My Game of the Year, 2011

30 hours.
I have played this game for 30 hours.
How is this even possible?

Not only have I played The Binding of Isaac for 30 hours, I have beaten mom exactly once, and by beaten mom I mean defeated the heart, not just her foot/hand/eyes. My stats are pathetic, and yet I keep returning to this game, over and over, never getting bored or overly frustrated. I have had playthroughs where I get exactly one key, but I press onward and still manage to make it a good 3 or 4 levels in before dying. No matter what, I always feel like I am making progress while the game becomes more and more challenging and my character continues to look more and more fucked up as a reward for progression.

Few games have the potential to be played in short spurts of 5 minutes but then last 2 or 3 hours. That is certainly an achievement for a game that was made in such a short amount of time as TBoI was.

I started and beat a lot of games this year. I played through Assassin's Creed 1-Brotherhood, and am currently playing Revelations, but they don't beat out Binding of Isaac. I played through both Batman games, and they don't beat out Binding of Isaac. Minecraft's gotten boring. Bastion was incredible but doesn't have nearly the replay value that Isaac has. I could go on, but really, in the end, this was my Game of the Year.

So suck it, Kotaku, it's not that hard to choose a game of the year, just ignore the discs and look through your downloads.