Announcing the winner and runner up for Sci-Fi Game of the Year

Last week I went over the games that managed to claw their way to the top 5-3 places on our Sci-Fi Game of the Year 2011 list. Today it’s time to finally reveal which game ends up snatching the title of the greatest science fiction themed video game of 2011 and which game made has to make do with the not quite so glorious title of runner up.

So without anymore further introduction let's dive right in.

Runner up: Portal 2

When the first Portal game came out with the “Orange Box” in 2007 I was pretty blown away by the game.

Initially by the really cool gameplay mechanics of the portal gun, which allows you place a two way portal on most surfaces of the game and allows for some truly mind bending puzzles that make you feel insanely clever when you finally figure them out. 

But as I got deeper into the game, the quirky humor became a great part of the experience, and I found myself actually laughing out loud several times during Chell’s daring attempt to escape the Aperture Science facility.

My favorite Portal 1 comedy moment was probably this gem that GLaDOS, the AI antagonist of the game, delivers to you as you are getting quite close to escaping: 

“We are pleased that you made it through the final challenge where we pretended we were going to murder you. We are very very happy for your success. We are throwing a party in honor of your tremendous success. Place the device on the ground, then lie on your stomach with your arms at your sides. A party associate will arrive shortly to collect you for your party. Make no further attempt to leave the testing area. Assume the Party Escort Submission Position, or you will miss the party”.

(By the way, you can find a comprehensive list of GLaDOS quotes here, there’s some top notch quality comedy in there)

GLaDOS is still around in Portal 2, even if she's looking a little worse for wear

The first Portal game was a pretty short affair, so when Portal 2 was announced and it was revealed that it would be a full 6-7 hour gaming experience I was happier than a test subject who just found out he was in the placebo sample group.

In most ways I feel that Portal 2 is pretty much exactly what I wanted from a Portal sequel. There are lots of even more fiendish puzzles that will tickle your grey cells and great writing that makes it a possibly even more funny game than the original. The addition of Wheatly, the flying idiot robot sidekick, is a great contrast to the dry and sinister wit of GLaDOS and the voice acting for both characters is just amazing.

However I must say that I also felt that the lengthening of the game ended up burning me out a little bit on all the puzzles. Valve felt the need to add in more twists and additions to keep things feeling fresh for the player as you go through the story, but for me it all became a little overwhelming to keep track of everything. 

As I got towards the late stages of the game, I felt I was juggling flaming knives on a unicycle with a flat tire, while reciting Pi to the 27^th decimal (3.141592653589793238462643383 by the way, in case you were wondering).

Maybe it just showed me that I actually enjoyed the writing and humor in Portal more than I did the gameplay itself. So even though I think Portal 2 was a great game I can’t quite put it on the top of my list.

Winner: Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Cue immense gasps of surprise. Or, probably not. Deus Ex managed to win the“Readers’ Choice” award earlier this week in a manner so convincing that the rest of the competition hung their heads in collective shame (I’m sure I saw a tear in the eye of Marcus Fenix).

Last time we ventured into the Deus Ex universe was in 2003 with Invisible Wars, and frankly the less that is said about that game the better. While it wasn’t a completely horrible game as such, it could in no way live up to the highs of the original from 2000. For a long time it seemed that the Deus Ex franchise was dead before it really got off the ground, and sci-fi gamers everywhere cried out with impotent rage on the internet.

With the legacy of Invisible wars in the back of my head, I was fairly skeptical when Human Revolution was announced. While it certainly looked very much to be following in the footsteps of the original game, it was hard to really get a firm impression of the game from what was being shown. On paper it looked like all the right ingredients were being used to make a great game, but would Eidos be able to mix them all together in the right ratios and bake a delicious cake (speaking of Portal) of freeform roaming in a gripping dystopian world of tomorrow, or would we be stuck with a half-baked mushy disaster with a bad aftertaste of bitter disappointment?

The neon cities of Deus Ex gives the game an appropriate dystopian Blade Runner feel

Luckily it turned out that the developers got it almost exactly right. While the story itself could perhaps have used a little pinch of cinnamon to make it a little less bland, and while we had to contend with some icky bits of pickled raisins in the form of terribly designed boss battles, the overall taste was both refined and delicious.

Deus Ex managed to give players a lot of choice in deciding how to play the game. You could go in guns blazing, sneak your way through the air vents or smash through a wall and make your own entrance to the mission objective. This was supported by the augmentation system that allowed you to focus on the upgrades that complemented your preferred playing style (personally I can recommend picking up vending machines and using them as improvised cover during firefights. That also gives you the option of enjoying a refreshing soft drink while you're reloading).

"Hey, you ever get the feeling that someone is pointing a sniper rifle right at you?"

Human Revolution also had a pretty open world when you weren’t messing around in a mission. You could go breaking into to the apartments of people and hack into their computers and read their e-mails for example. It wasn’t as big of an open world game as something like Skyrim by any stretch, but it was enough to make it feel like you were part of an actual world and not just running through the set of a sci-fi movie.

Deus Ex is a game that is more than the sum of its parts. While any one aspect of the game taken on its own is seen better in other games, when you put it all together in one scrumptious elbow blade filled package, you end up with a game that is incredibly good fun. 

When I look back on 2011 I know that Deus Ex: Human Revolution is going to be the game that sticks out in my mind as the best sci-fi video game of the year.

A big congratulation to Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the Light Speed Gaming Sci-Fi Game of the Year 2011 winner!

So there you have it. Turns out that I’m in full agreement with the Light Speed Gaming readership (so I’m sure you’re all also just as crazy as I am about My Little Pony, right?). 2011 has been a fairly good year for fans of science fiction themed video games and 2012 is already looking like it will be stepping up and bring us even more fantastic sci-fi games.

First stop in 2012 is going to be March, when Mass Effect 3 is going to be unleashed (I’ve previously written about the top things that I’m lookingforward to seeing in Mass Effect 3).

Oh, and there’s also this little game called Star Wars: The Old Republic, which is just now waiting for me to finish up this article and Force pull me back into its grasp.

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