Welcome, all, to the 2016 Mento VGAs! I'm always trying to one-up my competition, Geoff Keighley's The Game Awards, but my attempts to hire an actor to cosplay a shaving product fell through at the last moment due to insufficient funding. However, I'm happy to report that Shavey Davey the Shaving Cream Dollop has a whole series of ice cream kiosk promos lined up next Summer to compensate. I suppose I wouldn't be able to tell the difference either.

Instead, what I do have is a whole bunch of video game awards and a few special cameo appearances as we celebrate 2016's many worthy games in the most reverential manner possible: crude MS Paint depictions and terrible wordplay. It's more than this year deserves, frankly.

Best 2015 Game of 2016

Nominees: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Bloodborne, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

I start every GOTY blog by making some dig at my parsimony, but there's no escaping the fact I spent most of 2016 playing 2015 games. That actually makes this category one of the most contentious this year, more so than the Best Game of 2016. While I'm naturally inclined to settle with one of my beloved RPGs, I have to give credit where credit's due and award Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain for running a clinic of incredible open-world design. Back when I played Vanquish a few years ago, I marveled at how - despite being a genre dominated by Western developers - a Japanese studio had marched into what was for them a heretofore unexplored space and completely dominated it. Likewise, where every other Western AAA game is an open-world driving/shooter action game and I play approximately five of them a year, MGSV stands head and shoulders above them all with its combination of cleverly open-ended mission design, logical enemy AI, in-depth base-building and equipment-developing features and a wonderful presentation that combines MGS's typical industrial-military global conspiracy insanity with a host of memorable new characters and a glorious licensed 80s soundtrack. That I played more than a hundred hours and was still having fun is a testament to its staying power. (Kudos also goes to the visceral gothic brutality of Bloodborne and the incredible scope and well-conceived world of The Witcher 3, both of which would be game of the year had the circumstances been different.)

(Here are a few other great 2015 games I played this year that didn't make the nomination stage: SOMA, Fallout 4, Cibele, Gravity Rush Remastered, Dragon Quest Heroes, Final Fantasy Type-0, Batman: Arkham Knight, Evoland 2 and Axiom Verge.)

Best 2016 Game of 2017?

Nominees: Final Fantasy XV, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, Picross 3D: Round 2.

Entirely conjecture, I added this category last year to highlight just how much I tend to miss from any given year's bumper stock of fantastic games. It's unlikely 2016 will be remembered as anything but a twelve-month-long multi-vehicle collision watched in horrifying slow motion, but at least it was a hell of a year for video games on top of being a year of hell in general. Since I have a pretty good bead on all the contenders before Giant Bomb's GOTY is even due to air, here's a smattering of games I'm inclined to enjoy based on what I've already heard and where my own interests tend to lie. Final Fantasy XV takes the top spot, as someone who was able to tolerate even lesser Final Fantasies like X-2 and XIII-3, and hearing that regular non-JRPG folk who haven't played an FF since 7 had a whale of a time with it - at least initially - is definitely promising. It might not out-Xenoblade Xenoblade, but I suspect it'll still rate highly in my estimations. I also can't wait to get stuck into a new Uncharted - one that almost everyone agrees is better than the disappointing third game - and I've got that Picross 3D sequel sitting next to me calling out my name.

Bucket List Tick-Off of 2016

Nominees: Ys: The Oath in Felghana, Tales of Xillia, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.

Generally speaking, the bucket list tick-off is only supposed to consider old games - like, "over ten years old" old - that I've been waiting to play for almost as long and finally did. I often claim to be a proponent of the classics, yet there's many cases like 2016 where I barely dabbled in the old-school at all. Ys: The Oath in Felghana originally came out in 2005 and is one of the cornerstones of the Ys series, being a remake of the first SNES Ys game, Ys III: Wanderers of Ys. It's hard to pick a favorite from the "Napishtim era" Ys games - Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim, Ys: The Oath in Felghana and Ys Origin were all made with the same engine - but I'm glad to have knocked out another one this year after last year's Ys Origin playthrough. My love of Ys remains kindled, and I hope to try out Ys VIII as soon as possible. Tales of Xillia, an entry in another long-running JRPG franchise I have a lot of affection for, is a similar case where I was happy to do some catching up with a series that seems to put out a new game every other year. While I'm always going to love the less-complicated 2D Tales games, Xillia's probably my favorite 3D one - even pipping Vesperia - due to its open-world design and companion-linking combat mechanics. And hey, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor was Giant Bomb's 2014 GOTY with good reason, so it was better late than never for that one.

