended to be a positive award for its production value or a negative one for its lack of actual game play? Shouldn't we be able to walk away after reading this article actually knowing?
The Batman: Arkham City Award; Is a Jumping a Shark Award supposed to be good?
I think they just tried to be witty about the whole thing but it just didn't work for me. Just have a review wrap up next year and be done with it.
bling581
February 15, 2012 at 10:57am
"I think they just tried to be witty about the whole thing but it just didn't work for me. Just have a review wrap up next year and be done with it."
It makes it more interesting reading. If you want serious game reviews there's dozens of other magazines and websites to visit. At least some of them seemed like serious categories.
noobstix
February 13, 2012 at 10:00pm
Calling Skyrim "Game of the Year" makes me want to avoid it even more. It's basically a $50 (or $60) beta test for a WIP that has to include "infinite quests" to have an actual player base. Now that I think about it, "infinite quests" are sort of a symbol of what Bethesda games really are: a never-ending beta test. You can never finish Skyrim just like Bethesda never finishes testing their games before release. It's just a few thousand servers and multiplayer short of being an MMO. There are other games in this list that should be considered at least a candidate for GOTY.
Scatter
February 14, 2012 at 11:18am
Actually you can finish the game if you wanted to. Just stop playing after you complete the main story line. Most games would just throw in a cut scene and then roll with the credits at that point. Skyrim allows you to keep playing as long as you like. Personally I like that freedom.
bling581
February 14, 2012 at 11:09am
So what exactly are you complaining about? When I can easily spend 200-300 hours playing a game for $60 I view that as a good thing. No? Would you rather spend $60 on a game that lasts 20-30 hours?
I'm always skeptical of reviews, but when just about everyone praises Skyrim it's hard to ignore the fact that it is most likely an awesome game. My conclusion is that you enjoy playing terrible games.
The Corrupted One
February 13, 2012 at 9:13pm
Wow, this thing needs real categories.
What was Crysis 2 being awarded for, or Dead Island? Biggest disappointment award/destroyed epic ending award?
(As in destroyed ending, i'm hoping everyone remembers the corny ending of Crysis 1, and then boom, everyone is in NYC.)
steevonson
February 13, 2012 at 5:33pm
I'll concede Game of the Year to Skyrim but calling it a masterpiece? That's something else entirely. Bethesda makes a career of releasing beloved rough drafts that their voracious modding communities then finish up. It's an enjoyable experience but it is not a finished product.
bling581
February 14, 2012 at 11:04am
Oh, so you'd rather they release a game with no modding support?
There was quite a few bugs, but I would hardly call it a rough draft. I have yet to install a single mod and it's kept me busy for over 200 hours.
kixofmyg0t
February 13, 2012 at 5:27pm
I have Deus Ex for PS3 and beat it with a pure stealth approach. I wasted Praxis points on buying the typhoon because I listened to everyone else before playing it. The bosses are easy, even on Legend. All you need is fragmentation mines.
Completed the game getting Pacifist, Foxiest of the Hounds, Doctorate and Legend trophies.
TheMiddleman
February 13, 2012 at 4:39pm
Love Deus Ex, but I'm really glad I avoided the pure stealth/hacker route and beefed up my offensive skills. Buddy of mine didn't, and was basically screwed when he reached the chick boss, as there is no way to beat her other than a full on assault, and you'd better be packing a butt load of bullets because she's a damage sponge.
kixofmyg0t
February 13, 2012 at 5:29pm
One Emp grenade and 4 fragmentation mines and she's done dude. Neither you nor your friend tried very hard.
vrmlbasic
February 13, 2012 at 4:57pm
There were ways originally in the game to beat Barrett besides a full-on assault (or the Typhoon)?
That the chick boss was the only enemy that could somehow parry Jensen's takedown move was bogus. If only they hadn't outsourced the boss battles...honestly, I blame the console-focused development for boss battles, as they're a console gaming staple. While it might not be true, I'm already blaming the console-focused development for the crappy graphics and level design limitations so I might as well lump the "console styled" boss fights on.
TommM
February 13, 2012 at 4:22pm
I'm thinking you can probably tag Skyrim as "Game of the Decade" right now. The amount of content and playability for just one character much less trying other new characters, along with the voices overs, cinematics, etc., that game is just off-the-charts over anything out there right now or soon to come from what I can tell.
vrmlbasic
February 13, 2012 at 4:54pm
I think we should hold off naming "Game of the Decade" until the decade is actually _over_ as in the next 8 years and a few months, a better candidate might just come along. Perhaps a candidate with a tight, well-told narrative, which would necessarily trump Skyrim's thin narrative and sandbox gameplay crutch.
Joji
February 13, 2012 at 3:38pm
Heh, at least "Best Multiplayer Award" went to BF3. PCgamer said preferred MW3 over BF3 for that particular category.
Arlips
February 14, 2012 at 12:21am
PC Gamer was actually referring to only the single player portion of MW3. BF3's PC version with its 64 player battles is clearly the GOTY for multiplayer.
vrmlbasic
February 13, 2012 at 3:22pm
I did appreciate the Typhoon system in Deus Ex, it truly was the "Screw it, just kill 'em all" aug. Johnny Rico from the Starship Troopers movie would be proud ;) The game warns you during the load screens that you can't get all the augs, but even with low hacking skills you can get almost all of them. I wish that the first 2 games had possessed such an aug, but I'll settle for EMP working in the first game as it works in the 2 sequels.
Though the Eidos "Debug Mode" option really is the best thing for bosses. If they have ridiculously inflated health, then why shouldn't I? Beyond Thunderdome is a classic movie, but they didn't have to make us homage it 3 times throughout the game.
We need more Deus Ex DLC (including high-res textures)! Also, we need the MPC "rankings" for the best game of the year. Was Deus Ex: Human Revolution better than Bulletstorm? Absolutely. Does this list illustrate that? Tragically, no.
Ridnarhtim
February 13, 2012 at 3:13pm
I played Amnesia on my own, in the dark, with headphones. Including the Justine pack. It's probably the manliest thing I've ever done.
I'm still scared when I think back. I'm terrified of whatever sequel it is they've just teased, because I'm going to have to play it, and I really don't want to!
Kinetic
February 13, 2012 at 3:06pm
For anyone still looking to play Deus Ex (and you should, it's an extremely good game), get the Typhoon Explosive System and max out its damage for a total of 3 Praxis points ASAP. It's like a "skip crappy boss-fights" button, and makes the game much less frustrating for stealth based characters when said fights crop up.
