Tetris Effect was a lot of diminishing return for me personally. I mean... I like playing Tetris, but I also liked playing Lumines. And if I was going to go back to one, it'd probably actually be Lumines.
It's really simple if you just think about the way GB goes about selecting their GOTY.
Most of the GB folks had a lot of fun with it and there weren't any huge gripes anyone had with it. Basically it was the game with least contention that most of them enjoyed playing.
I'm not familiar with this week's guest but he seemed to know his Giant Bomb and looking back, yeah Tetris Effect is a really odd choice. Whatever gets the biggest majority I guess.
I mean, sure, there were better games that year, but none of them made the list. Hell, none of the staff played Overload, I think Tetris made the most sense of what they had to work with.
@oursin_360: I mean so is chess and you don't see that winning every game of the year award.
I think the argument is split firmly into two camps - one that thinks Tetris is the greatest game of all time and nothing can beat it, and the other that agrees but is also like "but it's also just Tetris..."
I was very much in the latter camp because yah I appreciate what Tetris is.. but in 2018 it's still just Tetris while these other contenders have done so much more to push the medium forward in their respective categories. So it's just that yes we should all appreciate the genius that went into crafting this puzzle game, but lets not let that overshadow more current advancements in gaming. Storytelling and such are incredibly important these days and it's a shame to see great writing lose out to tried and true puzzle gameplay.
@humanity: Plz don't call Tetris Effect just Tetris. TE is an experience. If they made a chess game that sounds and looks as good as TE and puts you in a hypnotic trance, yes, I will consider it for GOTY.
@liquiddragon: It's literally just Tetris with flashing lights and lo-fi hip hop. You can get the same result with a Youtube playlist and any version of Tetris.
but in 2018 it's still just Tetris while these other contenders have done so much more to push the medium forward in their respective categories.
If we're talking about this as a criteria then I'd give Tetris Effect even more points toward winning GOTY because that game used the medium of Tetris to craft an audiovisual experience that is not only like no other Tetris game before it, but also stands out as fairly singular in the space of video games to me.
I can certainly understand having a preference for more traditionally substantive forms of storytelling but to write off Tetris Effect as 'just another Tetris game' strikes me as narrow minded. It is absolutely crafted with the intention of bringing you on an emotional journey as you play, with its own themes and motifs. That journey won't resonate with everyone in the same way, just as other video game stories won't be a hit with everybody. You could absolutely argue that you personally felt that it is the less deserving experience on this arbitrary video game list, that's fine, but reducing Tetris Effect to 'just Tetris' would be akin to me saying Red Dead 2 or God of War were 'just 3rd person action games'.
@jaypethian They record the deliberations specifically to explain all the 'How? Why? What?' for the GOTY picks. There's 25 hours of podcasts for last year.
@liquiddragon: it’s just Tetris, but if that’s your thing then sure. It can have the most amazing audio/ visual package on earth in the background but it’s still just Tetris in the foreground. Either way like I said above there is evidently a big split in opinion about this.
Anyone wanna discuss Skyrim vs Saints Row 3? There must be some wounds that are still being licked about that.
It's up there for me in terms of GOTY discussions that the irrational part of my brain gets upset about when I think about it (although, my reaction is nowhere near how bad it is for some...I mean this in a more joking way). Same for Shadow Broker vs. Bioshock 2 DLC (blanking on the name) and the Brad Destiny filibuster.
All in good fun of course, but it is so crazy to me how some of those moments still pop up in my mind and I feel my blood pressure raise slightly over something so pointless.
@sethmode - Heh. I'm kind of in the same boat. I get worked up internally over these podcasts for a brief moment, and then take a deep breath and ask myself "WTF am I doing?" At least we recognize how irrational the feelings can be. :|
To fight those stupid, irrational, blood-boiling feelings I do two things:
Recognize that it's just GOTY and it really doesn't matter what the crew thinks. I have MY game of the year and that's all that matters.
More often than not, I disagree with most of the crew's list each year, so now I just go into these debates expecting a pick that doesn't conform to the standard/safe choice.
So no one kinda sees GB's "Game of the Year" category to be, at a certain point, a running joke through series of yields to compromises because it is ultimately a meaningless award due to people's unique interests?
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