Working Title 12.09.11: The 2011 Working Title Awards Nominees (Part 1)

Posted by Jordan Williams on 12.09.2011

Is Batman the manliest character of 2011? Which game dominated dorm rooms more, Modern Warfare 3 or Battlefield 3? Is Dragon Age 2 the disappointment of the year? 411's Jordan WIlliams takes a look at the Working Title Award nominees!

The only awards where you will see Duke Nukem nominated three times.

Welcome to the #1 Column to think the The Old Republic might end up being one of the biggest flops in MMORPG history, WORKING TITLE. Not that I necessarily wish any sort of ill will onto The Old Republic because I really do want that game to work. The fact that they set the bar so high for themselves with all of the hype and all of the other bullshit they kept spewing. Have I played Old Republic? Nope. Am I going to play it? I might check it when it goes Free to Play like every other MMO does every few months.

But this column is NOT about Soon-to-be-failed MMOs. It's not even about other failures. This column is about…THE 5TH ANNUAL WORKING TITLE AWARDS.
This year I am breaking format by extending the Award Season for the ENTIRE month! Why? Because it's the END OF THE YEAR AND NOTHING IS HAPPENING.

For the few of you that read this irregularly scheduled column on a regular basis you know that back in July we had the Working Title Halftime Awards which are the same thing…just for the first 6 months of the year. This time we are encompassing the WHOLE year with the winners from the previous awards automatically being nominated. This week will be the first half of the nominees while next week will be the winners for the second half and the end of the year/next year we will have winners. Because of that we are forgoing the usual Working Backlog (Spoilers: Lots of Skyrim and Saints Row 3) and Working Question and going right into the nominees.






The 5th Annual Working Title Awards: 2011 Nominees (Part 1)


Note: Any games that game out prior to Week 1 December 2011 are eligible. While there are releases after Week 1 of December, those will be eligible for the 2012 Halftime Awards. It's not like The Old Republic is any good anyway.



The Duke Nukem Award for Manliness
A long time mainstay of these awards is essentially the award for the best male character this year. In years past we have seen many a name grace this title but the tradition is always the same—The winner gets his name added to the lexicon of Manliness and will be the name of the award for the next 6 months. This year we have a pretty impressive group lined up as well as someone who has actually won the award before. So who is up for the Mantle of Manliness this year?



Halftime Winner Duke Nukem

We are going to start off with the winner from earlier this year, Duke Nukem. While the years have not been kind to Duke Nukem given that his long-awaited game was a glorious piece of shit. It doesn't change the fact that Duke Nukem is still one of the manliest and most badass characters to ever exist. He man drinks beer, chugs steroids, punches bitches dead, all while spouting (admittedly lame) one liners. In terms of manliness Duke still holds up. The question is…does he hold up against the second half nominees?



Clayton Carmine (Gears of War 3)



SAVE CARMINE was the rally call earlier this year. And while I am not going to spoil whether or not it worked (5 month grace period has not passed yet) but even if he dies or lives by the end of Gears of War 3…one thing is for certain. Clayton Carmine is by far the most badass of his brothers and although it might be hard to believe…with everyone in Gears 3 being so goddamn pussified Clayton ends up being one of the most badass guys in the game. Plus while everyone else is using shitty COG weapons like the Sniper Rifle, what does Clayton roll with? Motherfucking Torque Bow. Badass.



Rocket Raccoon (Marvel vs. Capcom 3)

When Rocket Raccoon was announced for Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, the first reaction from everyone who did not read Marvel Comics was summed as "Who the fuck is THIS?" the reaction from people who DID read the comic was "FUCK YEAH". Now the reaction is a bit more towards the middle because it turns out he might not be that good of a character overall but the fact that he is a badass British raccoon with more guns that B.B Hood and Cable. Plus he routinely calls people "Wanker".



Batman (Batman: Arkham City)

The first and so far ONLY person ever to be nominated for the award twice, Batman was the winner of the award when Arkham Asylum came out. Not much has changed from Batman between AA and AC, but his manliness still can't be denied. The man outsmarts Bane, beats up Mr. Freeze, takes on Deadshot, puts up with Riddler's bullshit and more importantly PUNCHES A FUCKING SHARK TO DEATH all in the span of about 10 hours. The Goddamned Batman might be the first person to win twice.



