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

My poor Yakuza 0, no love. :( That's ok though, Kiryu will stand his ground again next year in Yakuza 6!

The right game won best game. The right game won worst game.

Just a reminder:

Voting is open for the GB Community Game of the Year!

If you think certain titles were robbed, this is where we can make a difference!

Although, I'm not sure the crew will spend any time discussing the results, which would be sad.

i was way more turned off by reading about the racism of the art of cuphead than some panty shots

Man, this year of deliberations fucking sucked. Some good categories like best wolf2 moment and best moment but most of the talks were a mess and just not fun to listen to.

Oh hey, the game that everyone expected to win actually won. A shocker! Let's write about how wrong the Giant Bomb staff are!

Thinking about it, I totally get why Andromeda won worst game. I played probably 3/4 of the game and didn't have the graphical problems Brad did, but I DID watch the crew's videos where the game ran sluggishly and they DID have bugs and glitches. However, fixing that stuff doesn't fix the fact that that game has ZERO interesting characters and a few downright awful ones (fuck you Peebee and basically everyone in charge of the not-Citadel!), a plot that goes nowhere and a main enemy that is as generic as they come and a main character in Ryder that I wanted to slap the smarmy-ass smirk off her face a few times. The only thing it had for it was the premise which they completely fucked up. If this was a decent Mass Effect game with technical problems, its only Most Disappointing. Being a BAD Mass Effect game with technical problems makes it Worst Game.

it came to a point where in the last 2 hours of this podcast I was just skipping through every time Abby talked. There was a lot of skipping, to say the least. That was real rough. I've always found these deliberations amazing even when I didn't agree with their picks and lists but this year was just not fun. Loved the Specialtaculars though.

There's a few interesting comments in this thread but the lot of you should be ashamed. Imagine putting as much effort into literally anything else in your life as you do mulling over how a woman dared to voice her opinion in a debate meant for that and only that.

Yikes.

I guess I'm in the minority for thinking that the list actually felt like a good representation of Giant Bomb even if it doesn't really resemble my own? It just seems like there's a good mix of games which placed at or near the top of most of the crew's personal Top 10 lists (PUBG, Mario, Cuphead), extremely divisive games which were either in the #1 spot on the personal top lists or way down at the bottom if they made the cut at all (Nier, Zelda), and a game that a handful were very passionate for (Dream Daddy). Dream Daddy making the Top 10 is surprising, but there's always at least one surprise and I don't think it's a bad one; Destiny 2 making the Top 10 seems much stranger after looking at the personal lists.

Realistically, the only games which had a shot at taking that top spot were probably PUBG, Mario, and Cuphead. This was an incredibly good, incredibly diverse year for games, and that resulted in some of the best games from 2017 catering to very specific, very different niches. In other words, games like Nier, Night in the Woods, and Zelda evoke so much passion because they resonate so well with their respective audiences, but that also means that a lot of people outside of each game's audience bounced off of it hard. Games like Horizon which pretty much everyone in the crew thought of as solid and enjoyable would have been easy picks for the Top 10 in more barren years, but they fell by the wayside to extremely polarizing games and games which most of the crew thought were a step beyond simply being solid. None of the polarizing games had a chance at taking that top slot because any passion for them was bound to be met with a roughly equal amount of disdain from others, which would have created an endless deadlock, so a game which most/all of the crew thought of as "far above average" was the way to go.

As much as I like Super Mario Odyssey, it didn't grab me the same way the first Galaxy game did and its playful sense of exploration and discovery felt undercut by some real disappointments (ex: I was expecting New Donk City to be a more integral and physically far larger part of the game than it was even if I did like the musical number a whole lot). I haven't personally played PUBG (though I want to), but I understand the unique types of high moments a multiplayer game like that can create for players so I'm not too surprised that it won. My only real issues are that I think it took the top spot a bit too effortlessly and I think they downplayed the effects even a single hacker can have on that game; a person using hacks to win in a slow burning game with 100 person, permanent death matches is far more destructive than a hacker joining a free-for-all deathmatch in a more traditional fps and getting in a few cheap kills before being kicked . Even if it's unrealistic to expect the developers to have the tools to quickly and effectively deal with a hacking epidemic for a game which blew up beyond anyone's wildest expectations, that doesn't change the very real impact those hackers have on the enjoyment of others playing the game.

