Nice refresh of a good game.That said, this doing well means that we'll get remakes of the other games too probably.. and that's a lot of time spent on polishing up something we've already seen before instead of making new things. It makes a lot of business-sense, but it's not exciting me all that much.
I do also enjoy Garlic a decent amount, but at the same time i find myself either going for Garlic or for King's Bible as a path-clearing meatgrinder tool, and i prefer the bible most of the time.
I've seen screens of Betrayal at Club Low before and didn't know what to think of it, but being a spy disguised as pizza-man immediatly piques my interest.
Thanks for the show people it was fun. Especially the Tower Unite models paid off great during the best music category.
That said, sadly i thought the final day was a complete waste of time.
2 hours were spent on meta-list discussion instead of game-discussion. 'This game should get cut before this other game gets cut because it does more interesting things' 'This game should get moved up' , 'this game should go to the bammer'
The majority of time spent on sorting and shifting through games that you didn't really care about all that much or might not have played at all but still wanted to write down for a bit. All while not even talking about the games themselves while they get cut. Who is this for at that point? perhaps i'm an outlier, but i do get the most out of the GOTY-talks when they actually celebrate and talk about what happens in the games they enjoyed the most. But there was hardly time to talk about that.
Elden Ring: Jeff had a certain epiphany 4 hours in (not sure what) and Tam complimented how huge that game is, especially as you get underground.
Tinykin is a good running around game.
Pentiment, you probably need to watch the quicklook if you want any information about it at all.
Neon White: It's a speedrunning game and Grubbs stream likes to watch it.
God of War : Ragnarok, Some people find it boring, some enjoy it.
Tunic: People were dissapointed with it.
Sifu: Jason likes it.
It's just a shame that none of these games were actually discussed indepth. They were just put on a list. And personally i think that's the least interesting part of game discussion. GOTY's can be informative, they can peak your interest and make you want to check out a game by hearing someone talk about what happens in them. I remember when Jeff mentioned that Titanfall 2's singleplayer was probably the best FPS campaign he played. Or how COD: Black Ops has those crazy storybits. Or hearing how Florence has that puzzle where you try to piece a relationship together but the pieces just won't fit together. That's the stuff that sticks with you through the years. This GOTY sadly had none of those moments because the list got more discussed than the games themselves.
Like Norco vs Citizen Sleeper was quite a prominent discussion this year, but to be frank i have no clue what sets these games apart from eachother and why someone can really enjoy the one but completely dismiss the other as being boring. That would be a great discussion.
What was it about Elden Ring that made it the first From Game that people have connected with this time? What is it about FromGames that people can try 5 of them, not be into it, yet gel with it on the 6th try? What were the stand out bosses? What build did people go for? Were there many speedbumps due to the more open nature of the game or did it feel like you could truly take on most bosses in whatever order you want?
What's up with the deep love for a 'B-game' like Evil West while other B-games like Mad Max, Destroy All Humans and WereWolf : The Apocalypse seem to not do much for Dan? Was the progression really good? The way the story was written? Does it go beyond the nostalgia for the 360 days?
How did their Pentiment games differ from eachother?
What did God of War Ragnarok do so much better than Horizon? What was the storyline like? Any memorable combat-sequences?
I do enjoy Botanicula, but yeah it's a game where you just click around and make things happen. I don't think you could write a great deal about it without going towards walkthrough territory.
The Longest Journey is a lovely game, but indeed feels like a huge game and world to get through. I can't say the puzzles all hold up, but the same goes for other classics like Grim Fandango to be honest. I take the good with the bad :)
Syberia just never did it for me. It just doesn't excite me in any way, and there weren't interesting characters to talk to in the short time i spent with it. I do need a good amount of dialogue with other characters in my adventure games to stay engaged.
Oh wow, i completely forgot it's GOTY time. That's a fun surprise.
Bit surprised with the Pentiment best moment win, mostly because the moment mostly gets described as the rugpull of dying & playing as a different character and then realizing Andreas is still alive.
But the argumentation went towards why Pentiment is a great game overall, with it's small but meaningful choices having a huge impact on the story and giving you a new perspective on why art is meaningful and that it's stories can be spread by anyone and that it matters who made the art and why etc. All valid, but at that point aren't we straying away from specific ingame moment that got nominated, but arguing it might be GOTY instead? And it's a bit hard to imagine playing Pentiment, and making all these dialogue choices , but then being surprised all the way back in Act III that these choices, big and small, do matter a lot. Even the steam store page mentions that your choices matter and that you will have to find your own path and see the consequences of your actions throughout generations. That's kind of the main draw of the game.
And while i'm being a cynical bastard, i also have to say that the ending of Kirby looks like the most mundane 'climactic action ending' i've seen in a while. You just move forwards while road-segments fall in place and you move a bit left and right to dodge sky-crap and then jump towards the big bad.
These games are always such a bummer. There's just enough novelty and an enjoyable vibe to these games that you want to cheer for it, but at the same time it would be best for this series if players straight up stopped buying it for a few installments. You shouldn't want to put out a sprawling new open world on a yearly basis. This ain't Fifa where the playfield, gameplay, and models are roughly always the same.
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