Poll: End of Year Awards (It's Different Trust Meeeeee...)

[BloatedGuppy]

Okay so we've done GOTY. Get your GOTY stank out of here, we've had seventy five threads on it. I don't want to know your GOTY.


What I'd like to do is dish out some Awards, Oscar style, for various accomplishments. What those awards might be is entirely up to you...use em to pimp the game of your choice, or just recognize something small you thought was extraordinarily well done. Maybe it's best graphics, or best music, or a particularly good scene of a particular type. Maybe it's a best vehicle sequence, or most fun weapon. Maybe you have a golden raspberry award you'd like to hand out for something done POORLY.

The choice is YOOOOOURS.

I shall begin. Feel free to use quote to steal the formatting template from below if you wish to save some time.

Spoiler: Best Use of Licensed Music

[HEADING=2]Life is Strange[/HEADING]


Yes, it's gentle hipster rock, which does little to dispel the notion that LiS is at its heart a gentle hipster game. It fits the tone and setting perfectly however, and is married to some truly memorable montages and some hard hitting emotional moments. There's also an excellent use of music that originates from inside the scene, either playing on headphones or coming out of radios. I don't know if I've ever played a game where licensed music felt so naturalistic and appropriately married to its subject.

RUNNER UP: Tales from the Borderlands

Spoiler: Best NPC

[HEADING=2]Witcher 3 - Yennefer of Vengerburg[/HEADING]

Permit me to cut and paste from a Reddit post I made about the lass.

She's proud, headstrong, naturally gravitates towards leadership and is willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. If these characteristics were nested in the protagonist instead of an ancillary character, we would find them utterly laudable.

It's pretty traditional to have a cast of milquetoast supporting characters who constantly look to the PC to make every decision, determine every outcome, and even decide the course of their own lives/personalities. Hey should I get the revenge I've been lusting after for years? Plz let me know PC. Hey PC should I save my longtime friends, or just let them die? Let them die? Lol okay thank you PC let's do that.

Yennefer feels very...real...to me. She's a person with her own volition, motivations, reactions, inner life, etc, and very little of it is within the scope of your control as the protagonist. It's refreshing. She takes charge in situations where she SHOULD be taking charge (usually political or magical, areas in which her breadth of knowledge greatly eclipses Geralt's) and defers to him in situations of spelunking or monster fighting. She trusts him completely with Ciri and never tries to dictate the tone of his interactions with her. She's curt and cold with him for a good period of time, because she's still dealing with the emotional turmoil created by his lengthy love affair with one of her best friends.

She's an absolutely fantastic NPC, and I'm not sure I've encountered one to date as well textured. She's not a slot machine the player plys with gifts and favors, or carries out simple tasks for. Geralt's interactions with her are emotionally loaded and complex, going far beyond the "I LIKE U" and "I LIKE U TOO" that summarizes most gaming romances. It helps tremendously that her character is developed over a series of novels, of course, which makes her a bit of a cheat in that respect, but damn if she isn't a huge step up on the average RPG NPC.

RUNNER UP: Witcher 3 - The Bloody Baron

Spoiler: Most Notable Indie Darling/Robin Hood

[HEADING=2]Colossal Order for Cities: Skylines[/HEADING]

"Thankfully advances in technology have enabled us to do all city management calculations locally on your PC. We don't have to do them in the cloud any more which, you know, was the ONLY way to do it a few years ago."

That's Shams Jorjani of Colossal Order, sticking it to EA, who barely a year earlier had pronounced city builders "a dead genre" after the lukewarm to openly hostile reception of their ill fated SimCity reboot. Skylines launched with huge cities, no online requirement, a virtual copy-paste of SimCity's tilt-shift aesthetic, open support of mods, and a price tag half that of the game it was stealing the thunder of. And they did it all with a team less than 1/10th the size of EA Maxis. It was a borderline fairy tale example of a tiny studio showing up a massive one simply by focusing on what fans of the genre were actually asking for, instead of jamming crap down their throat and insisting it was caviar.

If you don't own Cities Skylines, and you're the type of person who bases their purchasing decisions at least in part on the behavior of the developers, it's hard to do better than these guys.