Good discussions this year.

I don't have a lot to complain about other than the lack of discussion surrounding the #1 GOTY. Almost all the debate was centered around the 2/3 slot. In a year packed with amazing games, that seems like a misstep.

The actual ranking of the games on this list is not my favourite part of GOTY, but rather just the act of working through what they enjoyed or not. For the most part the conversation was crowded with the same people repeatedly grandstanding with poor arguments. Frustrating to listen to compared to other years

I'm super impressed with Abby sticking to her guns and having such solid arguments for Dream Daddy. I didn't go into the podcast believing in it for top ten and she sold me cold. Hell, I'll probably even play it now.

I was always really excited by its diversity, but really couldn't get past my own dating sim bias. So Abby, again, well done!

Dan was mostly quiet and letting people have their way during these deliberations, he honestly comes off as having the most chill beside maybe Jason who is 100% chill, so I'm glad he was able to get Zelda to the number 2 spot. Abby is essentially Brad 2.0, as in they're both incredibly stubborn; which makes me wonder about next year, because if Brad plays more games and has stronger opinions next year, I feel like we might actually have a moment of "we're going to be here all night" actually play out for real.

Edit: I'm not seeing how this was harder to listen to than other years. Like, did ya'll never listen to Skyrim vs Saints Row III? Or Minerva's Den vs Lair of the Shadow Broker? Or how about Destiny being top 10 or not?

I will say this about the deliberations. I used to love doing Youtube and streaming on Twitch. I loved it because I got to voice my opinion and speak my mind about games while I played them. After watching this years final video, I reconsidered what I find as knowledge. Big Props to Alex for his pedestal on Nier, you made me want to see what you saw!

I subscribed to Giant Bomb because my brother said, "Hey, you gotta check these guys out." I did, well he did. My bro bought me my year long subscription. At first, I didn't like Jeff because he was negative about a whole lot of shit, and I didn't understand why Alex was so damn pissed at everything. After X amount of years, I've come to respect their opinions (Jeff, I still think you are negative about some shit you don't need too).

Last year was my first GOTY discussion that I listened too. I loved it. I heard game journalists and pro's of the industry debate games. I loved hearing people i've come to respect and look up too debate games. I heard people validate and pour their hearts out as to why games should be there. I heard people fight tooth and nail to get games on the list, and I loved it.

This year's GOTY was something different. I don't want to say I didn't enjoy it, but I also DID NOT enjoy it. If I took a shot for everytime CUPHEAD or DREAM DADDY was interrupted during a conversation, I would be in the hospital. ALMOST every single time a person got emotional about a game, Abby would interrupt them with some mundane fact about a game that deserves no attention. If you honestly believe Dream Daddy deserves any attention on this list, over a game like Horizon, which received 5 stars by this website, then you are delusional.

This year was not fun. This is my opinion. I'm not trying to be rude against Abby and this has nothing to do with her being a woman, but this year sucked because I feel people neglected games that deserved more attention because Abby was being loud. Good on her for voicing her opinion, but seriously? Dream Daddy over Horizon?

good work.

Yup, there it is. PUB-motherfucking-G.

I'll dive into all these deliberations once I get caught up on the few Bombcasts beforehand. January GOTY content hype?

Or maybe I'll listen to this in a week and lose my fucking mind, haha. These comments!

Even when the deliberations are frustrating, it's all in good fun.

