The Fourth Annual Coint and Plick Poll for best video games of 2010! (VOTING IS CLOSED)

Hey all; it's end of the year and here we go again!

For 2009's Coint and Plick we had thirty + voters; this time I'd love to aim for fifty! I'd like to request that folks who even just played one or a very few games this year put in a ballot with us; if you're only voting for one or two games, that's just fine. We like casual gamers too and we'll happily take lurkers or off site readers! Everybody is welcome.

Some history:

The First Annual Coint and Plick: The ILG Best Game of 2007 Poll
The Second Annual Coint and Plick Poll: ILG’s Best Video Games of 2008
The Second Annual Coint and Plick Poll: ILG’s Best Video Games of 2008 - Part 2: The Top Forty!
The Third Annual Coint and Plick Poll: ILG’s Best Video Games of 2009 - Part One: #77 through #93
The Third Annual Coint and Plick Poll: ILG’s Best Video Games of 2009 - Part Two: #52 through #75
The Third Annual Coint and Plick Poll: ILG’s Best Video Games of 2009 - Part Three: #21 through #51
Concluding The Third Annual Coint and Plick Poll: ILG’s Best Video Games of 2009 - Part Four: #1 through #20

Please submit your ballot via email to me at
forksclovetofu at gmail dot com
in Pazz and Jop style vote/point format: You'll have 100 points to divide among your Top 10 games released in 2010, with each entry receiving no more than 30 points and no less than 5 points (seriously, for my sanity this year I need you to keep it to a MINIMUM of five points please). If you'd rather not rank individually, just assign 10 points per game. I'll list the top 50 games of '10 in the final results, presuming I get enough entries.

Additionally, please include the single game released this year that was your biggest disappointment. This can mean it didn't live up to your expectations, flat out sucked, didn't quite get it right... whatever "biggest disappointment" means to you. I'll list the top ten biggest disappointments.

Please note your ILX username on the ballot and the system you personally played each game on. PLEASE WRITE A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHY YOU'RE CASTING YOUR VOTES AS YOU ARE; I'll include many of the best comments with the winners. I may ask for additional people to write brief comments once the ball gets rolling; if you'd like to volunteer to write a longer essay/appreciation/critical beatdown of a specific game or games, regardless of where they place on the poll, just let me know. Games that received votes in the 2009 poll will have their numbers rolled onto the 2010 poll, so no need to vote for them twice.

DEADLINE FOR ENTRY IS JANUARY 25th; I'll try to have the final results posted by February 1st.

Pointless obsessive rules:

1) One entry per person.

2) If you don't assign points to your picks, I'll assess each vote at ten points per game. If you do assign points but they add up as either more or less than a hundred, I'll assess each vote at ten points per game. If you assign over 30 or under 5 points to any individual game, I'll assess each vote at ten points per game. If you list more than ten games, I'll just take the top ten on your list. If you include a game that clearly didn't come out in 2009, it won't be counted. Ask on this thread if you want to check to see if your pick is valid. If you're listing an obscure import-only title, flash game, social network or phone game, please include a URL for the game's fan/homepage so I can figure out what you're raving about.

3) Though I'd like you to note what system you've played a game on, I'll be considering votes for a game that's been released on different systems (i.e. PS3/360/PC Fallout New Vegas) as all counting toward one nomination... unless there's a clear difference due to systems that affects gameplay (i.e. Madden for Wii vs Madden for 360). In a case like Mafia II PC vs console, I'll likely not be splitting hairs, but if you want to make the point that you ONLY like the PC version in your ballot, I'll take that into account.

4) Flash games, art games, MMORPGs, videogame versions of card and party games, online fantasy sports, social network games and cellphone games are all entirely valid choices as long as they were versions released and played in '09.

I will also accept any game that has been re-released this year in a new format/console, any game that is in a continuous state of change (basically MMORPGs) or downloadable content for a game made prior to 2010. That means World of Warcraft Cataclysm, any of the Borderlands modules and any classic NES games released as Wiiware are legit picks. Here's the catch though: I do ask that you keep in the spirit of the thing and only vote for reissues/new content/ongoing games if you played them THIS YEAR and (when applicable) only on the new system in question... in other words, I won't vote for Plants vs. Zombies on 360i, even though I liked PvZ a lot, because I didn't play it on the 360. Similarly, if you played an emulation of Sam and Max: Beyond Time this year on your PC, don't vote for the Wii DLC version. If you played a ton of World of Warcraft but not this year, don't vote for it. If you played Borderlands for the first time this year, don't vote for the game unless you're voting solely for the new content. If you got Planescape for the PC from GOG, it's not a 2010 game. And so on.

Things that shouldn't be nominated: board games, card games, puzzles, table rpgs, etc. Good rule of thumb is that if it has a screen, it's valid.

A list of some of the best known games released in '10 follows; your ballot will not be limited to these games but they're certainly the front runners and a good place to start your list from. Make sense? Then VOTE!

