I started Xenoblade Chronicles a few days ago on the Wii, and it's pretty great and is shaping up to be one of the best 2011 releases I've played so far. Not as good as Skyrim for me, but I can't remember enjoying a Japanese RPG so much since Chrono Trigger.

Skyrim
Shogun2
Deus Ex3
Portal2
My Rifle - The RL army course simulator

We're done. :)

I loved Xenoblade when I started playing it. But it overstayed its welcome. The game should just have been a bit shorter. It is one of the best JRPGs that I've played in a long time, but it is not perfect (I loved the British voice acting though, it really helped give the game a character of its own. It is a shame that they feel the need to re-dub it for the American release. Why the heck do you need to re-work something that works better than it does in most other cases?)

My personal top 5 GOTY candidates are:
01.Bastion
02.Orcs Must Die
03.The Witcher 2
04.AC Revelations
05.Battlefield 3

Sorry no Skyrim here... actually never played The Elder Scrolles series... maybe I will do that soon :)

Same here, the first few hours with XB were great and the game is full of good ideas I would love to see in more JRPG; but after a while it's MMO-ish flavor starts getting a little too strong for me : The combats are messy (the allies AI is frighteningly bad ) and the agility bonus/malus makes them either too easy against same level monster or ridiculously hard against higher level ones, the world is huge (even if it's not really an "open" world like Skyrim but more a "big levels" one like FFXII) but desperately empty (I mean exploration wise), the quest grinding get's old very fast and finally the plot isn't really very interesting nor correctly paced.

It's not a bad game by any mean but if it was 100 hours shorter, If it had fewer but more involving side quests, a more interesting exploration side, a better combat system and a better paced main story it would have been a total killer, here it's just IMHO a missed opportunity.

Personally it's my least favorite among all the Xeno-something games.

1.F.E.A.R. 3 - Best games I fucking ever played.
2.Dead Space 2 - Same as F.E.A.R. 3 .
3.Alice: Madness Returns - Masterpiece!

Witcher 2, Saints Row 3, Deus Ex: HR and Bastion
Agreed 3, Saints Row 3 is fucking amazing.

For me it is Batman: Arkham City . This game is pretty much "perfect" when it comes to "action adventure" style games. It even got me back into comics (I actually bought my first Batman comic since the Batman/Spawn crossovers!)

I can't describe how brilliant this game is. I'm even playing the "Challenge Campaigns", which I thoroughly enjoy thanks to the very well made game mechanics.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a very close second.

If those two are anything to go by, I'm looking very enthusiastic into the future.

Of course the "indie scene" as a whole is also worth a honorable mention. Even though there were some really good titles (SPAZ, FotW, Terraria), Batman and DX just blew me off my chair while I was playing them.

1. Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Perfect mix of RPG and shooting, and in my favorite setting.

2. Skyrim - Better writing and design bring TES back from boredom.

3. Crysis 2 - Best shooter of the year and I love shooters. Open areas were ace.

4. Withcer 2 - Mass Effect gone medieval basically, and very good story.

5. Dead Space 2 - Amazing setting, great action, stunning atmosphere, brilliant zero-g sections.

is not skyrim an over hyped game? I own it and played 99 hours :\ but dont think it is GOTY

1. Sonic Generations
2. The Witcher 2
3. Dead Island
4. Bastion
5. Alice: Madness Returns

I don't normally play "big name" games upon release because they cost too much. The one big name game that I did buy was The Witcher 2 and I was badly disappointed. I hated the combat in that game.

The games that I enjoyed most this past year were:

RPG: Drakensang
Adventure: Broken Sword: TDC and The Longest Journey
MMO: WoW
Strategy: King's Bounty: The Legend.
Casual: Runespell: Overture