Put Giant Bomb's past game of the years in the order from favorite to least favorite.

I'm also curious what order the crew would put them in. For me, The Last of Us would probably be my favorite, so:

1. The Last of Us

2. Mass Effect 2

3. Grand Theft Auto 4

5. Hitman

6. Uncharted 2

7. Skyrim

8. Shadow of Mordor.

The other three games I didn't play. Honestly, after The Last of Us and Mass Effect 2, it's pretty hard, but I think that's the order I'd put it in. I might be able to switch Uncharted and Skyrim, I don't know. I had issues with GTA 4, but I was overall very impressed by it so it made it somewhat easy to put it as three. Hitman was great but really lacked replay value for me personally. I had fun going through it, but once the final episode was finished I pretty much immediately uninstalled it off the PS4 and can't imagine playing it again anytime soon. I like that they clearly set out a bunch of things you can do, but I felt I had my fill with the way I originally played through the missions.

Uncharted 2 was one of the most disappointing sequels of last-gen to me in large part because the shooting felt weightless, but with the remaster on PS4 it was okay for some reason, seeming to feel in line with the other two. I've always tried to be more into Elder Scrolls, but it has always been hard. They're alright. Shadow of Mordor is of solid quality at being an Arkham/Assassin's Creed kind of game, but with a dull story, characters and world it felt pretty boring to me. I also never thought the nemesis system was all that interesting or compelling.

On the other hand, The Last of Us is perhaps my favorite 'zombie' post-apocalyptic work of fiction. The games setting alone had me extremely immersed, where due to a lack of human care really turned every building and street into a dilapidated form of what we consider typical and relatable today. It had a story in itself that I could create by just imagining, like what those places were when it was filled with society. It was all kind of sad. It also showed how flora and fauna would enrapture it all. It was also a lot more about humans than the cordyceps. The characters were great with a story that made me think, like how one is supposed to feel about Joel as you compare and contrast his past and present. The combat felt realistically brutal and seamlessly going from hand-to-hand combat to shooting felt superb.

Mass Effect 2 is one of the best space faring sci-fi games there is. It was so good that it made me go back to Mass Effect 1 multiple times and actually appreciate that game when I otherwise would not have given it much thought after I originally finished it. It has an awesome set of characters, cool sci-fi worlds, and small side worlds to explore, very good DLC. The gameplay becoming more of a shooter I appreciated; I thought it felt pretty good. I just thought that the game was a bit too bullet-spongey on hard. The soundtrack is also noteworthy. Yeah, just a superb game. I can say a lot about these beloved games, but I'll stop here. What about all of you?

This is their game of the year games by year if you don't already know:

2008: GTA 4

2009: Uncharted 2

2010: Mass Effect 2

2011: Skyrim

2012: XCOM: Enemy Unknown

2013: The Last of Us

2014: Shadow of Mordor

2015: Super Mario Maker

2016: Hitman

2017: PUBG

Most of the time, I tend to be much more interested in whatever they pick as the runner-up, eg Bayonetta 2 over Mordor, Breath Of The Wild over PUBG, Saints Row The Third over Skyrim etc.

I don't think there are really that many GB GOTYs that I can really get all that enthused about. Hitman and Mario Maker are both cool as hell. XCOM is also a good video game. I guess my own personal tastes aren't all that likely to line up with a choice by committee for a game that had the broadest appeal to the group. That's not really ever going to be a fighting game or something like that.

It's interesting that you say you didn't like the feel of Uncharted 2 until the remaster, because 2 was the one that felt by far the best to me of the original trilogy. Uncharted 3, on the other hand, initially felt really off to me before they patched in the option to basically just use Uncharted 2's aiming code.

@damodar: I know, I feel the same way, but that's partially why I thought it'd be interesting to hear what people had to say when you simply took the overall best by Giant Bomb as opposed to our personal favorites of each year. Also, yes I am in the minority on Uncharted 2. Some people thought it was a step up from Drake's Fortune, I didn't. I think the reaction the enemies had felt off like they didn't act realistic to the bullets hitting them, it felt very canned. Like, you might shoot them in the foot and they'd have the same animation as if you shot them in the stomach. I don't remember if that's exactly true, but it felt like that. The controls in all Uncharted games were totally fine, I didn't even notice the change in three when they updated it. As for the game of the year, none of those choices above except for The Last of Us and perhaps Mass Effect 2 would be even close to my personal game of the year.

Oh, man...this top 4 could swing day-to-day...