@aurahack: The issue i found with Abbey was not that she wasn't trying to voice her opinion. I value her opinion quite a bit and am willing to try out dream daddy because she clearly loves it this much. My issue with how she dealt with this year was very similar to the issue i had with brad when he pushed destiny onto the top 10. They both were willing to completely ignore the issues that the rest of the staff had with the game that they love because of how much they love it. Vinny is the counterexample, he saw abbey's love for a game at his #9 in dream daddy and was willing to drop pyre his #3 game from his list because he didn't think it would be representative of the staff to have it on the list. I totally admire Abbey for making her opinion clear and not being ignored and I thought with Nier she made fantastic points that stick with me about how that really shouldn't be number 2, but I don't like her pressuring other to discard their personal choices. There were lots of moments this year where it felt like people really just didn't care about other people's opinions which is what i feel like people are responding to. It doesn't feel good when someone you respect a lot is being seemingly ignored for the sake of "winning" GOTY. Also her and Dan meshed terribly and I think that the casual dismissal of dream daddy by Dan is part of what made this year go so poorly.

I'd really like to see GB do away with site top ten next year. Imagine if they did a 5 hour podcast, all of them going around the table, taking turns counting down their personal lists and talking about what they enjoyed in all of them. That would be so awesome instead of trying to order completely different experiences and arguing for and against games most of the staff can barely comment on. Seeing new titles like Nioh, Horizon, or Prye to name just a few, get left out for rehashes like Destiny 2 and Tekken 7 makes me sad.

It's the time of the year when we should be highlighting stuff we liked yet all I see is this game is shit or that game doesn't deserve w/e.

I think this is definitely what a lot of people in this thread are responding to, but I think it's also something of a misinterpretation. I think they still cared about other people's opinions, but those opinions were often completely, firmly contradictory to their own. A lot of times in previous years games got locked in or boosted up after someone passionately talked about a mechanic or a moment that others didn't know about or hadn't considered. This time around that didn't work because there were a lot of conversations which went along the lines of "I know exactly what you're talking about and that thing which makes you love this game is the thing that I hate about it," so it became a matter of knock-down, drag-out fights to win any slivers of support you could.

Passions were also high this year due to the sheer number of good games vying for spots. It's far easier to compromise on the position of a good game which placed well on your personal list in a decent year than it is to compromise on the position of a game which could very well remain one of your all-time favorites for years to come.

I went through all of the staff lists just to see how they compare to the overall list, and this is what I came up with.

• System I used: 1st = 10pts, 2nd - 9pts, 3rd = 8pts, etc.
• When there was a tie, the game that appeared on the most lists received the tie breaker
• Brad only had a top 8, therefore 9th and 10th was not included
• Jason had a piece of hardware (the Switch) at 10th, so it was excluded
• Rorie had Divinity: Original Sins 2 and Destiny 2 tied at 10. Rorie admitted that Divinity 2 was a better game, so I gave the point to Divinity.

Other notes:

• Of the 10 staff lists created, Super Mario Odyssey appeared on every list but one (that would be Rorie's list :)). Curiously, only Jan gave it a 1st place vote
• Nier: Automata, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and PUBG received the most 1st place votes (2). Of these, Nier and Zelda appeared on 7/10 lists, PUBG appeared on 5/10 lists

This seems to happen every goty. A lot of high tension and overreactions in the forums. I've been there before as well, during the first couple gotys.

Every year's discussions have always had segments that I've really enjoyed and parts that I've skipped. It was no different this year.

@liquiddragon: I really like that idea actually!

I get the feeling that PubG could potentially be a Shadow of Mordor type situation where we can look back on it in a few years and realize the Zeitgeist really put that game over the top.

No Sonic Mania in the top 10, that sucks.

Reading the comments makes me realize people care way to much about a list of games. Enjoy the games you enjoy. Just because your game doesn't make a list on a website doesn't make that game any less great. It's all opinions folks! It's okay to have different ones. I don't love every game on the list. I can still understand why other people enjoy them a great deal. I believe worrying about a game being to high or low on a list is something that doesn't really matter. Think about how many great games 2017 had. Now try to get every single person you know to agree to which games were best. It would not only be impossible but fruitless. Now try to get them to see your point of view on what makes a game great and you might have an interesting conversation.

