Game of the Year 2017 Day Five: Best, Worst, Cast, and Capture

Guys its their list its not a big deal.

Also its video games stop taking this shit as gospel

Oh.

It is salt though. Everyone who wants to ding PUBG for its issues as an argument for why it can't be GOTY, how about this.. Why don't we just go back to scoring games based on Graphics, Sound, Gameplay, Value, Tilt, then? If you scored PUBG like that, it probably deserves a 7 at best. You're making very "game reviews need to be objective" types of arguments when the fact is they simply had more fun playing PUBG than any other game this year and that's all that matters.

People want to punish PUBG for its technical issues and not give it enough credit for reinvigorating a genre (online shooter) that has quite frankly been stale since Modern Warfare.

Battlegrounds?

I've got no issue with PUBG here, but Destiny 2 (and Dream Daddy/Night in the Woods/Tekken to a lesser extent) make me not want to listen for the sake of my sanity. Destiny 2 is an endless sloggy grind with bang average shooting and absolutely despicable almost phone-game level fuckery and it's on the list while Horizon and Persona, two games that are absolute standouts in their respective genre are nowhere to be seen.

I can understand why easy to digest games are more appealing so I can live with Dream Daddy or Tekken being chosen over 100 hour RPGs like Divinity or Persona, but Destiny on any list besides Santas naughty list is something that's hard to swallow.

Huh. Horizon not making the list in favor of Tekken 7 and Dream Daddy is interesting? I like the variety on the list and I can respect PUBG being the winner though I’d be curious to know if other early access games with late year-end releases were considered. Not that I have any in mind, but if there were, I’d sure hate to be their developers in the wake of PUBG.

I mean, really? Playerunknown's Battlegrounds? That shoddy thing? It's a poorly made arena shooter with some open world moments, how the heck did that get best game? When a car hits something, it will rocket to the moon, and I don't think that's a feature. I mean, I know it's an agglomerate vote, but this just flies in the face of every game that was actually crafted by dedicated artists this year. Jesus Christ, what do people see in that game?

I am baffled that Horizon is not on this list. And a gussied up mod is GotY? Man. Man oh man. I like PUBG but come on.

I don't agree with the list and after hearing the deliberations, a lot of bad arguments were used this year. I really love all of the members of Giant Bomb, but I would have liked a little more thought put into arguments besides "It's so good" 50 times. Also would have liked if there was a little more homework done on the genre in respect to Dream Daddy and VN, since many of it's "innovations" are par for the genre. Would have been nice seeing Yakuza 0 make it in (or Persona 5 but not enough people played it and appreciated it in the staff), but after Bloodborne was robbed in 2015 and Dark Souls was robbed in 2011, it becomes a yelling fest of who will be the most stubborn and not look at the merits of each game. Besides that, I enjoy the GOTY content as always, just was a weak year for arguing after an incredibly strong year for games.

@grayfox666:

First up: I love Doki Doki Literature Club and haven't played Dream Daddy yet.

Still it makes no sense to say they are the same 'genre', just because they use the same technical form.

DDLC is surrealistic horror and Dream Daddy is feelgood romantic comedy. You could say both games make statements about the gender politics of standard dating sims, but the way they do that is so different that I don't think they are really comparable.

Abby is probably my favorite thing about GiantBomb right now, but her efforts in these deliberations have been ROUGH. You need to repeat something more than “but it’s so good” or “I will not be happy” a hundred times.

@coolarman said:

I wish this would stop being said. I love Giant Bomb because of the personalities, and to have people I often agree with pick such a weird list (with glaring omissions) - I don't know, it's weirdly jarring.

One of the strongest EVER years in video games, and such an iterative game wins?

Dumb.

I don't like the top 10, but it looks like GB crew top 10.

This is sadly completely true now.

DOOM 2016 had the potential to reshape fps games back into something enjoyable but now with PuBG's popularity every fps will try to be that instead.