Best to Worst:

Mass Effect 2

The Last of Us

Hitman

Uncharted 2

GTA 4

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Shadow of Mordor

Skyrim

Super Mario Maker

PUBG

EDIT: Bummed out that Doom, Saints Row the Third, Bioshock Infinite and Witcher 3 didn’t fare better with the GB crew...

Oh man, the only one I did not play is Super Mario Maker (and Hitman only the first chapter though). First and second are very close.

1. Skyrim

2. The Last of Us

3. Mass Effect 2

4. PUBG

5. X-COM

6. Shadow of Mordor

7. Uncharted 2

8. Hitman

9. Grand Theft Auto 4

Interesting idea, the top four for me was equally hard, especially the top 3. But I think I'd have to settle on

1. Super Mario Maker
2. Hitman
3. Mass Effect 2
4. Skyrim
5. X-Com
5. Uncharted 2
6. The Last of Us
7. GTA 4
8. PUBG
9. Shadow of Mordor

I ultimately had to go with Mario Maker 1. I think Hitman may end up being the far more influential game, but Mario Maker finally distilled something I'd wanted for so many years, I literally went out and wasted money on a second Wii U after trading my original away for a TV, because I had to play Mario that bad. 2d Mario, especially 3/World are probably my two favorite games of all time, and might be the very pinnacle of the genre. ME2 is also game of last generation for me. Shadow of Mordor was an easy last place though, hindsight has not done that game favors. Obviously the Nemesis system is still interesting, but the rest of the game is just so shallow by comparison, especially as more and more full featured open world titles have come out. I feel like eventually we may see that system used even more effectively, but Shadow of War wasn't that for me either.

I'm kinda curious how X-Com is going to rank for a lot of people. I think that is a case of time doing that game wonders, and just how well made it was continues to shine even as the years gone on. I think it's better than it's sequel X-Com 2 as well.

I can't do this because out of all those games the only two i like enough are Skyrim and GTA4.
I do like some of the others, but there are so many games i'd put above them.

Interesting, I've actually never agreed with them on the top pick, and there's a couple of games on there I actively dislike.

1. Last of Us
2. XCOM
3. Hitman
4. Mass Effect 2
5. Uncharted 2
6. Mario Maker
7. PUBG
8. Skyrim
9. Mordor
10. GTA 4

GTA 4 and Mordor I just plainly don't think are all that good. But I'm also not especially attached to any of these. TLoU at least had good story and characterization, but I had to kind of chew through it to get past the gameplay. XCOM is fun but kind of fucked up. I prefer the second game personally.

1. Skyrim - one of my favourite games of all-time, if not THE favourite.
2. Mass Effect 2 - I beat this game in a few days straight after launch and thought it was absolutely incredible. I've soured on it over the years, and would've picked Red Dead Redemption for 2010, but it's still a modern classic.
3. XCOM: Enemy Unknown - was really tempted to rank this over ME2, but in terms of which game I liked most at launch the winner is ME2. I still love XCOM, even though it wasn't my GOTY for 2012 (Crusader Kings II, bitches!). Such a shame that XCOM 2 was a total mess.
4. The Last of Us - yeah, this game's great. At the time, I thought it was a bit overrated, and was definitely on Team BioShock Infinite, but it's definitely a worthy GOTY.
5. Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor - I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that this is objectively the worst GOTY game in GB history. It was neat and played well, but just far too bland. There was nothing really special about it. That said, 2014 was a very weak year, and my game of the year choice, South Park: Stick of Truth, is probably the game I'd rank at the bottom on my list of GOTY winners.
6. TIE between GTAIV, Uncharted 2, Super Mario Maker, Hitman GO, and PUBG - these are games I have never played, and thus have no strong opinion on. For each year, my GOTY choice would've been Fallout 3 ('08), Dragon Age: Origins ('09), Fallout 4 ('15), Stardew Valley ('16), and Horizon Zero Dawn ('17).

1) XCOM: Enemy Unknown

2) Mass Effect 2

3) Hitman

4) Skyrim

5) Super Mario Maker

6) GTA 4

7) Shadow of Mordor

Didn't play: Uncharted 2, The Last of us (damn you, console exclusives!), PUBG.

I'm pretty sure i would like "The last of us" best out of those.

1) Mass Effect 2

2) Grand Theft Auto IV

3) Hitman

4) The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

5) PUBG

6) XCOM: Enemy Unknown

7) The Last of US

8) Super Mario Maker

9) Uncharted 2

10) Shadow of Mordor

My top GOTY has never matched GB's. None of GB's winners are games I would say I love (i.e. among my all-time favorites), but I quite enjoyed 4 of them (my top 4 below). The others I didn't especially enjoy, but I still played them and appreciated what made them special, except for Mordor, which was the only GB winner in which I couldn't see even the faintest trace of appeal.