2010 FIFA World Cup: South Africa (PS3/360)
3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3)
9 Innings 2011 (iPhone)
A Shadows Tale / Lost In Shadow (Wii)
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (DS)
Achievement Unlocked 2 (Flash)
Alan Wake (360)
Alien Swarm (PC)
Alpha Protocol (PS3/360/PC)
Altitude (PC)
Amnesia: The Dark Descent (PC/Mac)
Angry Birds/Angry Birds Halloween/Angry Birds Xmas(iPhone/Android)
Aralon (iPhone)
Art Style: Light Trax (Wii)
Assassins Creed Brotherhood (PC/PS3/360)
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (PC/360/PS3)
Bayonetta (PS3/360)
Bejeweled 3 (PC/Mac)
Bioshock 2(360/PS3/PC)
bit.trip.runner (Wii)
Blur (360/PS3/PC)
Call Of Duty: Black Ops (PS3/360/PC)
Carcassonne (iPhone)
Castle Crashers (PS3)
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (PS3/360)
Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (Wii)
Cave Story (DSiWare)
Chaos Rings (iPhone)
Chime (360/PC)
Civilization 5 (PC/Mac)
Costume Quest (PS3/360)
Crackdown 2 (260)
Cut the Rope (iPhone)
Dance Central (360)
Dantes Inferno (360/PS3/PC)
Dark Void Zero (DSiWare)
Darksiders (360/PS3)
Dead Nation (PS3)
Dead Rising 2 / DR2: Case Zero (360)
Dead Space: Ignition (Wii)
Dead to Rights: Retribution (360/PS3/PC)
Deadly Premonition (360)
Deathspank (360/PS3/PC)
Dizzypad (iPhone)
DJ Hero 2 (PS3/360)
Do-Don-Pachi Dai-Fukkatsu (360)
Donkey Kong Country 4 (Wii)
Dragon Quest IX (DS)
Dungeons and Dragons Online (PC, ongoing)
Enslaved (PS3/360)
Epic Citadel (iPhone)
Epic Mickey (Wii)
Espgaluda II (360)
Etrian Odyssey III (DS)
Fable III (360)
Fallout: New Vegas (PC/Mac/360/PS3)
FIFA 11 (360/PS3/PC)
Final Fantasy XIII (360/PS3)
Football Manager 2011 (PC/Mac)
Fruit Ninja (iPhone)
Galaxy On Fire 2 (iPhone)
Game Dev Story (iPhone/Android)
God of War III (PS3)
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn (DS)
Goldeneye (Wii)
Gran Turismo 5 (PS3)
GunGirl 2 (PC)
Guwange (360)
Halo Reach (360)
Heavy Rain (PS3)
Hook Worlds (iPhone)
Infinity Blade (iPhone)
Ivy The Kiwi? (DS/Wii)
Joe Danger (PS3)
Just Cause 2 (360/PS3)
Ketsui: Kizuna Jigoku Tachi (360)
Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep (PSP)
Kirby's Epic Yarn (Wii)
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (PC/PS3/360)
Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (360/PS3/PC/Wii)
Limbo (360)
Little Big Planet (PSP)
Lost Planet 2 (360/PS3/PC)
Madden 2011 (PS3/Wii/360)
Mafia II (360/PS3/PC)
Majin and The Foresaken Kingdom (PS3/360)
Mass Effect 2 (360)
Mega Man 10 (PS3/360/Wii)
Metal Gear Solid - Peace Walker (PSP)
Metro 2033 (PS3/360/PC)
Metroid: Other M (Wii)
Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes (DS)
Minecraft (PC)
Mirror's Edge (iPhone)
MLB 10: The Show (PS3/PSP)
ModNation Racers (PS3)
Monkey Island 2 Special Edition (PS3/360)
Monster Hunter Tri (Wii)
Mr. AahH! (iOS)
Naughty Bear (360/PS3)
NBA Jam (Wii)
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (PS3/360/PC)
NHL 2011 (PS3/360/Wii/PC)
Nier (PS3/360)
No More Heroes 2 (Wii)
Pac Man Championship Edition DX (PS3/360)
Persona 3 (PSP)
PES 2011 (360/PS3/PC)
Picross 3D (DS)
Pix'n Love Rush (iPhone)
Plants Vs. Zombies (iPhone)
Pokemon Heart Gold/Silver (DS)
Professor Layton and the Unwound Future (DS)
Puzzle Agent (PC)
Puzzle Quest 2 (PC/DS/360)
Puzzle Quest HD (iPhone)
Qrank (iPhone)
Ragdoll Blaster 2 (iPhone)
Rage HD (iPhone)
Real Racing 2 (iPhone)
Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale (PC)
Red Dead Redemption / Red Dead Redemption: Undead Rising (PS3/360)
Red Steel 2 (Wii)
Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition (PS3/360)
Resonance of Fate (PS3)
Robot Unicorn Attack (Flash)
Rock Band 3 (PS3/Wii/360)
Saboteur (360/PS3/PC)
Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space (Wii)
Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse (PC/Mac/PS3/iPhone)
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (PS3/360)
Shantae: Risky's Revenge (DS)
Shatter (PC/PS3)
Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey (DS)
Sid Meier's Pirates! (Wii)
Sigma (iPhone)
SimCity DX HD (iPhone)
Sin & Punishment: Star Successor (Wii)
Singularity (PS3/360)
Sleep Is Death (PC/Mac)
Slingo Supreme (iPhone)
Sly Cooper Collection (PS3)
Snoopy Flying Ace (360)
Solomon's Keep (iPhone)
Sonic Colors (Wii)
Space Funeral (PC)
space Invaders Infinity Gene (iPhone)
Space Miner (iPhone)
Specter Spelunker Shrinks (Flash)
Spelunker HD (PS3)
Spider: Secret of Bryce Manor (iPhone)
Splinter Cell: Conviction (360)
Split/Second (360/PS3/PC)
Starcraft 2 (PC/Mac)
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
Super Meat Boy (PC/360)
Super QuickHook (iPhone)
Super Scribblenauts (DS)
Super Street Fighter 4 (PS3/360)
Sushi Cat (Flash)
Taberinos (Flash)
Texting of the Bread (iPhone)
The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom (360/PC)
The Tower (iPhone)
Tilt To Live (iPhone)
Tom Clancys H.A.W.X. 2 (360/PS3/PC)
Trainyard (iPhone)
Trauma Team (Wii)
Ufouria (Wii)
Valkyria Chronicles II (PSP)
Vanquish (PS3)
Victorian BMX (Flash)
VVVVVV (PC)
World of Goo (iPhone)
World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm (PC)
Yakuza 3 (PS3)
Ys 7 (PSP)
Zen Bound 2 (iPhone)