My issue with the entire dream daddy thing is the assumption that it's somehow the first good VN. That genre has a lot of fans and presenting Daddy as this watershed moment for the genre is just wrong. Dream Daddy is another really well-written VN. I really enjoyed the writing but I still think that putting a VN on the list is kinda screwed up... In a year where we had narrative-only games that really pushed the envelope like Hell Blade or Edith Finch, this just feels like such a major misstep. Dream Daddy doesn't take advantage of the medium and that alone should knock it off.
Also, quoting some guy on the internet that said Hellblade is offensive to the mentally ill was .... very disappointing. I almost died 2 years ago and suffered post-operative psychosis as a result of that. I cannot overstate the way in which Hellblade helped me to get over my demons. If Abby did some research on the matter, she'd know there are many people who share my opinion. It was very frustrating to see a game so close to my heart misrepresented in this awful way...

Having said that, she didn't "ruin" it, or anything like that. She just is the kinda person I am: when she really believes in something, she considers it an absolute and undeniable fact. I'm just not sure that's a healthy approach in deliberations like these...

It's awesome that you had that experience with it. It sounds like yours and Dan's views on it match really well. I came into Zelda (I got it on launch) hoping for that. It was my first Zelda since Ocarina, and at first I was enamoured with it. For all of 5 hours. the next 10 felt like a slog, and I doubt I will go back to it

The weapon system is something I am not a fan of, but that isn't my main issue with the game. My issue is the core game itself is dull. There are some good shrines that I enjoyed, but the dungeons are just bad. And that is what I want out of a Zelda game, great dungeons. BOTW does the open world stuff better than any other Zelda I have played, but when the core game is so boring, it just feels like padding.

I just wish I had the same experience with it that you and Dan describe.

Damn I really wanted Nier to get top 2 and maybe even win

@leburn98: Thanks for putting that together. It's not without its surprises (H:ZD is still not top 10!?), but it feels a little more representative of how the website as a whole feels about a very packed year. Truth be told, I would kind of rather see this list than the Best Game deliberation. I know it would remove the idea of arguing for a personal pick to make the top 10, but I've never felt like a game played by only one or two people (out of 10, technically) has any business being in the site-wide top 10, regardless of the game.

@aurahack: I don't know how people are getting so worked up. I don't agree with some of Abby's takes, but dismissing her support of Dream Daddy because she hasn't played every VN ever is insane. A game that exists in a utopian world where marginalized people are treated equally, huh, I wonder why that struck the woman on staff more than everyone else. And expecting Abby who is fresh out of college to be have the clarity of opinion as the oldest group of games press going is just stupid.

Even if I disagree with some aspects of her young feminist POV, I can't understand trying to devalue her opinion the way so many people are on here. Giant Bomb has always been one of the better, more accepting of different views communities on the internet, and that just goes to show how far we have to go as a society. Other members of staff had some equally poor arguments for some stuff, and a lot of times it goes ignored. Poor showing by GB fans, this year.

@leburn98: You should also do this for only those that argued on podcasts, excluding Jan since he barely chipped in. I wonder how that list would stack up. I always like it when this stat work is done, it's always interesting to see the straight stats workout the passion involved.

@upperdecker: I don't mean this to be directed at just you, you're just the most recent post that references it: I'm sorry that this year was lacking in fun for people, but I do think that some perspective is required. To reiterate what Jeff says basically every year: they put these deliberations out just so you can see how they came to the conclusions that they did. The only people they have to convince are each other. It's part of the reason they do it all in one chunk and then just release it at the end of the year. Allowing the arguments made in that room to influence your opinion of GB seems...misguided? They could just as easily never release those podcasts and put out a top 10 list. Sure, people would still go nuts, but at this point it seems like it would save them one hell of a headache and take away what has become a shitty platform for abuse between some of the posts here and most of the posts on Youtube.