1. XCOM: Enemy Unknown (my 2012 #2)
2. Mass Effect 2 (my 2010 #3)
3. GTA IV (my 2008 #4)
4. The Last of Us (my 2013 #3)
5. Hitman (my 2016 #11)
6. Super Mario Maker (my 2015 #14)
7. Skyrim (my 2011 #18)
8. Uncharted 2 (my 2009 #12)
9. PUBG (my 2017 #18)
10. Shadow of Mordor (didn't play, zero interest)

Games I played:

1. Mass Effect 2
2. Hitman
3. Skyrim
4. Shadow of Mordor
5. XCOM
6. GTA IV

I disliked GTA IV. I think after Vice City and San Andreas I was tired of the formula.

Love the site, haven't always loved their picks.

1. Super Mario Maker
2. GTA IV
3. XCOM
4. Mass Effect 2
5. Hitman
6. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE IS A SAD BACK ALLEY FIGHT)
7. Uncharted 2
8. The Last of Us
9. Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor
10. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds

I'm your number one GTA IV homer.

How about trying to predict the results of if the current GB team had this debate?

My guess would be:

1. Super Mario Maker

2. Mass Effect 2

3. GTA IV

4. Skyrim

5. Hitman

6. Last of Us

7. PUBG

8. XCOM

9. Uncharted 2

10. Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor

I could definitely be projecting with Skyrim though.

1. Skyrim (One of my favorite games ever, but maaaaaan that was a terrible GOTY argument)

2. Mass Effect 2 (The last truly great Bioware game)

3. Hitman (A Very Good Dumb Time)

4. XCOM (Tense, frustrating yet extremely satisfying)

5. The Last of Us (Excellent beginning, excellent ending, I don’t remember much of anything that happened in between. The winter chapter, maybe? That was pretty good.)

6. GTA IV (My least favorite Rockstar game I’ve brought myself to finish. Episodes was far superior.)

7. Uncharted 2 (Never got why this is considered the pinnacle of the series. Story was underwhelming and Uncharted 3 blows all its setpieces out of the water.)

8. Mario Maker (I haven’t played it but I’m confident it’s better than the last two games on this list).

9. PUBG (I don’t like this genre and I especially don’t like this game. Manages to be simultaneously tense and boring, a horrid combination.)

10. Shadow of Mordor (I love Arkham Asylum. I love Assassin’s Creed. I love Lord of the Rings. And yet I outright despise Shadow of Mordor. Terrible story, drab world and so braindead easy for anyone who’s even glanced at a modern Arkham-influenced action game that I had to deliberately kill myself to even see the nemesis system work. Even considering how dire of a year 2014 was, they could have come up with something better than this for the top spot.)

@banefirelord: 2014 was rough

I haven't played most of them. I'd say

1. Skyrim

2. Mass Effect 2

3. Uncharted 2

1. Hitman
2. PUBG
3. Uncharted 2
4. Skyrim
5. Shadow of Mordor

The top four are the only ones that I've finished. Shadow of Mordor and the Last of Us I played only a bit of and liked. GTA IV and Mass Effect 1 (not 2) I played only a few hours but were not fun. I've yet to touch the other two.

GTA 4 - made a huge impression on me as a teenager. I've been wanting to replay it for a couple years now but haven't made the time

PUBG - most excited and tense a game has ever made me feel gives it its high place here

XCOM - the choices they constantly give you to choose from make this game so good. Sometimes there's more fighting than base managing for my taste though

Hitman - I bought this game because of Giant Bomb. All the maps were already released by the time I got to it. I ended up putting about 10ish hours into the training areas and first two maps and really enjoyed my time with it, but have been meaning to go back and play more for over a year now

Shadow Of Mordor - really fun game that got repetitive. This was the winner of the first GOTY I was here for.

The Last of Us - I never finished this game (shame on me). I really liked what I played but I got stuck on a section and put the game down. When I finally came back to it I was worse at the game (weird I know) and never moved past. I will start this game over at some point, and if I beat it I'm sure it will be higher up on my list.

Super Mario Maker - Bought into the GB hype, remembered I'm not creative or persistent enough to make levels, and then promptly stopped playing it once Dan's levels got too hard. Jeff, for the most part, made nice tight little levels though.

Uncharted 2 - I think this game is mediocre as fuck. Got to the blue men and decided this story sucks ass. I tried my hand at Uncharted 3 and also didn't like it. Loved 4 and Legacy though.

*Never played the last two so I put them in order of which I'm more interested in playing

Skyrim - Been thinking of picking this up on Switch.