First ballot almost immediately! Get yours in when you can!

Voted!

Voted!

Hot-Cha!

Last minute add of Super Mario Crossover?

That list made me sad. Of all those games I've played 5, and the only one I've played more than maybe 4 hours on is Game Dev Story. 2010 has not been a year of gaming for me. I've got some catching up to do, so I may not vote at all this year.

If you do assign points but they add up as either more or less than a hundred, I'll assess each vote at ten points per game.

wot if i vote for less than ten games?

THEN MAKE SURE THE POINTS ADD UP TO A HUNDRED jeez

and if you've played two or three games, I'd still like your vote. a gamer is a gamer is a gamer

I have maybe 4 or 5 games I'd like to vote for but even my #1 game is a "this was fun and charming but not ground-breaking" vote and as such I don't want to be giving all 5 games giant votes, otherwise I'll have some explaining to do if they end up high up the chart on my single vote and everyone else is all "...really?"

(ok ok, "if your #1 game is not that great then you didn't play enough games this year", but at the same time I've been catching up on older games this year and liked it more than any of those too)

you are hereby given permission to award less than the full 100 points if you feel like you don't have 100 points to award. Let's make it a minimum of 50 points total for a ballot and any ballots under 100 points will not be able to vote for a "favorite game of the year" by dint of the highest points awarded.

And SM crossover (and any other late additions nominated on this page)are all legit as long as they adhere to the aforementioned rules.

THEN MAKE SURE THE POINTS ADD UP TO A HUNDRED jeez

i mean i only asked 'cause i thought that ^ would be kinda weird? by virtue of being a casual gamer i get to er game the ballot?

or what spacecadet said.

okay, then as I said: just make it clear in your ballot that you're only putting in fifty points for four games cuz that's all you want to do and as long as you're explicit I can figure it out.
But don't put up 8 games, have the tally come in at 95 points and expect that I can make the presumption you just don't feel like pegging in those last 5 without you saying something.

no challops this time u joekrs

this is yr. weekly reminder! PLEASE VOTE and stuff

Do I have to email it? Can I just post it?

up to you.

1. Final Fantasy XIV (100 points)

Oh shit, I should've voted for that as biggest disappointment of the year.

yah, i'll be disregarding that

Fine I'll email it to you

lovely. please use first class stamp

I basically have the week off so expect my ballot w/ comments soonish

yowza. that's eight ballots in; keep em coming.

got sooooo many new games in the last week; wish we could poll in June! I'll vote near the end of the deadline.

there's nothing in the list i've played more than a demo of, or installed and poked around in briefly and gone 'huh', but i will probably vote nonetheless

is keeping up with the state of games more necessary re: being a 'gamer' than keeping up with current popular music is with popular music? or books with lit.?

I think people are more understanding about falling behind re video games in gamer community than music in pop music community, particularly because some games are so incredibly long. Only exception really is multiplayer games where you can kinda miss the community when they move from game to game, and even that isn't so bad.

gaming communities (with the exception of lunatic fringe) seem much more understanding about not playing all the best things that any system has to offer. The commitment is so great; even a short game is twelve hours of your life. I've never played a halo game and i've also never gotten a hard time because of it.

this is one of the reasons i kinda prefer the company of gamers: there's much more resistance to pretense

cosign^ I think some of that is because a game is either fun or not. if someone is like, "oh my, what an exquisite experience," you can be like, "dull yawn."

ah crap i forgot to nom Soosiz for iPhone.

so uh HEY GUYS I NOM SOOSIZ (iPhone) VOTE FOR IT

contemplating voting in this even tho i played like 7 games all year

most of which werent nominated

Vote!

sent my ballot, got my hate on. good times.

I have about 10 disappointment-games this year, gonna be tough to whittle it down to one. This is the year I got to sick death with "indie" "retro-inspired" side-scrollers. I've got venom for all of them.

sick TO death.

