6 of the games you can vote for has no buissiness to be on that list.

And seriously, does any one really think Street Fighter should even be close to this list? The year isn’t 1991 anymore.

Deserves it the most; BG3. Will actually win the most; Zelda. And the wheels keep on turning. Personally, I don't care as it doesn't affect my enjoyment of games one iota, but I would love for Larian to get even more widespread recognition for flying directly in the face of destructive, industry-wide habits and trends.

While I don't believe it will be nominated or anything like that, I am totally blown away by the new Lords of the Fallen game, wow! What a step up and change of direction from the first game, and I thought the first game was great for how mediocre it was.

I think this thread had been made too early, as Super Mario Wonder and Spiderman 2 were still unknown quantities at the time. As such it was impossible to judge them correctly at the time of the thread's creation

What exactly are those trends? Just curious cause I hear that a lot about BG3 yet don't experience any difference from Spider Man 2, TotK and Wonder while all those games released in a much better state.

Ahh, this explains where it came from
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/baldurs-gate-3-new-standards-controversy-explained/
Just mostly more social media nonsense, but true no MTX in BG3.

BG3 is no unicorn in my eyes, the conversion to console is poorly done, accessibility options are mostly absent, no physical release, and lots of issues with Act 3.
https://www.ign.com/articles/baldurs-gate-3-act-3-bugs-missing-content
https://www.thegamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-performance-issues-act-3-ps5/
https://screenrant.com/baldurs-gate-3-act-three-bad-why/

I gave up on the game after 15 hours due to UI, control and camera issues so never even got to Act 2. (We also tried for 3 hours in split-screen, was much worse) From what I've played it was all over the place. Character interactions are done well yet story pacing was a mess. AI of companions sucks so switching to turn based mode with traps around is basically a must. I'm still interested in playing more but will wait for patches and play more polished, finished games first.

Anyway I wish Larian the best of luck and hope they can fix and finish the game with the same passion and work ethic. And not let the sudden 'internet darling' praise get to their heads like CDPR cause we all know what that led to :/ Larian definitely deserves praise for what they have accomplished, yet so does Nintendo with the wizardry on Switch and Insomniac for actually delivering on the next-gen promise of eliminating loading times, putting meaningful ray tracing in games and pushing accessibility options further forward.

BG3 is very solid game, that does some things really good, some things really, really bad, and then some things doesn't do at all.
It is Divinity: Forgotten Realms, not really Baldur's Gate, and if it wasn't for D&D, we wouldn't be having this conversations, since it would be another CRPG, no matter how good it is (or not).

Eventually, I wouldn't be surprised if Larian even becomes 2nd party studio that starts doing D&D exclusively, due to how much Hasbro and WotC are pushing for "digital future" (and funny thing is, CEO of WotC since last year is Cynthia Williams, who came to Hasbro from Microsoft, same one who said that "D&D brand is undermonetized. We want to unlock type of the recurrent spending we see in video games", and who is, if I understood it correctly, actual expert in microtransactions and similar shit).

In terms of storytelling/writing it's a lot closer to BG than Divinity. While there's still some comic relief, the game takes itself pretty seriously. Characters have a lot more depth and the tone is pretty close to the old BG games.

In terms of gameplay, it's not really that similar to old BG games though. This isn't just the fact that it's using 5e instead of adnd2e or that combat is full turn based instead of rtwp now, but that the gameplay design and structure is way different than the BG1/2 and is instead a lot closer to DOS2. the level/world design is probably the best example of this since instead of having multiple standalone maps connected through a world map, you now have one large pseudo open-world where all areas are connected together where you use fast travel to get around easily. This isn't the only example of such a difference though, there's so many things related to the overall game design that are very different from BG1/2 (some of which are a result of going with this style of world design such as the lack of a day/night cycle). The overall gameplay design and structure is practically identical to DOS2 (albeit using the 5e ruleset as a base and with certain gameplay elements such as surfaces modified to be less important).

To give some more examples, quest design and progression are very different and are instead a lot more open-ended and less "tightly scripted". Exploration and interaction with the world is more heavily encouraged. Environmental interaction is also a larger factor in combat than it was before. There's also no random encounters, and encounters are unique and will never respawn.

If  liked BG because of the storytelling, I think you'd probably like this game since it's not that far from it in this aspect . If liked BG for that general style of gameplay and want something that is as close to it as possible I'd recommend going with something like Pathfinder Kingmaker or Pillars of Eternity.

You can still change your bet until 2023-11-20.

As five games got votes at this point already, they are deserved in the eyes of some, which is the point, isn't it.

And why do you assume Street Fighter doesn't deserve it? It is a good game. Only because it isn't a narrative focused game, a fighter? Sorry, but the gaming world is created of more than cinematic narrative focused games, and thank god that is the case. I see no shame in a good fighter, a good racer or a good puzzle game getting high praise or GOTYs. Some people really try to push their personal taste by declaring some games more worthy than others. All that counts is quality and fun, not genre.

Eventually I will write that point bullet review I said I would, after spending 175 hours in BG3, but overall it is a product of its times - a high budget, gorgeous looking, yet cookie cutter narrative smoke and mirrors closed matrix RPG that much more resembles megadungeon crawl with a lot of interesting set pieces and "levels" than actual world you explore, all built on 5e foundation, but homebrewed so much that actually diminishes 5e ruleset (which is not that great to begin with), augmented with some of Ultima 7 ideas about interactive environments, and heavily marketed by mega corporation behind it.

I agree, for actual BG feel, something like Pathfinder Kingmaker would be a much better choice (and overall better game), for actual 5e game Solasta nailed that ruleset pretty good (and in doing so it has actually better and more tactical combat than BG3), although official campaign is pretty weak, but luckily there are a lot of user campaigns that are really good.