Spoiler: RASPBERRY AWARD - Most Rushed Launch

[HEADING=2]Fallout 4[/HEADING]

We could probably call this the Bethesda Award and just award it to them in perpetuity. Fallout 4 was particularly egregious, containing not only the usual rash of awful bugs, but also terrible performance issues and a bunged up .ini that needed hours of careful tweaking. I will let this recent post of mine speak for itself:

It's a miracle I completed that game. Gave New Vegas a run for its money in the bugs department.

So...here's an actual sequence I experienced around the 100 hour mark.

I heard there were special vendors you could get for your settlements, basically level 4 vendors. So I sent off to find some. One I'd already discovered, but I'd made the mistake of assigning him to a settler task. Turns out this bugged him...I found him sitting on a couch (?) on an overpass (??) bloviating about nothing, and refusing to respond to any commands. No worries, there were two more. Well, the second had disappeared from the game world entirely, there were only two dead people at the site where she was supposed to be, and she was neither of them. The third was in a Vault at a location I'd never been, so I headed there.

Once I got there, I found I couldn't open the Vault due to a recurring bug that...doesn't allow me to open Vaults. Fortunately there was a quest I could trigger with the console to open it, so I got that done. Once I got inside, some gormless kid wanted to show me around. OK. Showed me around for 2 minutes, got bugged out. I reloaded. Showed me around for 4 minutes, bugged out. Reloaded. Showed me around for 5 minutes, bugged out, this time his dialogue and speech disappearing entirely, and he just stared at me. After a minute or so of this, the quest resumed and I was able to repeat it. Found the third merchant. Unfortunately he was bugged too, and I couldn't get him.

I decided to explore the vault instead, and accepted a quest. Unfortunately the quest was bugged, and I needed to go back to before I entered to reset everything. Kid wanted to escort me again, and bugged out.

I took a break.

RUNNER UP: Blood Bowl 2

 

[Zhukov]

Spoiler: Funniest scene

Funniest Scene:

Tales from the Borderlands

Well, it cracked me the fuck up.

Spoiler: Best Atmosphere

Best Atmosphere:

Darkest Dungeon.

Gothic fantasy I suppose it'd be called? With a generous dollop of Lovecraft, what with the madness and decay and eldritch beasts around every corner. Great aesthetic and amusing narration. Goes grimdark to the point of mild self parody.

 

[RJ 17]

Spoiler: Best Use of an Imaginary Friend

Arkham Knight
I can't think of a better sidekick for Bats than Mr. J.

Spoiler: Best Meltdown

Konami.

Because FucKonami and every thing it's done this year. I can understand if you want to move your company away from AAA console releases...but do you really have to burn every bridge on your way out? We've seen PR disasters before with gaming companies...but have we ever seen a company self-destruct so bad that literally every - single - thing they've said has been completely "wtf?!" material? EA's come close, Ubisoft has done some crappy things, Blizzard Activision is in there as well...but I don't think any of those have ever imploded the way Konami did this year.

 

[Fappy]

Spoiler: Best Easter Egg

The Fly Swatter mini game in Super Mario Maker. As someone who played Mario Paint for 100+ hours as a kid, I think I appreciated the references to that game more than anything else in Super Mario Maker. The Fly Swatter game was the ultimate nod, and a cleverly hidden Easter egg. It's also hard as fuck.

Spoiler: Best Fashion

Bloodborne's character creator was far from the best (though I managed to make a pretty lady eventually), but it had some pretty fucking sweet armor sets. It also had stuff like the above image! And top hats!

#FashionSouls4Lyfe

Spoiler: Worst Inventory System

Yes, Fallout 4's inventory system was worse than the Witcher 3's! While the Witcher's was just clunky and poorly organized, Fallout's main issue was that you had to carry waaaay too much shit around with you - forcing you to fast travel back to your settlement/Diamond City after every dungeon to drop off all your shit. Inventory management is a staple of Bethesda games, but they went too far this time. I'd rather fight through a gauntlet of Bonewalkers carrying x50 Raw Ebony than find a closet full of adhesive at the end of a dungeon.