Ballots in from:
Jeff
Mordy
EZ Snappin
TamTam
abanana
n/a
Cap’n Lorax
Jordan
RSpiralli
jjjusten
If you ain't on that list, get crackin!

contemplating voting in this even tho i played like 7 games all year

― Hyrule's (Lamp), Wednesday, December 29, 2010 12:51 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

most of which werent nominated

― Hyrule's (Lamp), Wednesday, December 29, 2010 12:52 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark

i voted and i played even less - and something doesnt need to be nom'd for you to vote for it - c'mon son!

lotta general diversity as it stands: 45 different games from 10 different voters as of now.

I plan to do some some last-minute research.

Yeah I am definitely going to send in a ballot but I've got several games I want to complete (or at least make decent progress through) before I decide whether to include or not.

still quite a few games i gotta play in the next few weeks

yeah I just got my fightstick and it is throwing my ballot for a loop

sent in my ballot

sorry it was such a mess forx

was yours the wordy fun one that didn't say who it was from? I like!

haha yah sorry i totally didnt include my ilx name

kinda insulted u cldnt tell it was my ballot by the games tho!!!!

i suppose "Smurfette's Smurfy Adventsmurf" should've tipped me off.

I almost feel I should recast my ballot now that I found out that Yahtzee dude has the same game of the year as me.

I signed up for Gamefly omg

I will send mine soon - I keep changing it because this is apparnetly the time of year I play like 45 more games. Including Front Mission Evolved! Which I may have nom'd. But... I probably wouldn't have voted for anyway.

It wasn't nom'd, but I want to encourage everyone to play and vote for Digital: A Love Story (available free for Mac or PC). (Forks, I'll have an updated ballot for you this week.)

c'mon folks; I'm looking for some ballots!

too many weird freeware games cropped up

gonna try sending mine later, though i barely played like five games released this year

yeah, also in that boat.

I've played a bunch of games this year, but hardly any from 2010. I'll vote near the deadline in case I get to anything else until then.

Still only 13 votes on this. Would really love to see us get up to forty as there's no reason that any ILG habitues should skip out, whether they played a lot of games this year or not.
Could a few folks humor me and pass a ballot my way?

i voted, and i only voted for one game! and i know nothing about video games!

so at least vote to cancel out my points

I played 5 games from that list and only 3 of them enough to actually form an opinion of the game and I think there's only one of those I'd actually vote for

I usually only play games a year or two after they're released so I can get them for cheap

Just give me until the end of the week to attempt a run through my Steam backlog and I will throw some points out there.

Dead Rising 2 is so great.

really? idk i hated that demo/prologue thing so much i never even considered buying the game

I liked the prologue so YMMV, but it's like the first game but with all the annoying mechanics removed.

I especially love that you don't have to babysit survivors in this one.

yeah that would be a huge plus because those dudes were all goddamn idiots.

i mean im sure if i had been an early 360 adopter the first one woulda been mindblowing but by the time i got to it it seemed super dated. which unfortunately seemed the same in the prologue so i never got into it.

i want more people to vote in this in the off chance that the one person in the world that bought and played Metro: 2033 will show up and tell me if its good or not

Everything I've read about it has been good

I bought it! But haven't played it yet. Think it's still shrink wrapped. I'm trying to power through my backlog of games so I can put in a ballot with more than just Fallout New Vegas and Game Dev Story on it... I may be a late entry at the end of next weekend.

man i hope a bunch more peeps vote because i look forward to this rundown every year

me too

ditto

Yarr. Me too.

current ballots in:
Jeff
Mordy
EZ Snappin
TamTam
abanana
n/a
Cap’n Lorax
Jordan
RSpiralli
jjjusten
lamp
ledge
Will M
if

i suggest cutting the results off at twice the number of ballots

hey forks, can you possibly email people who submitted last year? i seem to remember us getting a nice chunk of ballots

you mean off ilx? kinda too busy to canvas that way but i may over the mlk 3 day weekend a bit.

promise i'll put something in by the end of monday - was hoping i'd play some surprise GOTY contenders over the last month, but didn't really pan out

I'll be sending in a ballot after I have a chance to play a couple more games. Next weekend sometime.

the bold caps demand for comments is why I haven't voted fwiw.

SENT

make cozen vote

Are we only doing games from the list? Because I've only played one game on it and I've played quite a few games this year. Maybe if it's not on the list my vote won't add up to anything.

You can vote for stuff that isn't on the list, but it's less likely to poll well.

I voted for something off the list. Make sure to mention it on a couple threads and encourage people to check it out if you want to help its chances of placing.

(IIRC, forks lists a lot of the results - top 50, maybe? - so with not that many voters you could have your pet favorite listed)

make cozen vote

― Lamp, Friday, January 14, 2011 8:18 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

no cozen no credibility

go forth my minions and CANVAS

I WILL VOTE TODAY. I'M A BUSY MAN

http://i.imgur.com/00SZF.jpg

http://ykalaska.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/i-voted-yupik2.jpg

ding ding ding. i hope i made up for my shamefully minimal, almost late ballot from last year

any guesses as to what the frontrunners will be? they usually end up being big critically-acclaimed multiplat blockbusters (Fallout 3, Arkham Asylum, etc) but this year's crop of those looks kinda weak - Brohood (still going through AC2 so I haven't played it), Just Cause 2 (never played it), BFBC2 (never played it), and CODBLOPS (feh).

