Help with GOTY Update

Hello, I've been off of our community since august because of the last semester of college. I've been only playing some Overwatch matches here and there.

Can someone tell me some contenders for best music, best style or best story for this year? So I can try and catch-up

I think Grindstone's gotta be a contender for best music of the year. It's fantastic. Best story, maybe Life is Strange 2, but I've heard almost no one talk about that game.

Of the games I've played, the following stood out in those categories:

Best Music: Ape Out, Anthem

Best Style: Control, Ape Out, Void Bastards

Best Story: The Outer Wilds, Control, The Outer Worlds, A Short Hike

Control has a STRONG shot at GOTY and has a great story. This is the first game I’d suggest catching up on.

MK11 will be a strong contender, though I’m not sure if it would rank in those categories.

Bloodstained is another one that’s show strong. It has good style, but great music.

Outer Worlds is super cool, but I expect that it’s one everyone likes but no one loves. Solid style, good characters, I love what little music there is.

Gears 5 is solid. Maybe a story contender? Like Outerworlds, I bet people like it, but don’t love it.

Afterparty solid story, better style.

ToeJam & Earl probably won’t come up, but it has the best music of the year.

Crackdown 3 has okay style, but it feels like a soulless rehash of Crackdown 1, so I don’t expect it to come up in a positive light.

Void Bastards has some style.

I still need to play Plaguetale, Judgement, Remnant, Star Wars, and maybe Death Stranding.

@nutter: I think Jeff might try to bring up ToeJam & Earl if he was into it. I can't remember what his thoughts on it were.

Crackdown 3 might be brought up in most disappointing but I suspect Anthem or Death Stranding might be that category. I might actually lean towards Anthem even though I previously thought Death Stranding might take it.

Ape Out should be a contender for best music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LQ9xtKeRwc

@alias: After a lot of thought, Crackdown, Anthem, and Death Stranding all sound like serious contenders for the crew’s most disappointing category.

I do think Anthem takes it because there is serious potential there. If those worlds were open, not plagued with loads...if you weren’t tethered to strangers, missing story beats, and getting pulled into even more loads...if the map wasn’t so small...there IS some fun to be had in just flying around. It just feels like everything else about that game does its damnedest to fuck it up.

You have all these “see that mountain, you can go there” games. Here’s one that’s fun to fly through, barrel rolls, dives, hovering and shooting, but you CAN’T go there. You come across the edge of a map every few seconds, the ceiling is low, and everything prompts a loading screen.

I never played more than the beta. Does the game introduce real air combat at some point? It’s just so weird to have so much ground-based combat (exclusively, maybe) in a game where the greatest pleasure is in the flying. But, hey, all the loads and out-of-bounds zones ruining the flying is pretty weird, too.

@nutter:I think Anthem takes it because the game ends with a setup for content that might never come. It reminds me of ReCore and Brad's feelings towards that except worse.

I think Death Stranding will have the "this is Kojima's new IP and it didn't live up to the high of Metal Gear" argument made but for me when you think about how long Anthem was in development and how it was pitched as this live service to last for years only for them to almost immediately abandon those plans it would have to be that.

Based on Games I’ve played:

Best Music: Later Alligator, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Fire Emblem 3 Houses, Cadence of Hyrule, Ace Combat 7 Skies Unknown (well, I think GB might forget AC7 came out this year, but it has the best OST of 2019 to Me)

Best Style: Later Alligator, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Untitled Goose Game, Baba is You, Luigi’s Mansion 3 (well this one might be more best looking, but the animation and art direction are really nice for a Mario spin-off)

Best Story: Fire Emblem 3 Houses, Ace Combat 7 Skies Unknown (again could be forgotten but I liked the story) Mortal Kombat 11, once again Later Alligator