I'm not saying it's uncool to care, but I do think reminding oneself that these are put out there just so you can see what they said to each other to get to their AGREED UPON (mostly - hah) list is important. Especially considering the dread that someone like Abby had going into GOTY out of fear of this kind of reaction. I've heard similar sentiments made in the past, as if at least a few of the staff begrudgingly look to this time as "that period where we're going to talk about games we love for way too long and then get shit on by a percentage of our community".

@sethmode: Yeah, the YT comment section is just embarrassing and awful. You could say that for most YT comment sections, but that one in particular. Really goes to show what an unmoderated version of the worst part of the community looks like. That said I hope they never stop doing these podcasts as long as the site exists.

@amyggen: Don't get me wrong, I'm with you. I really enjoy this time of year, listening to these, and I admit, getting irrationally upset at opinions from time to time. However, it feels like the reaction to this year, especially Day 5, has been predictably toxic, so I wouldn't be surprised if they just decided to pull the plug (or at least make it premium members only) in the future.

These were the most disappointing deliberations and choices that I’ve seen in quite some time on GB.

Andromeda was the most disappointing. In no rational thinking mind is it a worse game than Bubsy or Drawn to Death. That’s called an emotional tantrum, not a measured judgment on a mediocre game.

And Horizon, one of the few 5 star games played by GB isn’t even in the top 10, but Dream Daddy is? What the hell happened this year with their arguments.

I've very curious to see how the Community GOTY 2017 list compares to the staff GOTY 2017 list because there are some glaring omissions on the staff list. Overall, the top games are very close to my own list so I'm mostly content.

@sethmode: I remember some years getting to about this level (don't underestimate the hatred for Destiny getting into top 10, Minerva's Den etc.), so if they haven't given up on it before I hope they don't in the future either. Time will tell I guess.

Damn, Nier got top 3, so I just assumed the comments would be full of joy. Whoops.

I'll just say this. Abby was on the right track with it's perviness, but Brad and Vinny brought it home. Aside from the significance of the blindfolds and veils, the character design for 2B and the YoRHa models in general seems completely divorced from the rest of the game. Even as a fan of all sorta of Japanese entertainment, it's something that still bugs me.

2B was straight up designed for cosplay and hentai fuel. Let's not kid ourselves. Do you have to look up her skirt? Obviously, not. But like...c'mon. We're just gonna sit here and ignore the obvious pandering her character is designed for?

Also, Dan brought up a pretty huge thing that I wish spawned a larger discussion: if you don't care about the story in Nier? What on earth does that game have to offer? Some cool music, some novel ideas maybe, but what is that game if you take away it's story? At best, it's a middling action game that is not even remotely worth discussing when talking about Platinum's best work. There's no real memorable bosses (21O should have been one of the best moments this year, but the fight dropped the ball on every level from gameplay to emotional impact), no gameplay sequences that are cool strictly because of gameplay (in fact, most sequences go on for far too long that makes it seem like they regressed back to Bayonetta 1 era Platinum where they had to pad the game out) - there's not much at all.

I played through endings A-E and came out the other side apathetic of everything I had just witnessed. It does some cool things along the way (I still love the opening to route C), sure, but the story, themes, and characters did nothing for me.

And mind you, I like that kind of stuff. I love breaking conventions. I love layers upon layers of hidden themes and messages. I love scifi. I love anime. When it comes to the narrative, I should love everything this game has to offer, but I don't.

On top of that - and Jeff said so himself - the real meat of that game doesn't start until route C. Sure, it's more than possible to be fully on board from the beginning like Alex, but if you're not, the game is asking you to put in 20+ hours before you get to the "good part" and I'm sorry, that's never been an acceptable excuse. Abby put in 8 and even then that's still should be more than enough time for any game to grab you. I think that it is on multiple levels insane and unreasonable to ask and especially demand that someone suffer through that for something they might not even like when all is said and done.

edit: And, oh yeah, on the topic of Dream Daddy - every year 1 or 2 games that only 1 or 2 staff members are extremely passionate about sneak their way onto the staff top 10. Wasn't Dan the only one last year who was really, really into Stardew? This isn't an indictment against Dan, but he didn't offer up much an argument either from what I recall other than essentially saying "I really really really like this game." It's fine yall. Let it gooo~

Dream daddy is better than Yakuza 0 because its cohesive and fun.