Best New Character

Nominees: Uncle Death (Let It Die), Helmut Kruger (Hitman), Tracer Core (The Lab).

I honestly thought one of Hitman's gaggle of disposable jerks was going to take it, but then Let It Die ollied in out of nowhere and brought us a fresh selection of Suda51 eccentrics to complicate matters. Uncle Death is the cream of that particular crop, if only because he's the character that gets the most screen time. A gregarious skeleton man (or skeleton costume aficionado) who warmly welcomes the player to the game and then graciously decapitates the evil overpowered Hater who murders you in the game's prologue, Uncle Death sits around the periphery as a constant source of encouragement. Despite first seeming like your average mercurial omnipotent host, he genuinely wants you to do well, and pops up with moral support whenever you pull off one of the game's gory finishers or defeat one of its many mid-bosses. Since I have serious doubts I'll ever hit the fortieth floor, I read ahead to see how the game ends and... well, Uncle Death's role in that made me love him even more. Speaking of gothic bald types who are friendlier than they look, Helmut Kruger is first introduced in Hitman's initial Paris map by his "so hot right now" reputation, and then you discover that he's a pretty-boy patsy for the spy ring you're there to brutally dismantle. He also looks exactly like Agent 47, so I'm hoping he turns out to be another clone who picked a different course in life. Meanwhile, though I like the Cockney-accented and recently out Tracer of Overwatch, I can't just say no to a sapient robotic sphere that keeps saying its own name in a macho movie trailer voice. Him and Handibot are perhaps the only saving graces VR has presently.

I will say that, with the number of incredible artists who passed away this year, it does feel a little insensitive to award this to someone who greatly resembles a famous psychopomp from a game called Let It Die. But hey, maybe Prince, David Bowie and Leonard Cohen shouldn't have been in the Tower of Barbs in the first place.

Weirdest F'n Game

Nominees: Let It Die, Headlander, Inside.

One of my favorite recurring categories, this award both highlights those games that make bold, bizarre choices and those who offer something previously unseen. Innovation is like a unicorn: it seems like a rare and precious commodity, but all too often is either an angry horse with its own unique issues or a donkey with a carrot tied around its head in a crude mockery. That analogy's a little broken, but what I'm trying to say is that innovation doesn't always lead to a good game, nor is it always necessarily true that a game highlighted as innovative by the press is exactly so. To me, innovation is best represented when a game takes chances that might not necessarily pan out, and that's why "Weirdest F'n Game" is an evergreen award category.

All that said, it does feel a bit cheap to award it to a Suda51 game. Yet, for the paradox that is its expected weirdness, the game's very structure - a third-person action RPG in the vein of Souls with a maze-like procedurally generated tower to climb and a whole bunch of uncommon progression and equipment creation systems - is the most distinct package I've seen yet from Grasshopper, at least since Killer7. Roguelikes/lites are definitely nothing new, but a Grasshopper Roguelite? What would that even look like? I guess we know now. Conversely, Headlander gets weird early with its disembodied head shenanigans and 70s retro-futuristic feel, but it doesn't take too long to acclimate. Inside's weirdness, meanwhile, takes a while to manifest and only occasionally makes itself known until the game's insane conclusion.

Best Soundtrack of 2016

Nominees: Final Fantasy XV, Doom, Let It Die.

Special Distinctions: Persona 5 and Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana.

