7th's Dementia: 7thDementia's Off-Kilter Awards of 2011, Part 1

I don't like traditional awards articles. They tend to be dry as fuck, are written more towards the industry than anything else, and tend to all gravitate towards the same game as game of the year. In that spirit, I present to you the first half of 7thDementia's Off-Kilter Awards of 2011. These are MY opinions. You're allowed to disagree with them, but these come from playing some of these games a lot.
Game of the Year: Saints Row: The Third. You saw this coming, so I put it at the top. It's not that big of a surprise, though. It's one of the most entertaining games I have ever played, and anyone who complains it's nothing like Saints Row 2 and is too wacky to enjoy clearly does NOT get what Volition was trying to do: Set the Saints Row series apart from the Grand Theft Auto series. I didn't want a rehash of SR2. I wanted Saints Row: The Third. And, by Jove, I got it. Even if you would never try Grand Theft Auto, at LEAST give Saints Row: The Third a chance. It gives you all the power at the beginning... and then escalates from there.

Runner-Up: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Yes, I know. Here's the thing: I wasn't into the Elder Scrolls series before I played Skyrim. I've got, what, 83 minutes into Oblivion and was constantly bored by it. Skyrim, on the other hand, is actually quite entertaining and will keep anyone interested for a long time. It's not as “inclusive” as I felt the previous Elder Scrolls games were. Skyrim is a completely different game from my pick of Game of the Year, but honestly I think both games are worthy of your time. Same with the others on my Game of the Year Nominees list.

Worst Game of the Year: Uh... gimme a sec... lemme come back to this one, okay?
The Rainbow Dash Award For Best New Character: Grayson Hunt from Bulletstorm. THIS is how you write a psychotic manchild who goes through character development. Grayson is fun to play as because the majority of his lines are hilarious and given perfectly by Steve Blum. The fact that he gels perfectly with Trishka and Ishi makes the dialogue funnier, not to mention the hatred between him and General Serrano. Grayson is a character that has his hilarious moments and his serious moments, and they come together beautifully. Grayson only beats my runner-up because of the song that he sang when he took control of Waggleton P. Tallylicker, otherwise, they'd be tied.

Runner-Up: Wheatley from Portal 2. Remember, I don't think like everyone else. Yes, Wheatley is lovable, even when he betrays you. Being voiced by Stephen Merchant doesn't hurt, as he's quite hilarious in everything he does, from Hot Fuzz to The Ricky Gervais Show. Wheatley's stupidity may even be based on Karl Pilkington--I'm just guessing, though. Wheatley has one of the more interesting boss fights of the year, and his lines are quite funny. It's not like I don't like Wheatley, because I do like him, but I like Grayson a lot more.
The Wesley Crusher Award For Worst New Character: Billy O'Brien from You Don't Know Jack 2011. Seriously. I love YDKJ, but Billy's more annoying than Buzz Lippman, the host of Volume 2, and Buzz is considered the Scrappy of the five hosts. I honestly wish that there were more Nocturnal Admissions questions instead of Who's The Dummy questions because the Nocturnal Admissions were funnier than just replacing b's, p's and m's with d's, t's and n's. Cookie, you can do better.

Runner-Up: Mom from The Binding of Isaac. Seriously, she's a bitch. Sacrificing your child because you believe God told you to? That's one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. It wasn't even a good idea when Abraham did it in the original Binding of Isaac! At least you get to kill her.
The Most Apropos Use Of Music in A Game: Power by Kanye West playing during the Party Time mission in Saints Row: The Third. Crashing a rival gang's party by skydiving in, then having a gunfight while this song is playing? Awesome. It's easily one of my favorite missions in the game, and the music just makes it all click together. The fact Power is playing shows that the Protagonist is ready to start taking the Syndicate out. Hell, this article was partially written with Power playing in the background, and I'll be picking it for a Captain's Night song if I win again. Explicit version, of course, otherwise it's not as powerful.

Runner-Up: Holding Out For A Hero by Bonnie Tyler playing during the final stretch of the final mission of Saints Row: The Third. Saying why would ruin the final choice, but believe me, it's appropriate.
Most Criminally Underplayed Game of 2011: Bulletstorm. I still believe the reason for it is that it was a little OVER-hyped and made it seem like it was a brofest instead of the glorious shooter that it is. It's developed by the same guys who did Painkiller, so why didn't more people pick this up in February? It was totally worthy of your money then, and it's worthy of your money now. GET IT.

Runner-Up: The Binding of Isaac. I loved this game when it came out. I still love it now. Like I said earlier, the mashup of Zelda, Smash TV, and Diablo, drew me to it and it's still as fun as it was when I got it.
Most Criminally Overplayed Game of 2011: Modern Warfare 3. At least Black Ops did something different, which is why I have THAT, not MW3. The Dick Figures episode “Modern Flame War 3” pretty sums up what I think of the game.