Isaac (Dead Space 2)

You know it's not often that someone bounces back from all of the shit that went down in Isaac's life. Which is probably why he didn't bounce back from it at all and instead ended up being a crazy motherfucker who spends a good chunk of the game hallucinating—or thinking he is hallucinating. But why is Isaac up for this award? Simple. He man can take a beating and deal with all of the fucked up stuff going on around him all while being the best goddamn engineer he can be. Plus anyone who can harness the power of gravity to the point where they can stomp LIMBS OFF is a goddamn MAN.




The Dormroom Dominator Award
While I have since graduated from college, then name of the Dormroom Dominator still holds true for essentially what is voted on as the best multiplayer game of the year. In years past the award has ALWAYS been dominated by Call of Duty but this year, at least in the early half, this category was dominated by fighting games. This year we see them go head to head to claim the crown…as well as a game really is out of place—until you really think about it.




Halftime Winner (Ultimate) Marvel vs. Capcom 3
Note: For the purposes of these awards I am considering Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 as the same game.
And the first shot that is fired against the FPS came earlier this year when Marvel vs. Capcom 3 won over…Homefront and Brink. Yeah. There weren't any really good FPS offerings early this year but although I had my problems with MvC3 it doesn't take away from the fact that it was a game that was (and still is) getting a lot of play online and at tournaments therefore it did dominate. Of course this is the end of the year so…



Modern Warfare 3

Seriously, do I even need to explain why it's here? I could probably copy and paste the reasons why it was here for Black Ops. Or why it was here for Modern Warfare 2. Or for Modern Warfare…you see what I'm getting at here? It's Call of Duty and a lot of people play it. The End.



King of Fighters 13



And I counter the FPS with ANOTHER fighting game! King of Fighter XIII might only be a two weeks old at this point but it has actually been out for a fairly long time in the tournament circuit and in the arcades. While the last KoF game hasn't been received that entire well it seems like this one is getting a better reception and is being seen as a nice change of pace from the current Capcom Dominated fighting scene. It might be a long shot but this one might be the one to win.



Battlefield 3

BUT NOT IF FPS GAMES HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT. Battlefield 3 dropped this year to go head to head with Modern Warfare 3 in what was an epic battle and in post eyes it seems like they are dead even (unless you look at sales figures) but the communities for either game will tell ad different story. Where CoD has more of the players on it's side it seems like the co-op "No man left behind" style of Battlefield appeals to more team oriented players especially on the PC.



Dark Souls

And now for another fi--..Wait. What? Dark Souls? It's an RPG with BARELY any multiplayer, so how the hell can it be nominated for this? Simple. I think that Dark Souls is probably one of the biggest multiplayer games out there simply because of the amount of work that the community puts in just trying to play the game. Whole message boards of people working together to try to beat a boss or find some treasure in the obscenely unforgiving and difficult game turns it into a meta-experience that is more of a game in that of itself. When you play Dark Souls and something awesome happens you don't get an achievement or a trophy, you pause the game and head to a forum and post it (or leave a blood stain) and let everyone else know about it…thus adding that to knowledge bank that is pretty much mandatory to play this game at any level. Which is why this game can be seen as a multiplayer came and is nominated. And it might win, too.




Not a Bang, but a Whimper Award
But they all can't be winners, the Whimper Awards were made for those games (or in this year's case—consoles) that just didn't live up to the hype that was promised. Either they didn't sell well or they didn't review well. Basically something went wrong somewhere and the game didn't make a big splash like it needed to. Instead it just sort of fizzled its life away in mediocrity and controversy.




Halftime WinnerDuke Nukem Forever

There really isn't much more that needs to be said about Duke Nukem Forever. The game has been in development for about as long as some of you have been alive and when it finally comes out not only is it bad…it's TERRIBLE. One might even say it was TERRIBAD. Bad graphics, bad controls, bad writing, bad multiplayer…bad EVERYTHING. You might say it was a forgone conclusion that something like this turned out the way it did, but I don't think anyone expected it to be that bad still.



Rage

I feel sort of bad putting Rage on this list, but after really thinking about it I think it deserves its spot on here. Rage was the first true game from iD in a long time and while the game is probably the best game on this list…it was still just very lacking and didn't really live up to its expectations. The end product looked good and it well, especially given the gun controls. But the actual gameplay itself was so…boring. It was like Borderlands' barebones story without any of the loot. While that might sound appealing to some people all it did in the end was make the game a boring set of fetch quest and instanced levels that wasted all of the potential the game had.



