Best Music - the robbery of Austin Wintory

In all seriousness I understand these awards are subjective and at the end of the day I don't really give a shit, but I am baffled that Austin Wintory was snubbed again this year and that they didn't even have Abzu as a runner up this year.

Austin Wintory consistently delivers soundtracks that completely elevate the games they are apart of or become completely essential to the game. Journey and Abzu are lesser games without his soundtracks. Also I still can't believe I own a soundtrack to an assassins creed game, but here we are.

Last thing I will say is Firewatch shouldn't have made the cut. I bought that soundtrack immediately after I beat the game, but in comparison to Abzu or Hyper Light, it doesn't make the cut.

That's all! Again I will say that I am not actually mad and think the crew did a great job this year. Music in particular is almost impossible to please everyone when it comes to lists.

Welcome to Giant Bomb, where even the hosts admit every year they overlooked the prior year's amazing orchestrated soundtrack in favor of other things.

Not including Ori was an even worse crime last year.

@cav829: I think it hurts more that the 'other things' seems to always be soundtracks that go "hard" and feed into the power fantasy nature of video games. I love a hard bumping soundtrack (like this year's winner), but it's a shame that the more emotionally evocative soundtracks of this year and the years past (like Ori) are left to the wayside.

If they added "John Carpenter presents" to the Best Music it would be a much more honest category.

@ssully It seems like the "going hard" is more the argument of "but did you listen to it outside of the game?" That always seems to come up whenever the Giant Bomb has to start axing a six entry deep list. The Hard Music amps up the power fantasy but also fits more easily into popular music genres that the soundtracks that keep getting overlooked.

And as far as most of the games that win Best music would be worse without the music but when I want to hear an Alex Wintory score I load up the game because they are inseparable to me, not the OST on my ipod.

I almost think they should split the Music category in two. One award for best orchestral soundtrack, and one award for whatever techno-y or heavy metal-y soundtrack they like best.

I didn't mind the omission of Abzu in the top three much, but I though it was a real shame that Samorost 3 didn't even get mentioned during the discussion. Not only does that game have a great soundtrack, it also ties music into the world and the puzzles in some cool ways.

Also, if you want to talk about a real robbery, Dark Souls III got mentioned like once in all of their GOTY videos. It wasn't even brought up in the "best-looking" category, where even fucking Overwatch was discussed.

that's the truth of it. i'm almost always diametrically opposed to the staff when it comes to matters of music. but whaddyagonnado- ya know? it would be easier if they had a set of established criteria- as in games that used music most creatively, or as a gameplay mechanic, etc.

@icemael said:

this kid gets it. Tomáš Dvořák is consistently doing outstanding work for all the Amanita Design games.

@icemael: Dunno, man. What categories was it supposed to appear in? I don't think you can really argue the PVP can compete with anything that made the list in Best Multiplayer. It's an okay looking game, but I don't think it's nearly as good as anything that made the list for Best Looking. The music is good, but given how music is used in Souls games I don't think it makes sense to get much representation in a Best Music category.

Then for overall game, Souls is the 5th Soulsborne game since 2009 and followed Bloodborne which was in my mind a better game. Even Patrick only had it like 5th on his list over at Waypoint and Austin had it at 9th. It's good and all, but I think calling it one of the best games of 2016 is to some degree just saying "I still like Souls more than any other game series." That's good personal Game of the Year material, but for a site list, I think they were kind of right to keep it off. I mean, it didn't even make my top 10 (I put it at 11th in large part because Ashes of Ariandel was a giant disappointment), and I am a huge Souls addict and Bloodborne was like 3rd on my list last year (would have been 1 or 2 if I had played Old Hunters by then). It's just been a really freakin' good year for games. Stuff like Tokyo Mirage Sessions didn't even make my runners up section of my Top 10, and that game is really good!

@mellotronrules: As Vinny said, Best Music is always the category they feel the worst following as a bunch of stuff gets cut that shouldn't and so much of it comes down to taste.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one that noticed this. I'm not mad either but it validating to know that others thought that Abzu was worth a nod because of it's music. It's difficult for them to evaluate some of these categories objectively having to go through so many categories all at once when recording the podcasts and it must be tiring. This category is especially hard unless the music is punching you in the face you'll sometimes forget how good it is. Unless you play and listen to it for the purpose of determining which game has the best music you'll have a hard time getting it right. With such a small team there isn't a way for them to dedicate themselves to it and that's okay in my book.

The music to Abzu is essential to the game and it's a great score as well.

These are the people who unanimously gave best music to PacMan over Meat Boy because Wobble Bass... Don't expect reason here.