I knew it would win, because the trend of "theyll pick the game they played the most on video" holds true.

Still, playing PUBG never quite got me, and all I really ended up doing was running around being paranoid for 20 minutes, dying, and feeling like I wanted my 20 minutes back.

I think I may be the only one who things PUBG as #1 is odd. I mean I am not saying it should be out of the list but that high? Kind of... shocking.

They'd also spent a considerable time playing PUBG off of video too. I will say that solo PUBG vs duo/squad feels a lot different also - i prefer the latter as matches typically last 25-30mins if you win but a lot of that first 15-20mins is spent with limited firefights unless you drop/move through high traffic areas. Which is good chatting time.

This is the first time in Giant Bomb's GOTY deliberations where the game I wanted to win actually won. Poor DOOM, and Saints Row: The Third!

I heard the podcast and it sounds like a lot of people picked it up because it was a Western dating sims/VN. It's extremely disingenuous to claim that a game revolutionizes a genre that you have none and/or very little experience in.

It's exactly the same thing that happened with XCOM: Enemy Unknown. You had a mediocre TRPG made by a Western developer that captured the attention of many people that weren't familiar with the genre. The claims made at the time for its apparent quality was a story that resonated with Western audiences and a combat system that was streamlined for a general audience. I trusted those views and Giantbomb gave it GOTY 2012. I had never been so disappointed by a game in my life. If I had ordered games beyond the GOTY 2012 Top 10 List it would have been dead last. I made the mistake of trusting people unfamiliar with the genre when I had more experience with TRPGs.

Dream Daddy sounds like it follows that XCOM: Enemy Unknown path. The difference is that its quality relies entirely on its story. You can't swap out the story for a better or different story and get the same experience. It's inclusion on the staff Top 10 List hinged entirely on the story's ability to touch people like Abby. That being said you can't say that it's quality is somehow enhanced by it's revolutionary approach to a genre you don't know.

@golguin

Ultimately it always come down to personal experience. Your Xcom argument is interesting to me, because it DID get a lot of people playing that style of game that otherwise wouldn't have. I also think it was an excellent game (having played those games since the original on the Amiga).

The same thing applies to Dream Daddy. Dream Daddy was a lot of peoples first real experience with that style of game, and it really resonated with them. You can disagree with their opinion, but you can't disagree with their experience with the game.

Glad about PUBG. It's one of my favorite games of all time, and actually makes me feel something. It has been a long, long time since I have had visceral reactions to games, like fear, shock, surprise, and bloodlust/joy. It is a remarkable thing.

For people who are saying that the arguments are repetitive: go back and listen to the Saints Row the Third and Skyrim arguments. Those are just as, if not more, insufferable than the arguments that happen in this years game of the year discussion. This happens almost every single year, especially in years where there is a divide in what resonates with people (as happens in a year with a lot of good games). If anything, it was in the best game deliberations that I felt Abby did her best arguing. It was the first time I felt like anyone on this staff (aside from Alex on a few categories) showed any passion for a single game.

Secondly, while people are quick to tear down Dream Daddy being on the list because Abby argued, "It does something different," 1. Brad used that argument in favor of PUBG when it is derivative of other games in that same type of shooter, 2. staff experience is always an important factor in these arguments. In a way, I feel like a lot of this is just backlash that it is not Doki Doki Literature Club, which isn't really fair with regard to the staff not playing it at all. Additionally, it is not as if they have never put games on a best game list for one persons passion (Mass Effect 3, Invisible Inc., Sleeping Dogs) and Dream Daddy had two people who argued for it being on there.

You could argue that it is misleading to use the words, "Best Game," for the category if they use this criteria for determining what goes on the list, but for this staff (and probably most publications/sites) does not play everything, or everyone does not play everything everyone else plays. Nor should they have to. As an amalgamation of staff passion the list paints a decent picture of what they all enjoyed or liked.