PUBG is a fun game but Ben and Jason's arguments against it really resonated with me. My personal experience with it was buggy and broken beyond belief and there are lots of issues that soured playing it. The shooting is also bad in comparison to other modern shooters imo. The fun in PUBG is about experience playing with friends, tense situations playing alone, etc. It isn't necessarily a reflection of great game design but rather the game mode, tools, and rules it sets up. It is also to a certain extent just an extension, albeit an improvement, of mods already out. While Nier, Cuphead, Mario, Zelda all reshaped and established excellence in game design.

Also Pyre got Robbed! Great year overall and coverage!

That's not salt. And it's not about punishing it for technical issues, though that's a big part of it. Having massively pervasive cheating issues baked deep into your code and ignoring them to rush out a 1.0 release is a major deal. I get you like PUBG, but it's dismissive at best to say people are "salty" for calling the game out on it. GB's GotY has never aligned with my personal list, so it doesn't "anger" me when they differ in opinion. I'm just, let's say a little disappointed they threw aside previous practices and forgave Bluehole for practices they don't forgive Bethesda, EA, and other major studios for.

Trust me: I watch Twitch streamers play PUBG all the time and even they mock how poor the fit and finish of that game is. I would have been more inclined to see that as GotY material if they had showed restraint and held off the 1.0 release for another 4-6 months so they could try to fix these problems.

Peter Brown put up a big article over at Gamespot about why they deferred PUBG for GotY consideration for 2018 so they had proper time to judge it as a finished release. It's an excellent writeup and something I 100% agree with btw.

I definitely feel like Abby went into Nier with some preexisting negative feelings about some of it's design.

Man brutal. I honestly thought Neir was going make number 2 and had a shot for 1. I knew PUBG was a garentee 1 or 2 but I really didn't like that game at all. Nioh and Yakuza we're the biggest snubs. Otherwise I can live with this list.

@rothbart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV27CUj51vU#t=25s

I don't give a shit about rankings for the GOTY but I feel that a lot of the discussions around the games were not as interesting as previous years. That's why I didn't have a lot of fun with the 2017 deliberations overall. Maybe it's just me....

@hairy_weasel: I see where you are coming from but that is like saying horror visual novels arent counted as visual novels. DDLC and Dream Daddy are both visual novels but I will concede DDLC is not a dating sim really while Dream Daddy is. My point was that the argument Dream Daddy does anything new for the genre is absurd when DDLC actually does.

I'm totally happy with PUBG taking the win, after all the content and fun gaming moments that it gave Giantbomb this year. In a way it's comparable to how Hitman went last year. Good content is important for Giantbomb - it is a business after all. I'm still a bit surprised how Horizon Zero Dawn ended up. Maybe that's just a sign of how many really impressive games there were this year, which is nothing but great! So, rather than complain about anyone's GOTY list, better spend some more time playing any one of those awesome games.

Just finished, happy with but would switch places of Wolfenstein 2 & Destiny 2.

I don't think Zelda is that great, and it has serious problems. A lot of the staff share the same view. I'm actually shocked it got as high as it did, but I think that is mainly down to how much Dan loved it.

Abby claiming that Dream Daddy "revolutionizes" dating sims/VN genre while also claiming that she played very little of the genre strikes me as hypocritical. I still likes Abby, I thought she brings a new voice & perspective into a rather close knit group, but I really hope she would open up her taste a little.

If you listen to her argument though, it was more this was a game that got a LOT of people playing a dating sim that otherwise wouldn't have (myself included) due to the nature of the story it was telling.

great list, great year (for games), guys.

here's to a better 2018!

I think it does not make much sense to compare multiplayer games against single player games. Plus, multiplayer already has its own category. Why not have a Best Single Player Game category and never combine the two? Would certainly get rid of a lot of the complaints I have seen in these comments. Some games that have both a good single player and a good multiplayer component could end up in both lists.

Well said.

