It’s December, and that means another arbitrary “game of the year” award. Well, the first arbitrary “game of the year” award for this site, but it’s still arbitrary and of the year. It’s been full of great games, but most came out either at the very beginning or near the very end. The three nominations this year were, in order of release, Portal 2, Batman: Arkham City, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. All excellent games everyone should at least try, with great worlds, great gameplay, great writing, and few flaws (in Skyrim’s case, relatively speaking).

And the game of the year is…

Batman: Arkham City.

The fantastic sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum is one of the most roundly satisfying, well-crafted, open-ended gameplay experiences I’ve seen in years. It really makes you feel like Batman, swinging from building to building, gliding on your cape, fighting criminals and stopping plots. There’s so much to do, see, and solve that every inch of Arkham City seems like it has some perfect. No space is wasted, no action is wasted, and no opportunity is wasted in the game.

It’s not perfect, and the less linear, Metroid-like design might not resonate as well with fans of Arkham Asylum’s flow, but it strikes such a great balance between the strengths of Portal 2 and Skyrim. Portal 2 has a meticulously designed and coded gameplay experience paired with an effectively perfect story that was only hindered in the loosest sense by its linearity. Skyrim has a massive world where you can go anywhere and do anything any time, but a narrative that fails to pull you into the plot with any sense of an epic, well-scripted story and a ton of bugs hurt it. Arkham City doesn’t reach the heights of either game in their respective strengths, but its engaging story, excellent action and puzzle solving, open design, and extremely stable and tight gameplay makes it a great example of how you can have the best aspects of different games with little compromise. I have to search really hard to find a flaw in Arkham City I think is worth bringing up as more than a nitpick.

Portal 2 and Skyrim are both excellent games, and the choice was very close. I’m dozens of hours into Skyrim and I’ve still barely scratched the surface, and Portal 2 is one of the best designed and best written PC games made in the last decade.