This was a tough category this year, not just because there was a lot of competition but because I had to strongly consider the "rules" of these awards. Final Fantasy XV's soundtrack is a lot more sedate and thoughtful than the J-Pop that the series has more recently embraced, adapting Yoko Shimomura's affinity for violins for a series of tracks that go for an evocative, dramatic feel. It also takes a page from Xenoblade, its inspiration in a lot of ways, by bringing in many different composers to give the world's huge variance of regions an equally expansive variance in music. I've yet to play Final Fantasy XV, but that there's over five hours of music recorded for the game is impressive enough before getting the chance to breathe in the goodness. You know, breathe it in aurally. I think I need to work on my music critique next year. Doom's soundtrack is both reverential and grimly industrial in a way that's perfect for the reboot, but I knocked it points for sounding too much like Wolfenstein: The New Order's. I realize it's the same musician, but there were a few tracks I could've sworn were brought over wholesale. Honestly, I kind of miss the MIDI versions of classic metal tracks too, but I suppose that wasn't something you could bring back for a modern sequel. Let It Die's punk/metal/pop soundtrack is as eclectic as the game itself, but there were a few tracks that I found myself enjoying, not least of which is Survive Said the Prophet's song that introduces the game's no-nonsense, no-prisoners Jackals.

But man, this year saw the release of both a new Persona soundtrack and a new Ys soundtrack. In Japan only, mind, and both of those games are due for localization in 2017 when they'll be eligible for award consideration. Yet it's still hard to ignore that two of the JRPG franchises which regularly have some of the best music in the biz completely clowned the competition this year with the likes of Last Surprise and Sunshine Coastline, especially since I can go over to YouTube right now and jam out. Watch (listen?) out for those two in next year's GOTY awards blog, I suppose.

Giant Bomb Moment of 2016

Nominees: "Fire Boylt" , Vinny Flips a Truck, Will Smith Leaves Cyberspace, Fire Extinguisher Surprise.

I owe a lot to this site for being my blogging home for many years, and so this and the following award are for the wonderful content created regularly by its staff and community. Between Giant Bomb's obsession with VR and Hitman, we've seen a parade of complete nonsense that can either be contributed to poor motor skills, fucking around or both, and the year's inestimable number of released games has given them ample fuel for their monkeyshines. That my favorite moment, if you can judge almost an hour as a "moment", actually came from a playthrough of a 1999 game: Sega's ambitious but flawed Shenmue. Vinny's attempt to recall the name of a minor villain from the Arnold Schwarzenegger motion picture The Running Man - which depicts a dystopian police state USA under the thrall of a misanthropic TV con-man set in 2017, I ought to point out - goes from a comedic brainfart to something approaching performance art, as Vinny spends an extremely long time desperately attempting to zero in on the correct name from the close-but-not-quite-there "Fire Bolt" and manages to draw incredulous apoplexy from Dan and sheer tortured anguish from Alex, both of whom could probably quote the entire movie verbatim. Other highlights include Vinny's taking of the wheel during the American Truck Driver Quick Look, FOO's Will Smith's departure from virtual reality as his Money For Nothing virtual avatar distressingly folds and distorts into a broken doll of a man, and both Vinny and Jeff getting in some yuks from throwing fire extinguishers at people in Hitman. In fact, here's a top ten:

• "Fire Boylt" (Shenmue Endurance Run: Part 06)
• Vinny Flips a Truck (Quick Look: American Truck Simulator)
• Will Smith Violently Leaves Cyberspace (HTC Vive Launch Lineup - Part 05)
• Fire Extinguisher Surprise/The Circumscientist/Too Many Hitman Moments to List (Hitman)
• Various Headless VR Monsters (Oculus/Vive Streams)
• "You're Big!" (Giant Bomb Makes Mario - Part 04)
• Wiz Khalifa's Weed Carrier/WEED3 (We Talk Over the 2016 EA E3 Press Conference)
• The Word "C*****t"... (Giant Bomb LIVE! at E3 2016 Day 03)
• What Is That Segway Knight Doing? (VinnyVania - Bloodlines Part 03)
• Handibot (VRodeo 05: Rec Room, etc.)