Mass Effect 2 - Vinny's passion for this game makes me want to play it, but I also feel like I should play the first one to get the full trilogy experience, and when I tried to it was sooooooo rough. Maybe someday I'll just watch a video and skip to this one.

1. Super Mario Maker
2. XCOM: Enemy Uknown
3. The Last of Us
4. GTA 4
5. Uncharted 2
6. Skyrim
7. Shadow of Mordor
8. Hitman
9. PUBG
10. Mass Effect 2

I could see all of these games being arranged in a different order besides Mario Maker. That will always be at the top to me.

1. Skyrim
2. Mass Effect 2
3. Shadow of Mordor
4. GTA 4
5. Last of Us
6. Uncharted 2
7. Hitman
8. XCOM
9. PUBG
10. Super Mario Maker

The top 4 is easy choice for me, I love open world games/RPGs so they automatically win. Skyrim and the TES series are one of my all time favorites with well over a thousand hours spent in those worlds. After top 4, I put two Naughty Dog games simply because I like that studio and enjoyed their games a lot! Both TLOU and U2 still hold up. Hitman is next for the freedom in approach. Not a big strategy person but I enjoyed XCOM. PUBG and Mario don't interest me much, but I do recognize their huge influence on the industry and its history!

@sidewinder665: I think Mass Effect 2 would have a STRONG shot at number 1 and Hitman would fare much better.

@sloppydetective: Mass Effect is worth investing yourself in. I might just slap it down to easy, just to get the choices and story beats.

If you can’t do that, there’s some sort of interactive story that covers the first game on PS3 and it might have eventually come to 360 as well.

1. Hitman
2. PUBG
3. XCOM: Enemy Unknown
4. Mass Effect 2
5. Last of Us
6. Super Mario Maker
7. Skyrim
8. Uncharted 2
9. GTA IV
10. Shadow of Mordor

Surprised that Hitman was my number 1, but then again lot of that list was back half of the top 10 or not top 10 at all for me in the years they released.

1. The Witcher 3
2. Mass Effect 2
3. GTA 4
4. Skyrim
5. The Last of Us
6. Uncharted 2
7. XCOM: Enemy Unknown
8. Hitman
9. PUBG
10. Super Mario Maker
11. Shadow of Mordor

Best to worst:

1. Mass Effect 2 (Mordin wins best new character of my heart)

2. The Last of Us (One of the best told self-contained stories in games)

3. Uncharted 2 (I'm a real sucker for Indiana Jones ruins puzzles)

4. PUBG (This got its hooks into me longer than Overwatch, which was my GOTY 2016 for what that's worth)

5. XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Always looking for time to keep coming back to this game)

6. Shadow of Mordor (Loved the Nemesis system and wasn't sick of Batman combat yet)

7. Hitman (Man, Sapienza and Paris are great)

8. Super Mario Maker (This was a good source of Super Mario World levels for me for a while)

9. Skyrim (I like Skyrim just fine, but it was the game where Bethesda's combat started to become boring for me)

10. GTA 4 (Only game on the list I wouldn't consider a great game. I've never liked a GTA game)

As far as what I've played...

1. Shadow of Mordor
2. Uncharted 2
3. Skyrim
4. GTA 4
5. The Last of Us
6. Hitman
7. Super Mario Maker
8. Mass Effect 2

1. Mass Effect 2
2. Skyrim
3. Super Mario Maker
4. The Last of Us
5. PUBG
6. Uncharted 2
7. GTA 4

Never played:

Hitman
XCOM
Shadow of Mordor

I still think they made the right call in picking Skyrim over Saint's Row.

Only ranking these games I would go with:

• Mass Effect 2
• Uncharted 2
• Hitman
• Skyrim
• PUBG
• Mario Maker
• Last of Us
• Shadow of Mordor
• GTA IV
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown

I am sure if I sat down and thought about this more these might be shuffled a bit. Also, I have not played past the first 20 minutes of XCOM so that is why it is at the bottom.

- Mass Effect 2

- Last of Us

- Uncharted 2

- XCOM

- Shadow of Mordor

- Skyrim

I've never had enough interest in any of the others to play them. I don't remember most of the games that were in competition with these games, but I'm pretty sure only The Last of Us would have made my own list. (I know I ranked ME2 higher, but I seem to remember that being a competive year.)

Here's my list.