Agreed on CODBLOPS which has everything I hate most in videogames:

- a name that goes phrase-colon-phrase
- american soldiers running around being all macho and using bad slang

i think Fallout New Vegas, Just Cause 2, Red Dead Redemption, and maybe Mass Effect 2 will probably place well among frontrunner blockbusters

(Maybe not ME2 so much.)

I'm predicting RDR for #1 game of the year tho.

completely forgot to vote for ME2 which I guess says something.

Monday is MLK day and a day off for many US ILXors and a great day to submit your ballot.
If you want to submit quotes later that's cool, but we gotta get this thing above 30 voters at least if I'm gonna do this and we're only at 19 now. Shame your friends and make em jump on board!

Ballots received:
Jeff
Mordy
EZ Snappin
TamTam
abanana
n/a
Cap’n Lorax
Jordan
RSpiralli
jjjusten
lamp
ledge
Will M
if
forksclovetofu
bnw
jamescobo
cozen
Nhex

75 games nominated! If we get up to 40 voters I'll blurb them all.

Agreed on CODBLOPS which has everything I hate most in videogames:

- a name that goes phrase-colon-phrase
- american soldiers running around being all macho and using bad slang

― Solid Gold Danzas (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, January 16, 2011 10:21 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

have you... played it? it's quite good

Nah.

I'll do my ballot in a few days, am just waiting for some purchases to arrive so I can include/exclude them.

totally forgot about BF:BC2 :/

how close are we to forty voters?

With Polyphonic's ballot in, we're at 20.
Top 50 currently includes every game that got nommed with at least ten points but there's another 30 or so single digit games that I'm only gonna take the time to blurb if we can bump this up to at least 40 participants.

Does ILG even have 40 participants???

has to be a schizo or two among us that could each put a few ballots in

Pretty sure there are forty people on ILX who play video games; we had 31 ballots last year.

could vote now if it's a rush but I'm hoping to mess with three of these a bit more over the next week & will probably throw each of them a few points. These last few are not likely to make much difference, but who knows.

I'm feeling like 10 spots isn't enough.

I would like to do a top ten just for iOS games honestly.

i think the ten game limit is good (as well as the 5 point min), it keeps you from going too crazy

polyphonic might be right that iOS games are the issue. between iphone games, flash games, hyperlink/interactive fiction games, and 360/PS3/PC games (not to mention 360 Arcade, Wii, DS, etc) and I've got tons of games and it's not always clear to me how they fit together. is a game i've played 100 subway hours worth on my iphone better than the 20 hours I spent playing war shooter on the 360 or the 30 beautiful minutes I played of an art piece? 10 games just doesn't seem like enough to handle all those games.

I'm interested to see how the DS does in comparison to the iOS since it was polls like this in the past that convinced me to get a DS (& it's been great but I'm mostly on back catalog still so it won't affect my ballot much).

also interested to see what iOS games get rated since I logged tons of hours on Civ:Rev & Strategery during 2010 but neither is a 2010 release; kinda feel I'm behind the curve there as usual.

I can't help but feel like casual gaming v. 'serious' gaming (i don't think serious is the word when it's a category that includes games like dead rising + just cause) is kinda like the split between poptimism v. rockism, one is about the maybe transient, fleeting, pleasure (a quick game played on the subway) and the more invested pleasure. of course, while that works really well when comparing Angry Birds or 9 Innings with Mass Effect or Fallout 3, it's not so good when comparing Angry Birds to Just Cause 2. I play both when I'm in a certain mood, neither make strong claims on my focus or attention, neither have much of an experience that goes beyond superficial aesthetic pleasures, neither one engages narratively in the way I expect 'serious' games to engage me. So splitting a poll into casual and non-casual games (like splitting music polls into singles v albums) can't possibly handle this stuff. Not to mention that mobile gaming will probably become more and more of a platform for more intense, narrative games. I haven't played the new Squaresoft game for the iPhone yet, but from what I've heard it's kinda the harbinger of opening the iPhone up to being a more immersive 'gamer's gaming' platform.

So I guess I'm backing off thinking we should have an iOS poll and a console poll. But more than 10 slots. Maybe 20 for next year?

xps DS was a bit slight this year, except for maybe Layton 3 and DQ 9, neither of which I got around to playing. Understandable considering all those companies are now developing for 3DS and not porting Japanese games over anymore. Who knows though, if I get to Ghost Trick maybe it'll go on my 2011 ballot.

my #1 vote went to an iPhone game and it wasn't a particularly difficult decision

a few people have nominated 11 or 12 games and I have not been a stickler about it.

also, i hear what Mordy's saying about the odd schism between serious and casual gaming. Ultimately, the games I picked were the ones that left a lasting impression on me, that got into my daydreams and had me projecting into their world or simply wanting to play more. It's odd and capricious how that works: Costume Quest, for instance, blew me away and when I picked up the expansion (which is really more of the same) it didn't hold my attention for ten minutes.

So I've been playing a ton of Alpha Protocol and uh -- this game is seriously underrated. I don't know why it flew under the radar (or got such bad reviews) but it's really exciting. Very Deus Ex'y. I may have to update my ballot once more before the 25th...

