The decision to make Kylo Ren an angsty millennial Vader fanboy gets a lot of flak, but I think it was a great idea. It's a new direction to go, and besides that, if they TRIED to make him a too cool for school silent intimidating badass he would inevitably fail to be as awesome as Darth Vader, who many considered the best movie villain of all time.
Maaaaan, that discussion about Ori. I am still in disbelief about how everybody piled on that game during GOTY. I believe it earns that sentimental tone within the first few minutes in the damn opening sequence. The art is ethereal and moody, the entire game is set up around this theme of loss and sacrifice and damn if there isn't a lot of that built into the gameplay too. I think that tonally the music fits and the quality of that score elevates the whole game. Of course Splatoon, the twee nintendo game which Alex unsurprisingly pulled out all the knives for this year, took that category.
Well, that is sort of the part of GOTY they all bemoan every year - that the nature of it requires them to really put the screws to games they all generally liked. No one hated Ori, or if they did it's just because it's not their style of game. But GOTY forces you to really take a game down to elevate another, and it comes off looking like you really HATED it. That's why Vinny said over and over "just to be clear, these are all good games" before it got really nasty (as it always does and kinda has to with that format).
Music seemed to be a sticking point category for several people this year, as they all sort of acknowledged that "Best Music To Listen To Outside The Game" and "Best Music In The Moment" are wildly different sets of criteria that get lumped in the same category. I wouldn't be surprised if next year they changed it to "Best Use Of Music In A Game" to judge not only the quality of the music itself but how it's presented, how it makes you feel certain ways about certain parts of the game, etc. Right now music is sort of suffering the way Graphics - Technical and Graphics - Artistic used to.
It's not so much that the awards don't matter to anyone. The categories and discussion are where you can really see everyone's passions and opinions.
But several of the staff have said repeatedly that boiling down to an ordered list of Best Games is a fruitless endeavor that they hate but do because people demand it. No one gets anything of value out of arguing whether Rise of the Tomb Raider is a better or worse game than Kerbal Space Program. They're both good and so different you can barely compare.
Especially when it's ten people and efforts are made to recognize pet games and such, which means the supposedly "objective" ranked list is already flawed.
Haven't finished Witcher 3, how far do they actually discuss the story? (I only just finished Novigrad)
They don't discuss any details beyond Velen, other than some vague allusions to the fact that you have to find Dandelion after that. Dan I think mentions he is "past Skellige" but that's all in terms of detail or spoilers.
Man, this Witcher 3 shit continues to entertain. I feel like we're in the midst of the backlash to the backlash now, as this comment section referred to its story as a "fantasy doorstop". The hyperbole can only get better from here!
All things being said, W3 is my favorite story of the year, but SOMA is currently downloading so...yeah.
Also, edit, going to agree with @monkeyman04...Tales from the Borderlands was fucking DOPE. Great story, and maybe the funniest game I've played in a long time.
Fantasy Doorstop just means its like a 1000 page fantasy novel ala Game of Thrones or whatever. It doesn't mean the story is bad, just that it's super duper long and dense, which it is. I don't think that's hyperbole at all. I love the GRRM books but frequently refer to them as doorstops or shelfbreakers.
Edit: That said, I think Soma deserves it just as much, for a while there it looked like they were going to leave W3 off entirely which would have been unfair imo.
@vinny: Yeah but you can definitely do that in W3 too, just knocking off contracts or quest branches piece by piece. I don't think it demands an hour minimum each time, 30 min is fine. At least you gave it a spot on the list, though. Since you're into the lore you'll probably love it once you beat it.
In my opinion, you absolutely cannot jump in and play TW3 for small chunks and drop it. I respect that you feel like you can, but I think you're the exception, not the rule.
I can absolutely play Witcher 3 in small chunks (and have kind of been forced to thus far). I get around 45-60 minutes in at a time during most sessions, and I'm still enjoying the heck out of it.
That's awesome. Seriously. But I stand by my belief that that isn't a common thing. If it were, we wouldn't have the entire staff not completing the game for the same reason. *shrug*
It's a great game, but I just don't get why certain people feel like it's some sort of disgusting affront to humanity that it might not be everyone's GOTY (again, my GOTY).
I agree with you, but I think the main thing bothering people is that no one at GB played even half of the game, and are assuming that what they played is the best and only stuff the game has to offer.
If W3 dropped off a cliff after Bloody Baron (which is the only part they ever mention), I'd agree it doesn't deserve accolades. And I 100% get that it's long and demands a lot of people and those are knocks against it in categories like Best Game. But for stuff like Best Story, to say "well I played 1/3 of the game and some guys on the internet said thats the best it gets so whatever" just seems a little like not doing due diligence. I can't blame them for not having the time to throw at it though.
Bloody Baron is great but it's not the Best Moment in that game, to me. Finding Ciri probably is, or the Keira questline.
I was really hoping that Konami would be acknowledged as a Hot Mess winner/runner this year.
I think that the Afro Samurai scandal quickly corrected course by refunding purchases and admitting there was a problem, Konami did a lot of stuff to make it seem like their relationship with Kojima was stable despite all hints to the contrary.
They talked about Konami but sort of decided it wasn't really "a mess" because it's all exactly what Konami intended to do. It didn't get away from them, they are burning it all down on purpose.
Even more than simply not having time, they've made it clear that the number of people yelling at them to finish Witcher 3 basically contributed to them wanting to do so even less. Maybe Vinny will pick it up again, but that's all.
I kinda don't blame them because finding Dandelion sucks, but their assumption that Bloody Baron is the best the game has to offer and Alex's statement that "from what I've read" that is the case is a little sad. There's so much there that I guess a lot of people will never get to becuase they burn out on Novigrad fetch quests and Dandelion's too-long plot.
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