Dragon Age 2

Rather than try to find another reason why Dragon Age 2 is on this list (it was nominated back in July as well), I'll go ahead and just repost that reason.
And here we go. While I personally did not have too much of a problem with Dragon Age II it seems like I was in the minority since pretty much everyone else found a major problem with this game. Either it was the recycled maps or the new combat system or the fact that your main character actually talks and has some semblance of a (naturally douchey) personality or the fact that it just seemed like...not a Dragon Age game. Either way it sold fairly well but many fear the backlash the game had will forever tarnish the reputation of BioWare...even to the point where people are condemning Mass Effect 3 before it even comes out.




The Nintendo 3DS



There is no point in sugar coating it. Up until a few weeks ago the 3DS release had NOT been going as planned. It had horrible releases, no real support, no real use, and the worst part of it all was that it had no real fan base. It's good that things are changing for the better for the 3DS but that doesn't take away the fact that for the large part of its launch this year it just seemed like there was nothing right it could do. Hopefully next year looks a little bit better for the 3DS.





The Die in a Fire Award
And since we are already in the negative zone of the awards, why not just got ahead and give out the DIAF Award—Also known as the award where we just collectively say FUCK YOU (In fact, that will be one of the descriptions for a nominee) to various things in the games world. Be it a character, a mechanic, or even a company in its entirety. We want to cast them into Hell and this is the only way we can do it and feel good about ourselves.




Halftime Winner Nintendo Magic

Nintendo Magic was the winner earlier this year. For those that do not know what Nintendo Magic is I will go ahead and explain it right here. Nintendo Magic is the term I use whenever Nintendo just does what Nintendo does best. Meaning they do absolutely nothing for months on end and everyone begins to see through the PR shit Nintendo pulls and realizes "Wait a second, Nintendo really ISN'T all that great anymore and they have lost touch with the gaming community" …and then they release one of their admittedly stellar IPs and everyone sings Nintendo's praises like they have been doing it all along. And once that game has run its course they do it all over again. The thing is, with as much power and resources that Nintendo has at its disposal they should be doing this ALL year, not just three times a year. Thus why it's called Nintendo Magic. Nintendo Magically gets everyone to forget how much they have been slacking off.



Single Player Campaigns in Console FPS Games

I'll just keep this one short and sweet. Unless the game has a campaign that is INTREGAL to the story, and by integral I mean like…they have concept art and designs and characters and a world to flesh out and shit then they should just limit the Single Player campaign to multiplayer maps with bots. Because the piss poor multiplayer offerings we have gotten this year in multiplayer FPS games is just downright insulting. We all know you just want to release a glorified map pack and charge us to play the multiplayer so just stop dicking us around and do it already.



The Riddler (Batman: Arkham City)

I hate The Riddler. I mean it. Even before this game and it's LUDICROUSLY LARGE amount of collectibles I hated The Riddler. Why do I hate him this year and thinks he needs to die in a fire? Simple.

He not once ever explained how in the FUCK he had the time to hide all of this shit in Arkham and paint all over the place. Seriously. That is the hardest riddle of all and it's EATING ME UP INSIDE.



Capcom's Business Practices


Credit to Gamerant.com for this image

It's not that Capcom is new to being really strange when it comes to how they run themselves...but this year it seems like they are just trying really hard to piss everyone off. First there is the way they were handling the fighting games which is pretty par for the course—if this was 1996. In an age where patches and DLC exists we still have Capcom making remix versions of games and charging high prices for them? Then of course there is what they are doing with Devil May Cry and the cancellation of Megaman and the fetish they have with re-releasing the same game a few months later with a minor change to it. It's not one singular event that put Capcom on this list, it's just a ton of small non-sensical mistakes that have caused them to lose both fans AND money.



Shao Khan

Yeah, you got nominated twice. So guess what?
FUCK YOU, SHAO KHAN.

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And that is in for the first group, since this is running a bit behind and long I will forgo the usual Working Question this week. Just keep in mind that the nominees here are NOT absolute and can be changed depending on comments/if I remember something else so feel free to add to the list or vote for who you think should win.

Next week we will have Group 2 where we get to find out who will try to take the Badass Bitch award from Isabella, what could be the SHIT GOT REAL moment of the year and more importantly…who is up for Working Title Game of the Year in what is the MOST AMOUNT OF NOMINEES we have ever had.

So until next time, I'm Jordan Williams…and FUS RO DAH, MOTHERFUCKERS.