bek:
No Dishonored? Hm.

I really wouldn’t class Dishonored as an RPG, but then the definition of ‘RPG’ is always super-nebulous.

Dishonored is definitely my GOTY though.

It’s an interesting discussion though, about what makes a game good or bad.

If you’re still going to sit there calling it a bad game, then as I said above, I find that a staggeringly stupid opinion to hold.

I think for a game to be bad, that has to come into it, if it’s a game you don’t enjoy, to use your example CoD, many people who hate on it can’t express why it’s bad, aside from not liking it.

It’s fine to not like games, but I don’t think it’s entirely intelligent to slag of a game as bad, because you don’t like it. (I’ve said the same thing in a number of CoD hate circle jerks). If you want to argue that CoD is bad as it’s stagnating game development, technical limitations (No dedicated servers for Modern Warfare 2, limited FoV, dated graphics), or gameplay (repetitive, too reliant on large set pieces), then I’m all for that sort of conversation.

Your other example, Vampire: bloodlines, has a lot of positive things going for it, such as story and writing, that offsets the negatives to make it a good game, which I’d very much argue, so does Mass Effect 3.

I don’t think we inherently disagree, perhaps I chose my words poorly, but I don’t think you can put many games in a “This game is awful” pile like many will do, because you didn’t like something, or a couple of things about it.

It’s about perspective. Compared to other games it most certainly is very good, but compared to ME1/2 which is what I was comparing it to it most certainly is trash. It’s a shadow of what the first two games were about and a disappointing game overall given the accomplishments of the first two but again still a very good game and narrative if you’re comparing it to anything else (even the ending isn’t bad if you were to compare it to other games). To quote Obi-wan, “A certain point of view.”

It’s still their opinion though. There are some people (poor souls, IN MY OPINION) that think the Call of Duty games are the greatest things since sliced bread. Can’t agree, but evidently enough people buy them such that they must have some redeeming feature.

Your definition of a bad game seems to factor in on technical issues. If a game is good in gameplay, story and in other areas, it can still shine even if the coding is rubbish (Vampire: Bloodlines comes to mind). Now I’ve never played ME3, but it sounds like the game is pretty decent right up to the ending. But since endings are the last thing you experience in a game, they tend to affect your perception of it. So if it makes the whole game bad in the minds of some, that’s their view. But it seems wrong to say that their opinion is wrong just because you use a different way to rate games.

I disagree, games can be objectively judged, without bringing a personal opinion into it. For a game to be objectively bad, it would need to have major flaws, such as unresponsive controls, 3rd person camera that doesn’t show you your character, level design that renders parts of the game inaccessible, the list can go on.

I think if someone thinks the entirety of mass effect 3 is bad, then they have a skewed perception of what makes a properly bad video game.

If someone says that a game is crap, then it’s always going to be they’re opinion. Games cannot be classified as good or bad, since that’s always relative to the player. Games I enjoy are often considered crap by my mates, and vice versa.

In other words, someone saying Mass Effect 3 is always going to be an opinion – they’re not required to qualify this. If this irritates you then learn to not give a crap.

Also important to note before people get angry, out of the possible choices for best narrative RPG, (Not best RPG overall) I think the only one that would maybe be an alternative choice would be Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, but I don't know if that really counts as a new game for the purposes of the best RPG's from 2012.

Also, how about we call a game f2p when the majority of it is accessible without paying? As it stands, the only true ‘f2p’ games are the ones that offer all content for free but allow you to pay to receive it quicker or for cosmetic items (LoL, SWTOR to an extent, most certainly not WoW even though their marketing PR are trying to get the title, DotA 2, Planetside 2).

So yeah, don’t know what there is to talk about as ME3 had a poor story (for Mass Effect standards at least) from beginning to end, that insane ending was just the icing on the cake and it doesn’t make your opinion correct over others just because you try to twist what the ending was for you.

Also we need to figure out a proper and official definition for free to play is because to me as long as you still need to buy the game in stores The Secret World is NOT free to play and i’m getting sick of people saying X is free to play when it damn well isn’t.

As for MMORPG of the year…
TSW was a very enjoyable mmo romp that suffered from far too little content and crappy pvp, but I really enjoyed that, the only other mmo I played this year was GW2 and I really can’t pick between the 2 tbh.