I don't feel like length really matters all that much. Portal 2 is short for sure, but it's not short enough that I think length should come into play when choosing a game of the year.
#1 - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (360/PS3/PC)
http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/615805-the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim
Not much of a surprise here, but Skyrim was pretty much always going to be my game of the year for 2011 ever since it was announced. The only things that really could have stopped it is if it was a unmitigated disaster, and thankfully that wasn’t the case!
Unlike Portal 2, Skyrim is not something I’d consider a flawless game. It’s certainly not the kind of game that’s going to appeal to everyone and I understand that. But what Skyrim does best far exceeds anything any other game does this year. The sense of adventure and wonder you get form exploring the world is an experience like no other. There’s something about getting dumped in this huge, content filled world and being told to just do whatever you want that appeals to me a ton.
At its core, Skyrim is still the same kind of game as Oblivion, but it addresses many if not all of the problems its predecessor had. The experience system has been totally overhauled and is much more intuitive. If you want to increase a skill, you use it. The more you use it, the better it gets. Easy. There’s no weird stat juggling you have to do to make sure you don’t fall behind the leveled enemies, and the perks are pretty varied though to be fair not all of them are useful. The enemy leveling is handled a lot more elegantly as well. Enemies still do level with you, but they have caps on how high they can actually go based on the area. This means you’ll still find easy and difficult dungeons that you can come back to later once you’ve gotten stronger.
Graphically it’s not a huge leap, but it’s definitely nicer. The facial features and animations are noticeably improved. They’re not perfect yet, but I think they’re more than competent enough. The environments are more varied as well and there’s height to the landscapes. Everything in Oblivion was kinda flat. It’s a very good looking game (on the PC anyway), and it’ll only look better as people start crafting mods for it (on the PC anyway).
Combat has never been an Elder Scrolls strong point, but I think it ends up feeling pretty good in Skyrim. It’s not as tactile or complex as it could be, but again, it’s a noticeable improvement over what it used to be. I also like the way magic is handled a lot better than the way it was in Oblivion. It feels a lot more useful, though Destruction ends up being kind of weak towards the end of things.
There are a couple problems with Skyrim, of course. The UI is not designed as well as it should be (on the PC anyway). I’m not sure how it plays on the console versions, but it’s a little unresponsive and difficult to navigate (on the PC anyway). There’s also the usual helping of Bethesda jankiness that everyone’s come to expect, though it’s worth noting that in the 60+ hours I’ve played the game so far, I haven’t had a single crash or major glitch, so my experience has been significantly better than other.
Skyrim didn’t have to do a lot to win me over. All I really wanted was Oblivion but better, and that’s essentially what I got, though the “but better” part ended up being a bit more than even I expected. It’s not a game I can tell everyone to go out and play because they’ll love it, but anyone who likes Bethesda games, open world games, or Elder Scrolls games will love it. It’s a game made for a particular, albeit growing, niche. But for those people, Skyrim is amazing. And I am those people.
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FF fans don't hang around the internet on a monday morning they are out doing shopping or asleep hungover from parties. They got lives. -The_Djoker