Half-Life 2 Named Game Of The Decade By VGAs

Uhh Half-Life 2

Fuck the VGA's though, why make Gaben show up for nothing. Especially this garbage

Yeah, Half-Life 2.

The decade? Shouldn't this have been announced 2 years ago? Are they pre-emptively calling it for 2010-2020 or is it for 2002-2012 (seems a bit obtuse)?

Whoops somehow replied to that. SORRY!

I say Shadow of the Colossus or Mass Effect 2

scratch that Killer 7

YESS!!! Well deserved! Fucking AMAZING story telling.

Red dead in my books

I concur

Yessireebob, this man knows what he's talking about.

I can never rank games or choose a greatest one; it's too dependent on the games that I can actually remember playing at the moment, and even then it is often comparing apples to oranges. Great games from the last decade off the top of my head (that aren't already listed):
Psychonauts
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
World of Warcraft
Resident Evil 4
MGS3

I replay half life 2 series every year. Its really that much of a pinnacle in gaming.

p.s. Walking Dead got game of the year woooh! I have faith in my fellow gamers.

I can't tell if the fact that a technically incomplete game won game of the decade tells more about this decade, Half-Life 2, or the VGAs. At this point, though, I'd be willing to take any answer.

Half life 2 was good, but so overrated. And now that its allegedly game of the decade it is even more overrated. I played a bunch of it and could not be bothered to finish it. Now half life 1... that is a compelling game.

I bought Half-Life 2 brand new for PC when it first launched. I had my first "monster" gaming PC back then. I bought that rig BECAUSE of Half-Life 2. It was built around the recommended system specs and lasted me about four years, performing in peak condition, before the motherboard exploded. Every penny pushed on that machine was a penny well-spent, for that game alone. I didn't play it again until The Orange Box. I've now played and beaten the main game and Episodes 1 and 2 dozens of times. Nearly a decade later, and it still hasn't gotten old. I suspect it never will.

Is it Game of the Decade material? I wholeheartedly believe that it sure as hell is.

I don't agree with this choice at all, but then again this best [whatever] of the [time period] always
differ wildly between people, here are some of my own candidates for game of the decade:

Black & White
Grand Theft Auto 3
Final Fantasy X
Shadow Of the Colossus
Silent Hill 2
Guitar Hero
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
The World Ends With You
Red Dead Redemption

And that's just naming games of the consoles I've owned (or pc games like Black & White), I imagine MGS4, Uncharted, God Of War, and any other high-profile exclusive PS3 games may be worthy of game of the decade. So yeah, the more I think the less I agree with HL2 being game of the decade.

Sorry to dessapoint you, but the rule for the award is that the game needs to be released after 2002. As much as it pains me, you gotta scratch Black and white, GTA 3, FFX and silent hill off that list of yours. Sorry...

Substitute GTA3 with GTA: Vice City, I didn't include both to avoid being redundant, as for FFX, SH2 and Black & White, i wasn't aware there was a cutoff date, that's why i included them.

You might as well as substitute it for San Andreas
.... Just saying city vs a state

Half-Life 2... and the VGAs this time around weren't bad at all.

In the end, what was the "amazing VGA announcement for old-school gamers" promised by Geoff Keighley? Dark Souls 2? MGS5? or this Half-Life 2 thing?

It probably had something to do with half-life, as gaben would not likely show up for nothing, same as Kojima

The decade? Shouldn't this have been announced 2 years ago? Are they pre-emptively calling it for 2010-2020 or is it for 2002-2012 (seems a bit obtuse)?

I was thinking the same thing.

IMO, the three best games of the past 10 years are Half-Life 2, Resident Evil 4, and Wii Sports. Each pioneered many of the game designs and mechanics of this time period and were also excellent in their own rights.

Awards like this just go to show that the VGAs aren't as in touch with gamers as they think they are. I have to applaud Tenacious D for getting a giant bobbing penis on stage and past the censors. That was funny.

Half Life 1 was an awesome game, but it basically RUINED a generation of games because just about everyone copied its: silent protagonist, every single event is scripted to move the story design.

HL1 was a great playthrough as was HL2, but I really couldn't give either Game of the Decade.

COUNTER STRIKE version 1.6 (2003) deserves game of the decade. It's still being played by millions upon millions of people 10 years later and it has the best gameplay of just about ALL First Person Shooters.

So what's your choice?

The only other games I could consider for GoTD:

CRYSIS
Call of Duty: MW

Crysis was a technologically superior tech demo and CoD did exactly to future games what HL did: force everyone else to copy their multiplayer progression and story telling sequences.

I'm looking at the lists of games people are recommending as GoTD and I'm just shaking my head.