I am constantly depressed by how much more enjoyment Dan & Brad in particular, but all of the Giant Bomb folks and a lot of other people, got out of Breath of the Wild. I was so looking forward to that game and I just cannot stand it. I do not at all see the things they see in that open world or how you interact with it and I just find the gameplay to be a constant loop of the game demanding that I stop having fun and being deliberately obtuse. I don’t get it. I was so excited to play it and it’s just...No fun at all for me. It’s a total bummer
Weird, the mathematical staff lists look nothing like mine either, but I find them a lot more agreeable somehow. Thanks for putting this together, it’s interesting to see.
I really think there’s a strong case to made for re-thinking how they do this. If the deliberation podcasts are going to continue to be the meat of GOTY content, I feel like they need to change the format and the approach. It’s not an objectively bad way of doing it or anything, but I think they’ve worn it out in a way that’s made the podcasts kind of hard to listen to at times. They know all the ways to game the system now and so do we, and I also think there’s now too many editorial voices for this method. Trying to reach a consensus rather than simply going for a majority vote has kind of become impossible because there’s too many different perspectives to try and encompass. I don’t know how else they should do it and they’re certainly more qualified than me to come up with methodology for it, but I definitely think this format needs a rethink.
@delitist: I completely agree about the passion versus “controller in hand fun” thing. I think it’s unfair to discount a game from early in the year because you’re not going back to it or currently super invested in it. It flies in the face of the insistence that games from early in the year will not be forgotten. Remembering they exist isn’t really enough, they have to be held to the same standards. There’s no real way of knowing if, six months from now, games from the back half of the year they’re currently super into will still hold their attention like that, but Horizon is repeatedly being dinged for something other games aren’t having to contend with - a cooling off period. It’s not necessarily an easy problem to solve, but it sure is frustrating.
I flat out don't even understand what this category is if Horizon doesn't make the top three. I do not understand what the point of it is. It's just "favourite game from a new IP"? Why does that need its own category? At that point why not have the creaky old "Best console" or "Best [Genre]" categories?
@travisrex: God, I’ve listened to it now and it’s a fucking shit show. I actually disagree with them even harder now than I did before. Even by the absolutely ridiculous definition they retroactively gave the category to justify the choices they’d already made...BotW still shouldn’t win because of a bunch of reasons not least of which is half their argument for cutting HZD applies TWICE AS MUCH to BotW. Dan, for example, claims at one point that not only was BotW’s barren landscape not a problem it was an advantage. Then, minutes later, he dings HZD for having “areas with not much in them”. They talk about Horizon becoming something they just fast travel around while separately insisting that not fast traveling around BotW is part of the appeal, wholly ignoring the cognitive dissonance from the point where it was observed if you took the gaps out of BotW it would be dull & repetitive. I don’t know what the hell that category even is at this point and I still can’t get with them on it. It’s a mess. I feel like Jeff’s initial definition was much more in line with what Alex initially described.
God, I already disagreed about BotW for “Best World” before listening to this, but hearing them discuss the category somehow pushed me even further against the choice. I feel like Jeff’s initial impression of the category makes way more sense than the one they wound up with. And, frankly, I viscerally disagree about Brad, Dan & Co’s argument that BotW delivers on its promises and has interesting things to do. BotW is a mile wide and an inch deep in a super unappealing way. I would have much more time for BotW as a pick if “best world” was about the environment, but they’re saying that it’s environmental storytelling. I find myself actively hating the category and I hope they don’t bring it back.
I’m not surprised they picked it (though from the comments it sounds like the deliberations were confusing), but I cannot get with them or the overall consensus on BotW or its world. Sure, it’s large and nice to look at, but it’s so shallow & barren. It’s jarringly mechanical, even (and, arguably, especially) when it’s seeking to emulate real world phenomena & constraints for the sake of realism. Colour me an outlier on this one, because I just don’t see what almost everyone else seems to in that game.
@curryspiced: “I do not understand how/why they are constantly eating while trying to do a show.”
You’re new here, aren’t you? The proto-Bombcast included a segment where they drank ridiculous beverages. They’ve always had a habit of eating or drinking stuff in their shows. This is completely on-brand.
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