Also, the item weights make no fucking sense at all. A 15lb pistol? Uh... what?

Spoiler: Worst Genre

Don't get me wrong, I love open world games. Some of my all-time favorite games are open world. That said, 2015 had waaaay too many of them (as did the last few years, honestly) and very, very few of them are bringing anything new to the table. It seems to be the go-to design for nearly every type of game these days and it's fucking exhausting. There are so many games I'd play if they could just cut the fluff bullshit and get to the point. I simply don't have time for them. For many of these games, the open world offers nothing more than bloat - showcasing little more than how empty their game world is.

People need to stop trying to make Skyrim.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I'm game.

Spoiler: The, Lucky Its Prequel Wasn't A World-Wide Release Award for An Otherwise Disappointing Sequel

Dragon Ball Kai: Ultimate Butoden launched on the DS in Japan in February of 2011. It was made by Namco-Bandai and Game Republic and featured 38 playable characters not counting variations. In June of 2015, Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Butoden launched. This one was developed by Namco-Bandai and Arc Systems and features 25 playable characters...there are dozens of support characters but they're not playable. The combat is solid but it's not as fun as other Arc games like any-given Guilty Gear. DBZ: EB isn't a bad game but there's a reason it launched for $30 instead of $40...if DBZ-Kai: UB launched in the West, it would have really made EB look bad but thankfully, Mortal Kombat X has taken all of the attention away from every other fighting game. Congratulations on your luck Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Butoden.

Spoiler: The, Reinventing the Wheel using the Wheel You're Reinventing Award

Hands down, this goes to Yo-Kai Watch. This game launched in Japan in 2013 but the West only just got this game and while I want to call it a Pokemon clone, it does enough different to separate itself from the Pocket Monster games. Unlike Pokemon, Yo-Kai Watch allows you to Befriend Yokai instead of catching them. Once you befriend them, they give you a medal which allows you to summon them into your party of six Yokai. The combat is mostly automatic except for debuffing and using soultimate techniques. Yokai Watch also features a freaking TON of side-quests to complete between main chapter quests. It's more difficult to befriend Yokai than it is to catch Pokemon and the world of Yokai Watch is contained to the city of Springdale and a handful of locales but there's a ton of charm contained there. Yokai Watch (will almost definitely) win(s) my game of the year but I would also give it this award.

Spoiler: The, Friendly Slot Machine Award for RNG that doesn't HATE You

Renowned Explorers: International Society is a game based around exploring maps FTL style. You start by creating a party of three explorers and the goal is to gain more renown than every other explorer in your explorer's guild. You gain renown by finding treasures, getting through instances and again; exploring different countries. Each instance is influenced by the personal skills of your explorers (be they natural or learned) mixed with RNG. Even if you lose a roll, that may not spell disaster for your expedition. RE:IS is a game that puts you in bizarre situations like trying to get a treasure from a coven of Nuns to facing off against a revived Goddess of War and allows you to defeat these foes through brute force, kindness or emotional confusion. This game is on Steam, DEFINITELY check it out if you have the chance and wanted to like FTL but felt it hated you too much.

 

[Asita]

Spoiler: RASPBERRY AWARD - Most Rushed Launch

[HEADING=2]Fallout 4[/HEADING]

We could probably call this the Bethesda Award and just award it to them in perpetuity. Fallout 4 was particularly egregious, containing not only the usual rash of awful bugs, but also terrible performance issues and a bunged up .ini that needed hours of careful tweaking. I will let this recent post of mine speak for itself:

It's a miracle I completed that game. Gave New Vegas a run for its money in the bugs department.

So...here's an actual sequence I experienced around the 100 hour mark.

I heard there were special vendors you could get for your settlements, basically level 4 vendors. So I sent off to find some. One I'd already discovered, but I'd made the mistake of assigning him to a settler task. Turns out this bugged him...I found him sitting on a couch (?) on an overpass (??) bloviating about nothing, and refusing to respond to any commands. No worries, there were two more. Well, the second had disappeared from the game world entirely, there were only two dead people at the site where she was supposed to be, and she was neither of them. The third was in a Vault at a location I'd never been, so I headed there.

