2011 has many strong titles, so I doubt just one or two will win the majority of the awards this year. However, I'll update this post with scores from some of the more well-known publications for comparisons:

IGN:
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (10/10)
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (10/10)
Batman: Arkham City (9.5/10)
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (9.5/10)
Portal 2 (9.5/10)
Dark Souls (9/10)

EDGE:
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (10/10)
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (9/10)
Batman: Arkham City (9/10)
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (9/10)
Dark Souls (9/10)
Portal 2 (9/10)

Eurogamer:
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (10/10)
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (10/10)
Portal 2 (10/10)
Batman: Arkham City (9/10)
Dark Souls (9/10)
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (8/10)

GamePro:
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (5/5)
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (5/5)
Batman: Arkham City (5/5)
Dark Souls (5/5)
Portal 2 (5/5)
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (4/5)

1UP:
Portal 2 (A+)
Batman: Arkham City (A)
Dark Souls (A)
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (A)
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (A-)
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (B+)

Gameinformer:
Batman: Arkham City (10/10)
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (10/10)
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (9.5/10)
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (9.5/10)
Portal 2 (9.5/10)
Dark Souls (8.75/10)

Cheat Code Central:
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (5/5)
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (4.9/5)
Portal 2 (4.7/5)
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (4.5/5)
Batman: Arkham City (4.5/5)
Dark Souls (4.2/5)

GameTrailers:
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (9.5/10)
Batman: Arkham City (9.3/10)
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (9.3/10)
Dark Souls (9.2/10)
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (9.1/10)
Portal 2 (9/10)

I am rooting for ZELDA

if not, I'm in the Batman league

I think it will go to Zelda, but I'm rooting for Skyrim.

My predictions so far are:

Zelda will win at EDGE and CCC, and possibly IGN.
Portal 2 will win at 1UP and Eurogamer (their Portal 2 Review is beyond praise).
Batman will win at Gameinformer.

GameTrailers updated in the first post. Uncharted 3 probably has it's first locked GOTY award there.

GT was a bit tougher this year with their reviews with no game going above a 9.5.

Gamespot gave Zelda 7.5. They didn't succumb to their inner fanboys and nostalgia. Good for them.

The scores are a bit deceiving so I wouldnt say its a lock. You have to remember that the GOTY is voted by a panel of reviewers from the same site and not just done by whoever was officially reviewing the game at the time.

Besides Super Mario Galaxy was behind Mass Effect 2 and Red Dead Redemption last year in capturing the awards even though its metacritic score was higher.

I think it will probably be split between Arkham and Skyrim. Gamespot most likely will reward Dark Souls like it did 2 years ago

I'm off the Uncharted bandwagon and on the Skyrim one. It is SO much better than Oblivion, which was already a very good game.

Of course, the GOTYs will differ across the board. Spike, however, has the only that is on TV.

People watch the Spike awards? That show is abominable.

My vote right now is for Skyrim, followed by Arkham City, then Uncharted 3.

My vote is for Skyrim too. I dont think Ive really touched the main quest at all since Im being distracted by becoming a trader/blacksmith/enchanter. This is what you really call an open ended sandbox game. I havent even opened the cases for Assasins Creed and Saints Row yet

Haven't played Skyrim yet, but pretty sure that it and Saints Row 3 are pretty much the same game. They do have assless chaps, dildo bats, and streaking activities in Skyrim, right?

Not sure I'd feel right picking a 10 year old remake as GOTY, but holy hell do I love playing the remade Halo. The gameplay is still amazing, the on the fly switching between old graphics and new is cool and really highlights the difference 10 years makes (on a game that still looks pretty damn good). Really makes me realize how pure fun Halo 1 was, before it got a little too serious and absorbed with its own mythology.

So, my all time favorite game got better... don't know how I could put anything ahead of it, but don't know how I could pick it as the best either. Hmmmm.....

Tony: doesn't like serious games.

True story, but completely wrong with a heavy dose of being spot on. Could not have said it better or more wrong.

I think they waited a week longer than most sites to post their review just to gain hits to be honest. It worked very well back in 2006 with Twilight Princess (even though 8.8 wasn't that bad), so they saw what a low score could do for them again.

I check yesterday and the review itself had over 2,000 comments in maybe under a full day. 20 pts lower than the average (back to 95 on MC now) is a bit much, especially when perfect scores make up 43% of the overall reviews at the moment.

