Game of the Year 2016: Day Four Deliberations

Firewatch music was good!

@razzuel: The games are:

• Titanfall 2
• Inside
• Overwatch
• Hitman
• Deus Ex
• Superhot + VR
• God Eater 2
• Oxenfree
• DOOM
• Uncharted 4
• Abzu
• Mafia 3
• Thumper
• Firewatch
• Stardew Valley
• Gears of War 4
• The Witness
• Mass Effect 2

@processr: Thank you so much! Looks like there's a couple games I should play before watching the rest of this.

Knew Stardew Valley didn't have a chance in music, but I appreciate Dan giving it its time. I'd pick that over the electronic music that sounds all the same to me.

Geometry Wars has zero appeal for me, so I never understand the gushing love it gets. Just not my type of game at all. The fact that there is no good way to play RDR today would make it my choice, but maybe it doesn't deserve it because of that. (Side note - I think all the ME games run fine on the PC, don't get the comments I see here. But I've always been a mouse/keyboard guy so controller support doesn't matter to me.)

Titanfall 2 was ROBBED for a best moment spot. Honestly the Seer Kit part wasn't on my radar (was cool though), but the time travel stuff was SO COOL. It made me want to have a full game built around it (but not a Titanfall game). I might go and try that Heroes game Vinny mentioned because that mechanic is just the best. Patrick Klepek totally spoiled the fact that time travel stuff existed in the game on his Twitter because he was pimping some article he wrote, but it was still a surprise to me with how it worked. (Fuck Patrick Klepek for that tweet, though! It had only been like a month after the game came out. Was totally out of left field. Still a bit salty about it.)

I was all ready to come here and be really, really heartbroken that they forgot all about that moment in The Witness.

I love you guys. You've made the right choice.

Kinda cool to hear that Jeff still has Persona 4 music on his phone. Good times.

As a correction: The original Xbox 360 versions of the BioShock games and DLC are all available to buy digitally.

https://marketplace.xbox.com/Search?query=bioshock

I loved the bit when Vinny lost it at hearing Alex has never played Mass Effect 2.

I'm 100% with Jeff about INSIDE and I'm a bit bewildered by everyone else's infatuation with it.

"I still have Persona 4 music as my alarm" - Jeff

Awesome. The music in that game is fantastic.

@stordoff: Snowflakes, greatest game song of all time.

Mistakes were made this day.

There is SO MUCH good music in games these days. Almost enough for the crew to revamp their process or add an additional category. "Best Use of Music" or "Best Sound Design" would help strip things out a bit.

Alex just keeps talking and talking and talking. Its kinda exhausting.

I disagree, but only because there is so much other good music in that series. Kimi no Kioku (end theme to Persona 3) and The Genesis (P4 True End boss theme, and one of the greatest build-ups I've heard) edge it out for me. Snowflakes is tremendous though, and it hit me _extremely_ hard the first time I heard it in The Golden (I'd watched the Endurance Run a bunch of times before playing The Golden, so Snowflakes was unexpected, and it is pitch-perfect for that moment in the game and knowing what is to come).

Honourable mention to Skyclad Observer from Steins;Gate.

No love for the COD: Infinite Warfare campaign at all? That asteroid mission alone should get at least a mention :O

Man, I love everything about these deliberations except Jeff acting like a spoiled toddler at specific times.

Problem with the Best Music discussion is they'll fire up 10 seconds of a random track and go "yeah, it's good but I don't think it hangs".

This has always been the worst category for me and I'm really surprised they didn't overhaul it for this year, as it was as much of a shit show last year as well. I would prefer it if they didn't cue up little samplers, because getting gut reactions out of songs means something like Brigador/Furi/Hotline Miami etc. will always win out against a Journey/Abzu/Virginia/Ori.

It's dumb, and it's the only category I just can't get over. If this was a "music opinions are subjective" discussion it'd be fine, but that's not what it's about. If you can't make your case for why a soundtrack is good without having to play a sampler, then don't bring it up imo.

Imagine if arguments for every category were just "hold up let me show you this sweet moment in this youtube video". I remember Austin acknowledging at some point (twitter?) that the Best Music discussion last year was a little, uh, pedestrian? But without him I feel like we just got a mundane repeat of last year.

I really didn't enjoy Jeff's little tantrum over some of these categories. This is supposed to be about celebrating games, not personally attacking people's intelligence because they have a different opinion than you do. Grow up, dude.

Wow, I'm surprised by how much people love the multiplayer in Titanfall 2. I liked it a lot more in the first one, I really don't like the updates to the game modes and the new maps.

Also I was surprised that Tron Run/r didn't even get a mention for Best Music.

Mass Effect 3 is still REALLY good, especially after they patched in the Extended Cut ending.

Jeff really gets it wrong so often. Red Dead Redemption is awesome.

Once again the Giant Bombcast keeps up the tradition of screwing Austin Wintory during the Best Music awards. Got done for Journey, got done for Banner Saga, and now got done for Abzu.

i agree with jeff inside just didnt do it for me, and i love that kind of dark atmosphere. i also really liked limbo. but, yea the ending was... i dont know how to put it, i just didnt like it. too random i guess

@avyshue: Yeah, it was pretty funny/sad to listen to that talk about the time travel stuff in Titanfall and Heroes and then getting absolutely no mention of Dishonored 2 at all.

Danke.

It's a shame, but to be fair, much of the game's music is from other games.

Which isn't to say the likes of Karate Man Senior, Pajama Party and Tongue Lashing don't deserve a shout out.

It's really weird to me that they still think Geometry Wars is better than ME2 as a game to go back to. I've played it long after it was a big deal and Geometry Wars is just ok and not a game I would ever go back to. I have no idea why it's so sacred to them in any way.

Also, I always chuckle at best MP category for games they all (mostly) stopped playing win the award or make top three. 2/3 of the staff hasn't played OW recently enough to even remember the characters in that award section.

Jesus Christ. God bless you Jeff for putting up with these fools. Titanfall 2 not being in the moments list is disgusting. This is probably the first time a result of a category was fucking stupid.

Jeff's meltdown ftw.

Three+ months later I have to chime in on the key changes in the Stan Bush song. Even though I have to admit that they are unexpected, they are actually not that random and not discordant at all. Before the first key change (intro to verse excluded) from the verse (which is in A minor) into the bridge, the last chord is G major and the first chord of the bridge is B minor, in which key the G chord is submediant to B minor. Same goes for the next key change up to C# minor, where the last chord in the B minor key was an A major, which is the submediant chord in C# minor. It then lands on a B major and falls down to the G# minor key for the chorus, where B is the mediant chord in the G# minor scale. The end of the chorus ends with an E major and then goes back to A minor for the verse, where the E major chord is the dominant.

It's a silly remark, but hey, whatever.