Once I got there, I found I couldn't open the Vault due to a recurring bug that...doesn't allow me to open Vaults. Fortunately there was a quest I could trigger with the console to open it, so I got that done. Once I got inside, some gormless kid wanted to show me around. OK. Showed me around for 2 minutes, got bugged out. I reloaded. Showed me around for 4 minutes, bugged out. Reloaded. Showed me around for 5 minutes, bugged out, this time his dialogue and speech disappearing entirely, and he just stared at me. After a minute or so of this, the quest resumed and I was able to repeat it. Found the third merchant. Unfortunately he was bugged too, and I couldn't get him.

I decided to explore the vault instead, and accepted a quest. Unfortunately the quest was bugged, and I needed to go back to before I entered to reset everything. Kid wanted to escort me again, and bugged out.

I took a break.

Quick question to you (or anyone who played the game recently): I've been considering using Fallout 4 as a Christmas gift. Is it still a mess, or have the patches cleaned things up appreciably?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Quick question to you (or anyone who played the game recently): I've been considering using Fallout 4 as a Christmas gift. Is it still a mess, or have the patches cleaned things up appreciably?

It's still a mess.

 

[Asita]

Quick question to you (or anyone who played the game recently): I've been considering using Fallout 4 as a Christmas gift. Is it still a mess, or have the patches cleaned things up appreciably?

It's still a mess.

Well nuts, it's Dragon Age: Inquisition all over again.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Well nuts, it's Dragon Age: Inquisition all over again.

NAH. Fallout 4 is a broken toy that is fun when it's working and infuriating when it's not. Dragon Age Inquisition was a large, featureless wooden block. Completely safe, and with some nice polish on it, but utterly lacking in imagination or entertaining function.

 

[Bobic]

Quick question to you (or anyone who played the game recently): I've been considering using Fallout 4 as a Christmas gift. Is it still a mess, or have the patches cleaned things up appreciably?

It's still a mess.

Well nuts, it's Dragon Age: Inquisition all over again.

Well, on the bright side, I bought Dragon Age: Inquisition a few months ago and didn't have many egregious bugs with it, so, this Christmas may be dicey, but there's always next year!

And on to my awards!

Spoiler: The best doggo in gaming

Diamond Dog:
While Fallout offered a fun bit of doggy action, and the indie darling Undertale had all kinds of interesting dogs/dog people, I'm going to have to give the award to Kojima's Metal Gear Solid 5. Why? First off, look at that below cutscene (no spoilers) and tell me your heart doesn't melt. Also, look at his cute little eye patch, what a cute little badass doggy you are DD. But, on top of all that, he's actually a surprisingly useful ally, what with dogs' apparent ability to sense every enemy within 100 metres and communicate their position with a simple bark. Sorry naked sniper lady, you're staying at motherbase, I'm gonna go play fetch with DD again, with enemy throats instead of sticks.

Spoiler: The Perfect Mashup of Disparate genres award

Rocket League:
Here's a quick lesson on how to sell sports games to me, throw realism out the door and make every match inherently hilarious. Fifa is fine for those that're into it, but I find it a bit dull, but the same basic concept, with arcadey RC cars as the players, and bam, I'm loving it.
And I feel the need to give an honourable mention to Blood Bowl 2, the combination of American Football and Warhammer Fantasy, with the wackyness dial turned up to 11. I'm sure it's great (I loved the first one afterall), but sadly it must be disqualified, because I haven't played it yet.

Spoiler: The Damn, someones late to the party award

Grim Fandango:
Whadda ya mean it came out 17 years ago, and is literally older than some of the people on this forum, it got a HD re-release this year, and was really quite fun and charming, so I'm giving it something. Hey, it's new to me.

Spoiler: The turning your back on the PC master race and becoming a console tard award for good fortune

Bobic:
Instead of putting the effort into upgrading to a good PC, I ordered a PS4 that came with Arkham Knight, and lo and behold I actually got to play the game rather than taking steam refunds for a test drive, or waiting several months for Warner Brothers to stop being so incompetent. Seriously PC gamers, I feel for you, the handling of that launch by WB was embarrassing, shame on them.

 

[vallorn]

Welp, time to throw some things into this pool.