Basically it seemed to be compared awfully to Mass Effect 2 all the time, and was supposedly quite buggy (in an Obsidian Entertainment shocker!) Waiting for it to drop to a ridiculous price on Steam

yup sleeper hit for sure. lots of issues but worth a pick-up if you see it sub-£10

voted, but left out one of my most played games cos ... er ... i'm too embarrassed to admit to playing it, even to internet nerdz that i'll never even meet.

Joe Danger

xp http://cdn.idolator.com/assets/resources/2007/12/SamanthaFoxStripPoker.gif ?

http://img.game.co.uk/ml/3/3/9/5/339557ps_500h.jpg

22 ballots
84 nominated games
six more days to vote

forks, you left listening room the moment i came in!

had to add up votes!

spill, zappi!

guys, please vote. i wait all year just for this poll and it would breaked my <3 if there weren't enough votes for forks to make it an all-out game loveinffest extravaganza

18 ballots is a lot to ask at this point

why does he need 40 ballots? is there some math-y reason for it

xxxpost
lol not telling! interesting that people went straight to the pr0n angle tho, cos none involved whatsoever. something much worse :/

http://www.c-deals.com/images/zoombinis_logical_journey.jpg

why does he need 40 ballots? is there some math-y reason for it
― Princess TamTam

it's arbitrary really; represents a growing community and justifies the obscene amount of work I do to put this monster together.
Based on past years, it averages out at roughly fifteen to twenty minutes per game to hunt down/organize/write up the articles, quotes, pictures, youtubes and links.
I'm on the hook for a top fifty but if i'm gonna do what's most likely gonna be close to a hundred of these damn things, I wanna have an audience big enough to merit it.

zappi, WOW maybe?

http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/2711/dukecaribbeanoa5.jpg

http://sheevmista1.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/club-penguin-nintendo-game.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51vyuXgTNJL.jpg

U don't have to be embarrassed. We're all poptimists here.

nancy drew charted in past poll

too bad he said it wasn't pr0n. i was about to link to a dozen japanese dating sim covers

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Charlie%27s_Angels_Coverart.png

Kinectimals

Oh god wait please let it be "naughty bear"

oh i've got a good one

http://pwned.com/gamecovers/nintendo64/c5715f434304c9b55bec80a0a24a1a92-Daikatana.jpg

remember when this pile of shit came out? totally unplayable.

if its angry birds then gtfo

take 2

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/82/Daikatanabox.jpg/256px-Daikatanabox.jpg

it's probably WoW or some other MMORPG.

please let it be:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bf/Darkfall_promotional_wallpaper_1680x1050_group.jpg

That iPhone game where you chop up fruit

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/ca/Evony_logo.jpg

http://phandroid.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/farmville.jpg

I voted for a fb game one year, i think.

is it farmville? you son of a bitch
lol xpost

really should be its own thread so we can heap pressure on him to spill and he'll eventually crack

think somebody must be playing farmville on this board, right?

Evony is a good guess, I'm not sure I'd cop to playing Evony.

Come play, my lord!

zappi when i finally post my ballot you might feel compelled to share yours

i dont see why farmville would be any more shameful than any of those iphone games

i have no shame.

http://www.bruceongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Evony-tits-advertising.jpg

Mafia Wars didnt even come out in 2010 i dont think

If it weren't for all the fb spamming I'd totally play farmville

however game of the decade should certainly go to that vampires vs werewolves one that motherfuckers keep sending me info from, no i dont want to help you take on vlad poopsock go fuck yrslf DELETE

Ia there a thread for stuff that exits only in your periphery? Farmville would be right up there for me.

I'm the fucking farmking

zappi is it
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/images/n13foursquare.jpg

my phone can barely text! anyway soz for turning this thread into guess-the-game, peoples different ideas of embarrassing amusing tho - and that Evony shit is definitely worse anyway, can't compete with the o.0 that provides

voted today woooo

Mine is on its way!

was it mini ninjas

FF XIII? what is wrong with you

how many ballots?

24. Do it on a downtime Friday, eh?

I've got my list, just need to add blurbs, you'll get it tomorrow.

Ballots Received:
Jeff
Mordy
EZ Snappin
TamTam
abanana
n/a
Cap’n Lorax
Jordan
RSpiralli
jjjusten
lamp
ledge
Will M
if
forksclovetofu
bnw
jamescobo
cozen
Nhex
polyphonic
Zappi
ilxor
silby
Zora/ Surfing at Work

Tenatatives (on this thread):
JimD
Craig G
spacecadet
Euler
thomp
alan n
Sondrangerbot
Matt D
salsa shark
autumn almanac

That's 34. Who else needs to vote? h@lgeson? somebody wanna bug him?

and where the hell is s1ocki when you need him?

I forgot to do blurbs :( I'll try and get them over the weekend.

it's cool.

got my list but still need to write some stuff up. have not spent much time with most of my picks and am cheating a little bit to get to 10... (listing arcade classics I am familiar with even if I haven't played the port from last year)

not sure I followed gaming close enough to be disappointed by one particular game, tbh.

i'll take as little or as much as you have to offer.
at least one voter just nominated a single game.
at least one voter nominated fifteen
plenty put in lists of games
several wrote short essays for each
I'm happy with what you want to submit.