1. The Last of Us-- This game is truly a master piece from beginning to end.
2. Skyrim-- Would have been my number 1 if the main story line was more memorable.
3. XCOM: Enemy Unknown-- One of the best modern tactical RPG games.
4. Hitman-- Have you ever killed someone by tossing a Exploding Golf ball at them? Fantastic stealth game.
5. Super Mario Maker-- A great toolkit for making and playing custom 2D Mario levels... because Nintendo isn't going to make another true 2D side scroller in the Mario franchise anytime soon. (The 2D sections of Odyssey don't count and neither does that Super Mario Run mobile trash, I want the whole game 2D from beginning to end...)
6. Uncharted 2, GTA 4, Shadow of Mordor-- I am indifferent towards these games, they are great games but not exceptional enough to be separated from each other.
7. Mass Effect 2-- I did not enjoy any of the time i spent with this game and quit within the first hour.
8. PUBG-- Where do I start with this game... The first time I boot, the game gives me a black screen instead of the main menu-- Off to a good start. Quick google search, apparently I need to edit a file with Notepad to disable some setting that my GPU doesn't like for whatever reason. No big deal. Get in game finally, first game I get into I am immediately welcomed by some terrible server side lag for the first minute or two. Then game finally runs acceptably but then I get gunned down from behind and am dead instantly. I give the game a few more tries only to have it end with more Server side lag, server kicking me, weird hit detection where i appear to have been shot through a wall that shouldn't have had bullets go through it. Needless to say I uninstall that night and decide to give it a month or so to get patched and hopefully its better. I play again a month later, a recent patch made the game a bit more bearable, played with friends and got a couple chicken dinners, but over the course of the couple weeks playing with friends it wasn't a ground breaking experience to me. I found myself constantly irritated and annoyed by the bugs, glitches, cheaters, and performance of the game. None of the games I played above made me feel this way. I did have some fun moments with PUBG but the sheer amount of bad experiences put a sour taste in my mouth. I will gladly never play it again.

Whoops kind of turned into a PUBG rant piece, my bad.

@banefirelord: Weird thing is, I thought there were some really good games in 2014. Some of my favorites were (and still of this generation) Alien Isolation, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Valiant Hearts, The Walking Dead Season Two, Dark Souls 2 and The Evil Within (I replayed The Evil Within before two and became to really like it when I had originally not, and DS2 I played in 2016 of Scholar of the First Sin, but still). There is also Wolfenstein: The New Order. There's actually a handful of games that a lot of people liked now that I look. Hearthstone, Shovelknight, Mario Kart 8, Bayonetta 2, Smash Bros, Destiny, Divinity: Original Sin, Titanfall, the list arguably goes on, but most if not all of the games I mentioned alone are all better, at least in my opinion than Shadow of Mordor from the ones I've played.

Out of the ones I've played:

1. TLOU
2. Hitman
3. GTA4
4. U2
5. XCOM
6. ME2

But I've enjoyed them all to a fair degree.

From favorite to least favorite (a.k.a. the "I'm still not at all sure why people like this game" nominee)

Skyrim
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Hitman
Mass Effect 2
Uncharted 2
Shadow of Mordor
Super Mario Maker
GTA 4
(Haven't played PUBG but even just watching it I'd rank it higher than...)
The Last of Us

1. Mass Effect 2
2. Hitman.

Everything else is close, but unfortunately they all fall into the 11th spot.

1. Last of Us

2. Skyrim

3. Xcom

4. Uncharted 2

5. Mario Maker

These five are all pretty close.

6. Mass Effect 2

7. Mordor

Both these are distinctly average games that I don't rate highly.

Didn't play the others.

Of those I've played:

Mass Effect 2

Skyrim

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Uncharted 2

GTA 4

The Last of Us

Shadow of Mordor

This is a fun idea:

1. Mass Effect 2

2. TLoU

3. Uncharted 2

4. XCOM

5. Grand Theft Auto 4

6. Shadow of Mordor

I like all these games, but this is the order I would place them in if I had to. Never played Skyrim, PUBG, or Mario Maker. I also didn't not play enough Hitman to place it on the list.

1. Red Dead Redemption.

....what?

1. Last of Us
2. Uncharted 2
3. Hitman
4. X-Com: Enemy Unknown
5. Skyrim
6. Super Mario Maker
7. GTA 4

The rest I didn't play enough to put on a list. Mass Effect didn't grab me and Shadow of Mordor just seems the kinda Assassins Creed clone I don't want to spend time with anymore. PUBG seems great if you have a party of 4 to play with.

1. Mass Effect 2
2. Skyrim
3. XCOM: Enemy Unknown
4. Uncharted 2
5. Shadow of Mordor
6. Super Mario Maker
7. PUBG
8. Hitman
9. The Last of Us
10. GTA 4

Top 3 are among my favorite games of all time. 4-8 were fun and enjoyable enough. I really, really did not enjoy 9 and 10 though.