Spoiler: Pied Piper award for best use of a licensed franchise.

Vermintide. Sorry, but when you can murder skaven by the bucketful it's a good basis for a game, as well as that, there's enough dialogue between the characters to give them personalities of their own which makes them fun to play. There's many other reasons why I love this game but at the core I love it because it's a Warhammer Fantasy game right down to the marrow.

Spoiler: Best Level design.

Bloodborne. I adore Souls level design with it's loop backs and detailed architecture and Bloodborne takes that to a whole new level, many environments loop into one another in a way that feels very organic and makes the city of Yharnam really feel like an old gothic city.

Spoiler: Best physics glitch.

Kerbal Space Program. There's so many unusual things you can do with that game by torturing its poor physics engine that I'm just going to say, "what the hell why did my spaceship just warp through a planet?"

Spoiler: Butterfly knife award for retroactively ruining an entire franchise.

Tony Hawks Pro Skater 5. Mother of god the series was on it's deathbed anyway and this game not only killed any joy left but then traveled back in time and made sure to smear the horror of associating with it all over the previous titles. It's one of the worst games ever put out by people who really should know better and who aren't brain damaged Unity creators in the lurking depths of Steam.

Spoiler: The 'flat as rice paper' Award for most shallow AAA game of the year.

BattleFront EA. Mother of god that game is the most shallow piece of trash I've seen in a long time, the Pandemic title's weren't perfect games but there was at least more depth to those than the nonsense that EA managed to ship out.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Only a couple of categories right now, but I'm tired. I'll come back if I think of more.

Spoiler: Best song from a game I haven't even played yet

Spoiler: Best 8/10 game of the year

Nothing it does is absolutely mind-blowing, but it's all so very satisfying to play through

 

[Asita]

Well nuts, it's Dragon Age: Inquisition all over again.

NAH. Fallout 4 is a broken toy that is fun when it's working and infuriating when it's not. Dragon Age Inquisition was a large, featureless wooden block. Completely safe, and with some nice polish on it, but utterly lacking in imagination or entertaining function.

Perhaps I should clarify my intent there. DA:I released around the same time last year, and in the weeks preceding Christmas I heard nothing but praise for the game, getting me hyped up and making me think it would be a good gift. Cue Christmas and I start hearing about its flaws in earnest and I realize that the gift I gave wasn't nearly as good as I thought it was. What I meant here was that Fallout 4 was hitting the same pattern.

 

[Don Incognito]

Spoiler: What do you mean it's over already?

Absolutely phenomenal tactics/stealth game that errs a bit too far on the side of not wanting to overstay its welcome. Could use a campaign that's at least twice as long, with more events. That said, it is probably the best overall game I've played this year.

 

[Elfgore]

Spoiler: Best Soundtrack

These two songs are just a taste of the amazing soundtrack this game has. 80s power hits seem to fit perfectly while running across the deserts of Afghanistan, stabbing Russians in the neck.

Spoiler: Funniest Game

[

Been a while since a game made me laugh out loud like this game. TellTale proved they can be funny as hell, all while bringing us a good story.

Spoiler: Best game I played in 2015 that didn't actually come out in 2015

Though the camera is the biggest enemy in the game, as is the outdated control scheme, this game is fantastic. I power played my way through the entire thing in one weekend and just had a blast. Fighting awesome titans, exploring one of the best game worlds I've seen, and watching the story unfold. Amazing game.

Spoiler: Best Musuo game

I've literally said how awesome this game is in like every GOTY thread, just go there for more details other than "it is awesome"

 

[LetalisK]