I feel like if you had to choose a single game that reflected the site as a whole in 2017, it would easily be Plunkbat.

The idea, though, of a group of individuals sitting around a table with their own respective tastes and experiences from this year, trying to arrange a list of games in chronological order, comparing qualities on an arbitrary level... is kinda ridiculous and painful to watch.

Giant Bomb. You're straight up crazy and wrong. But I still love you.

I don't love seeing PUBG take it, but it's a choice I can find some satisfaction in. I mostly just think that there wasn't enough of an interrogation as to what makes PUBG GOTY. It seemed as if they were trying to rush through the Battlegrounds discussion because they were eager to get into the much larger, more ominous Nier fight, which ended up giving PUBG a pass in much the same way it has all year.

More than anything, I'm just glad to see neither Zelda nor Nier take the top honor. Zelda, while very good, has been incredibly overpraised in this fantastic year of games. I'm in agreement with Jeff in that number 2 is way too high a spot for that game, and I really wish he hadn't relented. In no world did I expect it o climb as high as it did, and it especially stung to see it come at the expense of Mario. Nier had an incredible amount of momentum for a work which I consider to be (brace yourselves and remember not to take this too seriously because it's just my opinion) a bad game. I understand that it had an absurd amount of resonance with some of the crew, but a three spot is the absolute most I could see that netting.

About the salt... I'm noticing an awful lot of it directed at Dream Daddy, and I'll just say that that seems pretty dismissive. Dream Daddy is an absolutely FANTASTIC game, and it made me care about a VN. That is a feat.

I was also really hoping they'd look at the bottom half of the list because Destiny landed way too high, but it seems like they were just too exhausted to keep sorting things out. That half of the list didn't get nearly enough attention for that reason.

LOVE to see a Best Cast award, because this year was absolutely rife with them. The right game (my GOTY) took it, and that feels pretty great.

@mystyr_e: Seriously, how the fuck does Destiny 2 make this list. It has all the sames problems as the first and more. Congrats, it has a story with cutscenes but who gives a shit cuz it did nothing to flesh out that world. Just focus on a bad guy and make Nathan Fillions character seem like a complete ass.

I'm really glad to have seen Nier get up that high. I really thought a lot of these deliberations were going to be dumping on that game and they totally gave it respect and criticism where it deserves. The worst thing I can say about that game is it still gets too shonen anime in the dialogue when other times its balanced out by really strong writing. And when it comes to the combat I can say it isn't as deep as Bayonetta 1 - which is to say it isn't as deep as one of the most rewarding and deep action systems in video games currently, with very, very few contenders to rival it - but still let me play it with witch time, or MGR's parrying, or use Shockwave chips to air juggle enemies with melee from a distance which isn't something i've been able to do and is really satisfying to offset the inputs to time with the shockwave. I still don't know how combo videos do the charge attack in mid-air though.

Really dont have any attachment to PUBG one way or the other. It doesn't seem like a very well made game at all but anything can be massively enhanced by chaotic multiplayer especially when it has some twist that is executed well enough. Dream Daddy was boring and an incredibly average VN as someone who has played a lot of them but some of the writing had its moments..its just, really not that good though. For people just getting into VNs I can see how they might like it because it's accessible and incredibly safe.

I always hated how the Best Game runners-up, the list that takes hours upon hours to deliberate on, is kinda just unceremoniously listed below the one winner.

@jeff@brad@alex@vinny@danryckert@unastrike@rorie@benpack@ybbaaabby@janman Thanks for all the great content this week!!

I don't want to listen to this one anymore. There have been at least one moment per crew member where I'm just baffled and annoyed at their logic and I shouldn't be getting this mad at a list of games that ultimately, doesn't matter too much. Love you Giant Bomb and this was a fun GOTY discussion...up until it wasn't.

Glad that PUBG won, even though I hate the game and the proliferation of content on all sites due to it. I'm just in the minority of opinions on this gane. Rest of the list is totally fine on a great gaming year like this. Opinions are funny things.