Guys, Pinball FX 2 is amazing.

okay, no more changes for you
you bend like the digital wind

it's just that 10 spots are not enough. my appetite for games is voracious.

you sir are a machine

yeah there is a game that would def make my ballot if i had played it earlier so hopefully it will get other votes

also i might have spent my patented hate rant on COD: BO, but nah my chosen target still deserves it more

post your blops rant here im curious about it

let me work up some steam and ill see what i can do

I had four hate-rants! I sent them all bc I don't give a ffffffffffffff

My swag of games never arrived (fuggen 365games) so I'll just have to do a less-informed ballot.

What were you waiting to play?

Vanquish and Bioshock 2.

zappi was it blops

CODZAPS

i really enjoyed the original bioshock but i'm so skeptical whenever people sing the praises of bioshock 2. i haven't played it yet, but i could barely finish the original because by the end the premise seemed to have exhausted itself. i can't imagine they have enough material for an entire second game.

I've been wondering that too. Appaz it was made by some other studio anyway.

bioshock 2 was surprisingly good after a very slow start

apparently the minerva's den dlc is the best episode in the entire bioshock universe, tho I haven't played it myself yet

its solid, but ultimately falls under "more of the same".

Nier is reminding me more of Deadly Premonition than I would've guessed. I think you could combine elements of Nier, Deadly Premonition, and Alan Wake and make one amazing game.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/2607-Top-5-of-2010

more of the same but slightly better, I thought, except it had some niggly performance issues

i could barely finish the original because by the end the premise seemed to have exhausted itself. i can't imagine they have enough material for an entire second game.

i haven't played bioshock 2 but for what it's worth, a lot of games like this can't make it as far as they want to. even system shock 2 hit a wall a couple hours before it actually ended, and the last third of deus ex was grimly exhausting. doesn't mean they can't start over and get excited again.

i agree, but both of those seem like bad examples. system shock 2 didn't get a sequel until (lol) Bioshock and Deus Ex's sequels were about as tired as its back third.

games that dont wear out their welcome are super rare, which is why it always mystifies me when people bitch about games being too short

every second of deus ex was awesome though so f u

Mitch Krpata voted! Yay!

xp I loved Deus Ex but I can totally understand anyone who thought it dragged at the end. Compared to the Tokyo sequence, or the NY sequences, that whole underwater facility sequence is definitely kinda meh. And the whole final base where they pumped those monsters out and you have to close the gates was weirdly out of place. I'd say the high point is when you run into the aliens for the first time (was a gasp moment for me) during the heist on that MI5 base and then it's kinda downhill from there.

the final base isnt that great but i always loved the underwater facility. not a lot of RPG stuff to do, but there's a lot of cool multiple-solution gameplay scenarios there.

ahem

thanks for the reminder email, forks, voting now!

although like a lot of other people, i didn't really play too many 2010 games this year and i sorta feel like a dummy

I would to love to have a good enough graphics card to play Amnesia: The Dark Descent
supposed to be like a scary Myst or something

xp -- underwater facility in dx would have been better if i hadn't played system shock 2 but as it was it just kinda felt like the designers had used all their favorite ideas and were now down to "oh hey what if we put a mini-system-shock-2 in here? i mean it won't be connected to anything and it'll be only one level so that whole sense of claustrophobia and mounting dread will be totally erased, but i dunno i really like 'reading diaries' as a game mechanic"

everything from vandenburg on in that game kinda tires me. BUT incredibly awesome game and i am only being picky because it's that good.

hah, yeah, i havent played SS2. i tried SS1 recently and have to admit that the interface made it tough for me to get far.

if there were a poll of "best deus ex sequence" i guess i'd vote for hong kong. that's also the peak of the game's utterly bizarre mirror-universe voice acting, where all the characters are so totally clueless about where to put their pauses and inflections it cannot be attributed to incompetence.

oh yeah i never got anywhere in SS1 either. we are not cool enough for that interface i guess.

i unironically love all the 'bad' v/o in deus ex, especially in hong kong - it's not we-just-grabbed-a-janitor-to-read-these-lines bad (Bethesda games), it's bad like john malkovich in Rounders and the game's better for it

hong kong's tied w/hell's kitchen for me - they both exemplify the indelible DX formula that makes the game so great.... might as well call it 'special sauce' because nobody's gotten it right since

have you seen my DX thread (i really just made it so i'd have something to bump whenever the game comes up)

The official DEUS EX thread

no but now i have contributed

difficult listening hour, you should vote in this poll.

and so should the rest of you! 25 votes as of now.

i totally would but i have no money and thus basically no games released after like 2005. maybe next year i will be more qualified.

i just voted! i think.

okay guys, it's the last go-round! Send me your ballots or let me know why not!

we still have a day right?

yup. "tomorrow" = tuesday

cool. will def send one in tomorrow at some point.

Done.

I familiarised myself with a couple of games on my 'to play' list over the weekend, and think I may have 10 now! I'll email you tonight/tomorrow. Totally thought the 25th was Wednesday.

Looking for ballots here folks!

gonna vote tomorrow afternoon; spent the last week with 1 game in particular that's gonna shoot up my ballot (has on everyone else's already I think) & wanna try one other game for possibly 10th place, o/w I'll just send one with 9.

I've been playing a ton of Fallout New Vegas recently. Feel like I should've given it more points than I did. I have so much voter's regret, it consumes me.

ghouls in space quest pretty much single-handedly convinced me that it's a great game

that sounds great, whatever that is!