Spoiler: The Getting Fucked by a Better-Be-A-Bug Award

So I'm playing Sorcerer King because it's made by Stardock and I like the work they do. I'm 7 hours in and having a grand old time. I have my Ranger hero and decide to take the ability Quickfire, which according to the tooltip says "Archers in the army auto-attack at the start of the battle". Maybe I am naive, but I don't interpret this literally and instead think "Oh, I guess that means they throw out an extra auto-attack at the start and then get their normal turn during Turn 1. Because it would be completely fucking stupid to make the archers go random auto attack for their first turn, the most critical turn for use of their abilities." I was wrong and this affects the Ranger too. "Well, it might not completely make up for it, but at least the archers get the bonus of going first, right?" No, the turd sandwich gets shittier when you realize I also have an ability called Battlemaster, which makes all my units get to act before the enemy units act during the first turn anyway. So basically I gave up an ability point just to fuck myself. Want another helping of poop on that shit sundae? Stardock has known about this bug since the beta and it's not fixed. In which case fuck Stardock for not fixing this a year later. Or maybe this is working as intended since the tooltip is literally describing what it's doing. In which case, fuck Stardock for including a gimp suit in a hero's talent tree.

So, my hero character is garbage now as well as any archers in his army. "Well, just start over and don't take that ability." I've sunk 7 hours into this campaign, so I'm losing out on that time. Also, Quickfire is a prerequisite for another ability that buffs my archers and makes them good later in the game, so I'm losing out on that too. No, I'm not restarting. I'm fucking ragequitting.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

Spoiler: Indie Game of the Year

Crypt of the Necrodancer.
More people need to talk about this game. It's the bastard child of a rhythm game and a roguelike dungeon crawler that, while brutally difficult, is a surprising amount of fun. You move and attack to the beat of the music (which is fucking AWESOME), buy items, and make your way to the bottom of the Crypt to face off against the evil Necrodancer. And if you don't like the soundtrack, you can just make your own! Also, on the off chance you have a dancepad, you can use that to play as well! Tons of fun, and well worth the price of entry.

Spoiler: Soundtrack of the Year

Well, I guess this game wins two awards from me.I've never downloaded an entire OST for a game...until now. Hell, I don't even like this genre of music, and it's brilliant. The game is pretty good, too, for those of you who haven't played it yet.

Spoiler: Most Out-Of-Place Licensed Track

"Black Dog" by Led Zeppelin - Launch trailer for Destiny: The Taken King.
Narrowly beating out Mass Effect: Andromeda for using a Johnny Cash song, I really can't imagine why Bungie seems to enjoy using Led Zeppelin music for their trailers. First it was "Immigrant Song" for the original live-action trailer, and now it's "Black Dog." Love me some Led Zeppelin, but I'm having a hard time wondering how this song fits into Bungie's science fantasy epic.

Spoiler: Best Game that I Hated

Pillars of Eternity.

Fuck you guys, I'm not going to jump on the Undertale hype train. So, I'm going to go a bit farther back and rail on a game that I desperately wanted to like. This game is by no means bad...it's just that I never played any of the Infinity Engine games growing up, and this game panders to the fans of games like Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate. As a result, I couldn't wrap my head around how the game works and controls. I really wanted to get into this game, but the game is so...I don't know.

It's just not my cup of tea, so I can safely say that Pillars of Eternity is the best game that I hated.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Spoiler: Best Holy Shit Lord Jesus H. Christ

Bloodborne

IT WAS THERE ALL ALONG!!!

Spoiler: Best Turn Around

Mike from Until Dawn.

Starts off as a major douche who tricks a vulnerable girl into partially undressing as a prank while friends watch and laugh, but becomes an engaging hero by the end.

 

[fenrizz]

Quick question to you (or anyone who played the game recently): I've been considering using Fallout 4 as a Christmas gift. Is it still a mess, or have the patches cleaned things up appreciably?

It's not. It's pretty good and more stable than the previous Bethesda games at least.
Been playing since launch, and I'm stil playing.

Well nuts, it's Dragon Age: Inquisition all over again.

NAH. Fallout 4 is a broken toy that is fun when it's working and infuriating when it's not. Dragon Age Inquisition was a large, featureless wooden block. Completely safe, and with some nice polish on it, but utterly lacking in imagination or entertaining function.

Perhaps I should clarify my intent there. DA:I released around the same time last year, and in the weeks preceding Christmas I heard nothing but praise for the game, getting me hyped up and making me think it would be a good gift. Cue Christmas and I start hearing about its flaws in earnest and I realize that the gift I gave wasn't nearly as good as I thought it was. What I meant here was that Fallout 4 was hitting the same pattern.

I certainly don't think so.