(Thanks go to @turboman/Derek Stone for his Best Of Giant Bomb series, now officially supported by the site, and to @szlifier for creating QLCrew.com with its list of user-defined highlights. Both super helpful in making the above list happen.)

Best Blog Series

Nominees: "Fighting Final Fantasy" (@zombiepie), "Imports Only" (@chaser324), "Gotta Catch 'Em All!" (@danielkempster), "Metroid and Me" (@majormitch).

It's no surprise to anyone that I'm invested in the well-being of Giant Bomb's blogging and content-creation community, given my own innumerable quality-variable contributions and that I attempt to proofread the Community Spotlight every week, but I feel I've let the side down a little by not signal-boosting some of the better serial pieces to come out of the ol' Giant Bomb blogoball this year. My pick is fellow moderator ZombiePie's "Fighting Final Fantasy" series: a damning but fair analysis of the PlayStation era Final Fantasy games with a particular critical eye on the series's notoriously haphazard narrative flow and characterization. ZP tends to blow up at the most innocuous pointless mini-game or incongruous tonal change, yet in spite of that (or maybe because of it) his series has been a wonderful trip through memory lane back when I played those games as a less discerning teenager, and a wake up call for the many inconsistencies I brushed over. I've also enjoyed Chaser324's "Imports Only" series which, like Giant Bomb's own Ranking of Fighters, attempts to rate and rank various obscure racing games that were only released in Japan and/or Europe. I particularly like the production values put into that series, with its fancy banners and all. Other great series retrospectives this year include danielkempster's attempt to catch every Pokémon prior to those introduced in the new Pokémon Sun/Moon, and MajorMitch's self-reflective journey through the Metroid franchise. This doesn't even factor in the huge number of single-entry and "week in review" style blogs and game reviews from our many great community writers, many of whom I don't currently follow but should, or our vast number of talented artists and video editors.

I do also want to give a special shout-out to @thatpinguino/Gino Grieco's Final Fantasy IX-inspired articles as part of the site's paid freelancer output. As the only other freelancer besides TurboMan/Derek Stone (he of the "Best Of Giant Bomb" series, linked above) to actually come from the Giant Bomb content-creator community, having posted his entertaining "Deep Listens" podcasts and thoughtful retrospectives on his blog here for years, I'm both stoked and proud that he managed to land a front page spot and hope to see more from him.

Best Game of 2016

Nominees: Stardew Valley, Doom, Dark Souls 3, Hitman, Inside.

And so we come to the final award: my Game of the Year. As of posting, my official Game of the Year list should be available for your reading pleasure, but suffice it to say that even with the small handful of contemporary games I managed to play in 2016 it was still very difficult to narrow them down to ten and rank them. I've always appreciated mechanics and features over art styles and narratives, with my tumultuous and all-too-frequently referenced history in game design, and my top four represent games that are the masters of that craft in various ways. Stardew Valley's near-endless discoveries and symbiotic gameplay modes, Doom's impressive myriad of innovative FPS mechanics designed to let this new Doom be every bit the frantic, gory power fantasy that its trailblazing forebear was, Dark Souls 3's many smart tweaks and refinements to an already stellar and oft-imitated action RPG series, and Hitman's mindboggling mechanical versatility that allows its players to assassinate their targets in as many ways as they can imagine. The rest of that list include six very good games I had the fortune of playing this year, but they're clearly only the tip of the iceberg. When I come back to the "adjusted" version of that GOTY list to include all the 2016 games I played in 2017 and beyond, it's going to be one hell of a struggle for dominance. I can't wait.

That's going to do it for this year, so all that's left is to wish you all some happy holidays and a shared hope that 2017 will be even better - for this site, for the game industry, and for the troubled world we inhabit. I'll see you when the site's GOTY content starts showing up.

[I've been doing these comic GOTY awards for five years now! Please feel free to check out 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015.]