Runner-Up: Madden 2012. WHY IS IT STILL YEARLY? AND WHY DO PEOPLE STILL BUY IT?!
Biggest Dick Move of the Year: The Entertainment Software Association continuing to support SOPA despite the majority of the public outcry of the bill. Listen, I know online piracy is a Big Fucking Deal, but SOPA is NOT the way to do it. Censoring the Internet can only lead to bad things. Look at China. People have made bills that aren't as damaging as this one. Seriously. Fuck SOPA.

Runner-Up: EA pulling certain games off of Steam so they could be Origin-exclusive.
Best DLC of the Year: Fallout: New Vegas: Old World Blues. One of the more... involved Fallout DLCs, I actually did THIS one first instead of doing Dead Money. First off, you have James Urbaniak, aka Dr. Rusty Venture, as one of the scientists. Secondly, this DLC takes Hollywood Science and just has a fucking field day with it. Thirdly, and most importantly, it's well-written and well acted. It FEELS like Fallout. It's one of those DLCs that makes you feel good about playing it.

Runner-Up: The You Don't Know Jack 2011 Question Pack that had an episode intro where Cookie made fun of the people who wanted Gibberish Questions in YDKJ '11. I think it was the fourth one.
Weirdest Promotional Video For A Game: Tim & Eric's version of Professor Genki's Super Ethical Reality Climax for Saints Row: The Third. The in-game PGSERC has you killing 'mascots' (read: mostly furries) in an arena type cross between a Japanese game show, and the movie version of The Running Man. The Tim & Eric PGSERC is more like.... an episode of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, just with even less coherence.

Runner-Up: The Cargo! The Quest For Gravity trailer. The game makes more sense when you play it, but the trailer? The trailer is WEIRD, man.
Best Promotion For A Game: Serious Sam 3: BFE. Holy hell, EVERYTHING released as promotion for this game has mostly been hilarious and quite entertaining. I was a little skeptical when I saw that it was back to Egypt (I played Serious Sam 2 first.), but that goes away quickly. It's easily one of the best shooters I've played.

Runner-Up: Saints Row: The Third. Say it with me: Burt FUCKING Reynolds.

Nintendo Hard Game of the Year: Serious Sam 3: BFE. This game is brutal, man. I can't tell you the number of times that I've died in this game. That's kind of the point. You don't hide in cover to regenerate your health! Even in Tourist mode, the only mode WITH regenerating health! You go in guns blazing and pray you survive. This is definitely the best throwback I've played in a long time.

Runner-Up: AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! for the Awesome. Never has breaking all your bones while attempting to BASE jump been so entertaining.

The “Oh My God, This Installment Doesn't Suck!” Award: Sonic Generations. Again, every 3D Sonic game from Sonic R until before the release of Sonic Colors has sucked. Even the nostalgia filter on Sonic Adventure has worn away, with re-releases getting lower scores than the original Dreamcast version. Sonic Colors fixed that streak, having been written by Warren Graff and Ken Pontac, the writers of MadWorld and two of the writers of Happy Tree Friends. Yeah, THAT Happy Tree Friends. When Sega saw Sonic Colors work, they decided to keep it going by having Generations written by Graff and Pontac. And it worked.

Runner-Up: Driver: San Francisco. I touched on this previously, but let me reiterate: the on-foot controls from Driver 2, Driv3r, and Driver: Parallel Lines sucked balls. Driver: San Francisco brought the game back to its roots instead of being another lame GTA wannabe.

Best TF2 Hat of 2011: The Team Captain. It's perfectly suited for taking over the world, of course. Team it up with the Fancy Dress Uniform for the BEST SOLDIER EVER.

Runner-Up: The One-Man Army/Your Worst Nightmare. (insert rough onomatopoeia of that scene in UHF where Rambo!Al shot all those guys on the ridge here)
Worst TF2 Hat of 2011: The Proof of Purchase. Why? While it's a nice hat, it kinda clashes with the cartoony art style.

Runner-Up: Removing the Painterly option from the Decal Tool. Alright, it's not a hat, but I'm still pissed about that.
Best Returning Character of 2011: Cookie Masterson from You Don't Know Jack 2011. It's been a long time, but I'm glad he's back in full force. Cookie truly is the best host of YDKJ and it's great to have him back bashing celebrities and killing interns. That's his Facebook picture, by the way.

Runner-Up: GlaDOS. Does it really need to be said? GlaDOS was given a healthy dose of character development in Portal 2, and it makes you actually feel sorry for the homicidal AI when the bird attacks her.

Now, granted, it seems a little off to end it there, but I've just noticed that this hit four pages in OpenOffice, so I'm gonna split it here. Some of the categories we'll be looking at will be: Best Worst Game, Best Fanservice (Traditional Meaning), Best Fanservice (Capcom Meaning), The “Why Do They Keep Pumping These Out?!” Award, the glurge of Best Voice Actor/Actress awards, The Backyard Sports Award For Best Jumping of the Shark and... something about sports games? I dunno. That last one, we'll see, but as for the rest, I do have them written down.

Side note: The rest of the missing pictures are up. :D