It's a similar situation when I believe it was Honest Gamers waited awhile before slapping Uncharted 3 with a 4/10 that generated a ton of hits.

Now you're reaching. Gamespot doesn't need hits, they are big. 8.8? As you noted yourself, that's not a low score. Come on, take it like a man, not absolutely everyone will love a game. Supposedly, the reviewer had control issues. How about this, his Wii wasn't properly calibrated? Makes more sense than what you have come up with.

Oh shush!

I don't know. Almost none of the other reviews so far mention any problems with controls, rather they praise them. It could be true there was some calibration issue there (should have checked after awhile though), or the reviewer simply didn't like it. However, a "low" score does get more discussion going than a good or perfect score. The 8.8 in 2006 caused a big amount of controversy. Clearly it was exaggerated by diehard fans as that was a fine score, but it was quite a bit of publicity for Gamespot that week.

The main problem I think is the Gamespot review is so different than the others (not just by score, but by issues listed, etc.), that it looks odd. Again, could simply be the reviewer didn't enjoy it as much as everyone else. The 16 perfect scores right now isn't far behind Skyrim or Arkham City's perfect score total even though Zelda has half as many reviews.

You should do the first part of the main quest, that is how you unlock dragons. After that screw it, I'm level 33 and I just now went to High Hrothgar. I'm also the arch-mage, so suck it lesser mages.

Also, I'll take ACreed and Saints Row off your hands if you don't want them...

I can't imagine Gamespot risking it's entire credibility by forcing one of their writers to give Zelda a low score for a few hits and attention. That's not a realistic conspiracy theory.

However, I think you bring up a valid point, Corpse... Nintendo fanboys go so insane when one of their big franchise games gets anything less than a 9, reviewers likely feel pressured to give Zelda an inappropriately high score so they don't face the Nintendo fanboy wrath. I agree with you there, and can see that as a logical occurrence. It certainly explains the out of whack number of perfect scores.

I think alot of critics are just too biased for nostalgia. How did after all these years Street Fighter still gets grades of A when the graphics have been barely updated and the gameplay is still the same as it was in 1992. Cave Story getting 92% on metacritics? The game still looks like it came from the early 90s

'Cause Halo: Reach so deserved 10s, right? Halo: Anniversary certainly isn't worthy of an 8.3/10 average on Gamerankings.



Because there comes a point when gameplay for a specific genre has been optimized. Super Mario Bros. 3 perfected that formula; the fact New Super Mario Bros. is "just" on that level doesn't make it a bad game. Street Fighter II is, in the eyes of many, perfection when it comes to fighting mechanics. Street Fighter IV being a simple update to that is still worthy of the high scores.

It's a matter of how much further you can push. Halo: Anniversary doesn't deserve glowing scores because it feels like an outdated game. FPS mechanics have come a long way in the last ten years, and the game is a pretty direct graphical update. If GoldenEye was given a straight remake of the Rare game, compared to others in today's market, it wouldn't deserve 9s or 10s, either.

The backlash for a reviewer giving Zelda an 8.8 is far greater than giving any Halo game a 8.8. Therefore, my hypotheses is that Zelda gets more inflated scores than Halo.

Truthfully, I was just trying to indirectly point out you can skew the results any way you want... too high because of the hype, nostalgia, potential backlash... too low because of haters and attention whores... I think you can find true examples of each, but in general it's going to come out even in the wash. Each camp will focus on what they want to.

Except, of course, for first party Nintendo games... that really is an example of the emperor having no clothes.

As for Anniversary... that deserved every inch of it's 8.3 and more. Haters going to hate and want attention.

Either I just proved my points, or contradicted them... I'm not sure.

I don't think there's any real skewing. GameSpot thought Zelda deserved a 7.5. I highly doubt there was some conspiratorial "let's get hits by slamming it a bit!" agenda. Nor do I think sites are scared to rate games lower than gamers would like.

As the only person here who has his critical reviews posted on metacritic - as a staff member of a "professional" website - allow me to settle this once and for all.

Actually, I didn't want to settle this... I just wanted to point that out.

Although, it should also be noted, that if I was still doing that I would have begged for the Halo Anniv. game and nostalgia would have clouded my better judgement and it would have gotten a 95%.

this the RESPONSE



it only proves that the one who reviewed was a hater, if he didn't like the game, he should have used a different stupid argument

Skyrim, Gears 3, Batman, Uncharted, Mario Land, MW3, Halo, all these are AMAZING games, why noy enjoy all them, but the true winner seems to be Skyward Sword