I love PUBG. I love Zelda. Personally Zelda is my GOTY but I totally get how PUBG took it. It has been very interesting to see games that users really enjoyed (Persona 5, Horizon) get ghosted so quickly. Also interesting that there wasn’t as much love for Zelda cos I thought BoTW was pure magic.

I think Giantbomb made the right choice in calling PUBG its GOTY. It is subjectively the most played game that drew in the most people, largest amount of hype and buzz, and generated the most content for the site. It is in line with them awarding Hitman over Doom last year, and their choice will be validated more and more for years to come. Ultimately this recognition allows for games, even with some teething technical problems or without finalized feature set to be rewarded for ingenuity of idea and execution alone, and will do nothing but encourage attempts to bring in more creativity and non-AAA games chances to thrive. Well done and congrats!

I don't agree with the game of the year at all but there we go. It's a super janky game held back a lot by hackers and it's multiplayer only. Multiplayer games do get the most fervour though.

I don't care about Battlegrounds, Night in the Woods, or Dream Daddy. But the rest of the list is super solid and a great representation of why 2017 ruled. Hell, Tekken made it so fuck yeah.

Honestly, my only change would be Dream Daddy for Yakuza or Nioh. Having Jason around would've probably changed things quite a bit, but it is what it is.

Time to play some Okami.

I'm just going to put this out there: I think this is probably the worst set of deliberations GB has done. I don't agree with some of the choices they made, I do with others, but that isn't the point. I think that the arguments that have been made for a lot of these picks have been the weakest GB has ever delivered. I'm not going to dump on anyone in particular, as that sort of thing generally gets seen as a personal attack rather than criticism; I'm going to focus on what the overall problems I saw were.

I think the main issue with this year is the sheer number of people in that recording room. Yes, they have had eight bodies in there before (GOTY 2015, I think), but they effectively only had six, as both Drew and Jason are so quiet. And honestly? Six was already pushing it, and I think that this year with effectively seven people in the room (Jason being the mostly silent eighth) it's just too much. Too many voices; too many cooks in the kitchen. No single person ever really gets enough time to really articulate their opinion on something, as everyone is chomping at the bit to get an word in edgewise. It led to way too many arguments being delivered piecemeal, with one person making a comment, a second responding, a third cutting in before the first can respond, a fourth cutting in before the second can respond, and on and on ad nauseam. That has always been a part of these podcasts to an extent, but I found that there was just too much of it this year. I think that there are some other serious issues, the next one being that there just was not a consensus about what most of these categories meant. Best World is probably the best example of this confusion, but the Surprise, Debut and Music categories also had a great deal of misunderstanding in them, and those are just the few that immediately spring to mind as the most glaring examples. I won't continue with the criticism, as I think this post is already negative enough as it is.

I'd like to see them trim the number of folks in the room down. I think a team of five would be perfect: the three core members of it being Jeff, Brad and Vinny accompanied by two rotating chairs that the other editors swap in and out of from day to day, and then all three of the other editors come in to make the top ten list on day five. Not only do I think a tighter group would make for greater deliberation podcasts, but we could've seen those who weren't part of the discussions make some other stuff. I would have enjoyed seeing Jason, Jan, Abby + the editor not in the deliberations that day do some stuff together.

I think GB has done some great GOTY stuff in the past; I also think that their best work is still yet to come. I just think that this year's GOTY extravaganza was pretty bad.

I look forward to GOTY 2018.

DESTINY WAS RANKED 1 AHEAD OF WOLFENSTEIN AGAIN!!! D:

@beatchef: it's also boring AF. It's basically FPS poker. A ton of boredom spiked with occasionally exciting bits. The optimal strategy is boring, the grind up phase is boring, and the pay off is rare... Occasionally it's fun to play with friends until you end up fighting. Yeah pubg is poker.