Man. It's still crazy to me to see PUBG doing so well in many of these best of lists. To me, giving PUBG game of the year is like saying "Gangnam Style" was the best short film in 2013. I get that it was watched the most times. I understand that it gave people a lot of joy/satisfaction/laughs/fun. But in no way does that make it the best film. Not by a long shot.
So I guess this comes back to a philosophical question about what makes for a great video game. If you can ignore the craft of the game itself (ex: PUBG=buggy, the most generic shooter vibe / art style in years) and just focus on how people feel when they play (super tense, energized, engaged), then yeah, sure. But it's still weird to me.
I think they did a good job justifying the Nintendo Switch console interface/UX in the episode (friend codes, voice chat, storage, etc.) BUT I think they glossed over how brilliant the core Switch UI is. You can find articles from design geeks about how elegant it is in its simplicity. It was designed with an emphasis on GAMES, and it is intuitive to use both as a touch screen and with a gamepad. These are subtle things at a glance, but taken together, I think the Switch has the best console home screen in years.
For this reason alone, I wonder if it should have fallen out of the top 3 (not excusing the real flaws though).
@mike: Hmmm. I listen to a dozen different game podcasts, so I can’t remember the specific sentiment among Giant Bomb folks. But across games media in general, the very widespread consensus for Mario + Rabbids (before release) was skepticism. Shoehorning Rabbids into a Mario game? Yikes. It was destined to be way too gimmicky and obnoxious.
Then the game comes out and proves to be “a more accessible XCOM with charm to boot.” It’s a Switch game of the year nominee on many publications.
I guess maybe Giant Bomb didn’t like the game as much as others (I just went back and read the 3/5 review.)
Wait. Mario + Rabbids not even _mentioned_ for best surprise? I was sure it would be a finalist, and I thought it might flat-out win the category. Everybody thought it would be garbage, and then it turned out to be one of the Switch’s best games. Isn’t this the very definition of the surprise category?
Did they just forget about the game or is there extra context here I’m missing?
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