Now in its third year running, the basic premise of the annual Abstract Game of the Year Awards remain the same as always. In these times when video game awards doled out from video game outlets are taken a bit too seriously by the masses, this list exists to take that mentality to its natural conclusion: any game, no matter how big or small, good or bad, is capable of receiving recognition. It doesn't matter how much of a logical stretch that actual recognition is; if a game exists, it has the potential to get its (un)due attention. These awards aren't going to end up on the back of any video game's inevitable GOTY edition box (or at least they shouldn't), but that's the point. Anything can be put on a pedestal here and, as you'll see for yourself, plenty of things, in fact, will be.
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Award: "Best Game to Go from Zero to 'I Want This Game to Go Back to Zero'" for going from a single, well-loved late-PS2 RPG with no out of the ordinary merchandising for it to, within the span of a few short months this year, spawning a fighting game spin-off, anime adaptation, monthly magazine, restaurant, and special effects-laden theatrical play. Oh, and that Persona 3 Portable-like Vita expansion that was originally promised to never really be made because the original game was already considered "complete" or something. While the attention to the game may have been welcome by some fans initially, its seemingly current trajectory towards theme parks and decorated trains, at least in Japan, has many people hoping things will quiet down so they can continue to enjoy the original game in peace.
Award: "Most Timely Use of Oversaturation" for joining the anti-zombie video game fray in the form of DLC plainly, yet profoundly titled "Trains vs. Zombies." Completely unnecessary yet completely appreciated, Trains vs. Zombies proves that video game developers do, in fact, still have a ways to go in beating the zombie trope to the ground. The actual gameplay implications of the zombies are seemingly few, but it's the thought and implied social commentary from a thoroughly derided train simulator that matters. If nothing else, it proved that there are, in fact, fewer differences between planes and trains than what was previously thought. If it's in a simulation, it must be true, after all.
Award: "Sega CD GOTY 2011" for its completely relevant DLC, "The Wavy Tube Man Chronicles." Almost entirely unrelated to the main game itself aside from the fact it can't be played without it, The Wavy Tube Man Chronicles contributes to video game culture and high art in ways thought have started and stopped with classics such as Make My Video: Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch and Zelda's Adventure. The sheer innocence, class, and artistic integrity with which the post-Heavy Rain movie game brings back FMV in style (for one time only!) is clearly the reason why Twisted Pixel because Microsoft's treasured replacement for Bungie.
Award: "Best Game to Rest Rez in Peace" for getting people to, if only for a moment, shut up about Rez when discussing video games at art and look at something else for once in their lives. It might be strikingly similar to the iconic Dreamcast game, but that doesn't matter; upon the game's release, pretentious art lovers were able to look at something modern and say, "Let's herald this as the pinnacle of video games." Naturally, that didn't last even as long as Child of Eden's position on sales charts, but the fact that such a momentary distraction was even possible is something to be lauded.
Runner-Up for "Best Game to Outdo Xbox Live Indie Marketplace" for letting players recreate Rez's trance vibrator by hooking up additional controllers to the game, reminding people the world over that Mizuguchi was, and always will be, the king of the highly competitive video game massage genre.
Award: "The Michael Dukakis Award for Finally Living Up to One's Potential" for proving that all Shadow of the Colossus needed to not have its ironically loved inconsistent frame rate was to be ported and enhanced on better hardware than the PS2. Who would have thought that a game that tried so hard to act like an HD game with its use of things such as HDR lighting would, in fact, need an HD console to run properly?
Award: "Best Browser Game in a Post-Farmville World" for reminding everyone that proper video games don't need fancy socialization to be good or fun. On the contrary, they should be done in isolation so you enjoy your game and your friends won't resent you for constantly reminding them you need them to exist to keep your e-real estate afloat. With Bastion, you don't even have to leave your browser to accomplish this anymore. Truly, anything goes now.
Award: "2011's 2012 Final Fantasy XIII GOTY" for existing so that I can continue my inadvertent tradition on these Abstract Game of the Year Awards of including Final Fantasy XIII in some arbitrary, completely witty capacity. I was really worried this would be the first year in which Final Fantasy XIII wouldn't be able to appear on the list, so god bless Square-Enix for indulging me. I was really, really worried I'd have to create some original content for this list for once.
Award: "Best Game Based on a Future Movie" for having its movie rights sold before the game's release. The movie might actually be based on the the part of the game that's not actually in the game provocative trailer that gave the game its marketing power in the first place, but that's beside the point. If you don't think in terms of the present being the past for the future, it makes sense that the game is, in fact, based on a movie and not the other way around as it normally is. It's just that the movie it is based on will actually come out later and be based on the content of the game that's going to be based on the movie because that's how logic works.
Award: "Best Game to Take it to the Insect-Man" for making ants, both gigantic and tiny, one of the central antagonists in a game that revolves around a mech that can shoot 1000 missiles at a time. Whole levels revolve around the ever-populous bug and it is their tenacity to survive and royally break your mech and morale that makes them a force to reckon with. Killing them hasn't been as satisfying as it is in this game since that one time you were that psychotic child who just had to set them on fire with a magnifying glass to remind them who their god is.
Award: "The Capitol Hill Award for World-Class Politics" for compelling a bunch of people to start an "Occupy Nintendo" movement in the seemingly-vain hope of satiating their entitlement complex. Actual (potential) quality aside, few games are notable enough to warrant vast mailing campaigns and petitions, but this one was apparently worth the support/cult. Judging by the fact it's actually gotten localized and published outside of Japan, apparently those fans who are fans without actually playing the game were louder than the ones who begged the same thing for Mother 3. Personally, I wish this support was being given to Rhythm Heaven Fever, which is almost certainly Nintendo's real swan song for the Wii, but maybe I'm just a little bitter or something.
Runner Up for: "Chaos Wars Award for Best Retailer Exclusive Game" for getting an exclusive GameStop brick-and-mortar deal in the US. Limiting it to one store outside of Nintendo's online shop (wouldn't want another Electroplankton here!) is certainly not a one-way ticket to being dead on arrival, after all.