HOW MANY VOTES

just sent mine!

30 votes; if you're not on this list, I need you to get it in over the next 24 hours please:
Jeff
Mordy
EZ Snappin
TamTam
abanana
n/a
Cap’n Lorax
Jordan
RSpiralli
jjjusten
lamp
ledge
Will M
if
forksclovetofu
bnw
jamescobo
cozen
Nhex
polyphonic
Zappi
ilxor
silby
Zora/ Surfing at Work
Mitch Krpata
ZS
Sondrangerbot
Kingfish
Autumn Almanac
Alan N

105 nominated games. I'm starting to hope i _don't_ get over 40 votes cuz this is gonna take forever.

Ruin forks life! Cast your vote!

they're going up at a rate of about three to four a day in a best case scenario, so that would have the number one being announced sometime in MARCH

here, i'll help:

#1 - Angry Birds (iPhone)

~fin~

Can I just vote for Space Funeral and Kill God? Oh, and Super Crate Box. No descriptions because I'm on a touch phone and typing and absolutely everything is really tedious.

Ok, mine's in.

Mine too.

okay. I did this. sorry in advance for potentially skewing the results towards cutesy cartoony girly games.

I still haven't gotten around to playing about half of the 2010 games I planned to. maybe this year.

looking forward to this

xp number one vote for

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2d/Tokimeki_Memorial_Girl%27s_Side_-_2nd_Kiss_Coverart.png

?

actually, that would work better if i posted the one that actually came out this year viola

http://image4.play-asia.com/640/9s/pa.176231.1.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51kheDXUBcL._SL500_AA280_.jpg

voted finally

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/34/True_Love_title.png

would vote but i have only really played fallout3 this year. split/second is fun, but haven't gotten very far on it or played long enough to judge its staying power. just cause 2 was fun at first but got boring very quickly. and that's my lot.

bamcquern, i need you to email me with point summary/game list to take part.

Salsa Shark, you're all set.

So excited for this countdown to start

117 games
35 ballots
a wild top ten that could be easily rearranged with one or two votes
any more votes forthcoming?

Folks on this thread who've suggested they'd vote but have not yet:
spacecadet
thomp
Matt D

I am polishing it off on my lunch break :)

nom nom nom

sent mine just now

oops. how many hours do i have again

just get it to me before i wake up tomorrow. It's 1pm in NYC now.

So two more ballots and we hit 40?

You have my ballot

And my axe!

sorry forks, I appreciate that you made it easier for a casual gamer like me to vote when I whined, but when I looked back at the list I'd played even fewer games than I thought (which is not to say that I was thinking of things which weren't nominated, just played fewer 2010 games than I realised)

going back through the list now in case I missed anything though

who is "lightning wrangler extraordinaire"?
with LWE we're at 37.

oh, it's matt, sorry. Gottit.

Sorry about that! I hadn't realized the webmail would only post my display name and not my account

only 3 more ballots needed...?

We're at 38 total. Final call: I need to see it when I wake up tomorrow.

39. Last call. Anyone?

Surely we can get ONE more??

I would have voted for stand on top of the guy because it is the only game I ever win at.

calling it closed and am going to tabulate placement. back with more info shortly.

agh, sorry. got dragged to someone's burns night celebration last night, didn't make it home thinking 'i should sit down and think about videogames now'

do it now!!! one more ballot needed

just a heads-up forks but you may be hearing from my cousin Blames Blobo soonish

relax, i may just do a full poll regardless.

god bless you you crazy crazy man

you could just roll out the low tiers w/just peeps comments and a link to the site - i love the comprehensive forksing every year, but you could save the hardcore work for the top 50/40/20 whatever

cosign. i just like them all listed so that if something gets put up that slipped under my radar, people can sing its praises (or not) and vice versa if something i voted for got no other votes

I'm not very good at doing things partially.
i think what i may do is just three a day every day with a one day top ten and an opening day ten blurb kickoff.
thoughts?

down with whatever dude, its your poll!

when does the rollout begin? *wipes drool on sleeve*

Feb 1

That's my birthday! Best birthday present.

Well no I will probably get some better presents but this will be good too!

do what ya gotta do man

Peacocks, stand on top of the guy but be bigger is 2011. Wouldn't you vote for the dwarf building Christmas game or the dinosaur random wiggle bone fight game (or is that 2011 too?)?

i would like to note that bamcquern's ballot was one of the most interesting things I've gotten in the mail so far this year. I knew NONE of the games.

The Evil-Santa-Christmas-dwarf-raid-present-kitty-savior game is reeeallly fun. I'd vote for that. Dinosaur Dance-Off is cool but not as engaging since they make the dinosaurs dance for you and they never dance as vigorously as I want them to. The best part of that game is getting to name your dinosaur. There's always new stuff to do with the evil santa game. There's a thing you can do with the cat where you make all the bricks come off your building and destroy everything. It's kind of like an air raid but more damaging because the bricks fly at all angles.

I wish I knew what you guys were talking about.

That's what reading bam's ballot was like!

hoo boy i gotta lotta writing to do

The Fourth Annual Coint and Plick Video Games Poll - Part One: #106 - AKA the 25 games that got one vote and five points