All Keighley’s Lookers

Best Graphics winners plus Best Animation winner at VGA and Best Art Direction winners at TGA in one place

Valve’s relatively recent documentaries on Half-Life series proved one obvious thing: video games need to look good first. Otherwise, why would both videos open with the people responsible for how those games look being interviewed? Namely, Karen Laur, texture artists for Half-Life, Viktor Antonov, the artist streamlined Half-Life 2 and the field trips they took for the games. Suffice to say, look is very important to a video game and awards were given on that regard. The Keighley’s, no matter what name it goes by, is no exception.

The closest thing 2003’s Spike Video Game Awards to “Best Looking Game” would be Best Animation that was given only that once. A for its effort since video games do need to look good in motion. The winner is, well, not exactly a good look shall we say. I wonder if it was so embarrassing that the rest of VGAs changed to the more technical sounding Best Graphic. Then Game Awards started to have Best Art Direction to appear more Oscar-like.

Since English speakers and we here in miHoYo’s country of origin both say “Beauty is in the eyes of beholders” (Qing ren yan li chu Xi Shi. Xi Shi being a pretty lady lived during the collapse of Bronze Age here, and “beholders” counterpart “qing ren” is closer to “lovers”.), I am not just going to list the winners of Keighley’s best looking games over the years. I am going to link the nominees as well.

2003: Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball

(Outshone Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, The Getaway, Resident Evil Code: Veronica X, the Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King, True Crime: Streets of LA, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht and XIII)

Ah yes, THE game rated M just for tits and ass won the one and only Best Animation from VGA over 3 open world crime epics, a cinematic horror game, a movie tie-in, a hit RTS's expansion pack, a JRPG and a cel-shaded shooter. Good Grief! Which reminds me of something else.

The so-called anti-woke bunch seemed particularly, er, aggressive in 2024. One of the points those fuckers made is that Western developers just do not make as good-looking characters as their Eastern counterparts. I wonder how many of those little shits were even born when used-to-anime bunch complaining about English speaking developers could not make polygonal people pretty enough in the early to mid aughts. Don’t to mention Gamergate in the teens. Just pirate the kind of pornography you like if video game ain’t doing it for you, it’s much cheaper anyway.

2004: Half-Life 2

(Outshone Doom 3, Halo 2 and Ninja Gaiden )

Now this is more like it! For the very first Best Graphic from VGA, this stone cold classic won without breaking a sweat. Guess this marked the time when id Software lost the plot on all front when their very demanding game did not even manage to look better than Valve’s relative light weight counterpart. Or is it? At least commentary can be heard regarding which part almost derailed Half-Life 2’s Xbox port, while Doom 3 gave the impression that its Xbox version runs fine. Then the rest of the nominees were Xbox exclusives.

One can see that even the interactive physics of Half-Life 2 needed to look good. When Valve’s shelved E3 2002 showcase is compared to their mind-blowing 2003 one and the final shipped product, visual feedback in it simply lacks spit and polish. I would not consider Half-Life 2 the best shooter ever made (By the end of day, who the fuck am I to say that?). But playing the shit of it during lunar new year vacation in 2011 did make every shooter had a big dick swing during E3 2010 (Maybe except Dead Space 2) feel off. And the genre only got worse…

2005: Resident Evil 4

(Outshone Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie, Call of Duty 2, F.E.A.R. and PGR 3)

Keighley’s is a creature of habits and here was where one of such habits started. The award for best looking game of the year would go to a console generation swan song as the sun set on said console generation. 2005 was the year Xbox 360 started its generation, so I guess VGA was closing the book on the generation prior to that by giving Best Graphic to a Gamecube and PS2 game. Well, more of Gamecube swan song actually, 2007’s God of War II was closer to PS2’s. Not to mention the second Persona trilogy had not started on Sony’s best-selling console yet.

I am not saying that it does not deserve it. On the one hand it did show the evolution of graphics for its console generation. Assignment Ada is a mini campaign included in the original Gamecube release. The cameo of Albert Wesker bookends it and my impression was “Did they pull the future final boss of Resident Evil 5 straight out of Code: Veronica?” Because that in-game model looks as if it was made for SEGA Dreamcast, while it might be pulled from 2002’s Resident Evil remake. Still, it just lacks the details on Resident Evil 4’s main cast.

On the other hand, Resident Evil 4’s later PC port has very demanding System Requirement, much more so than the movie tie-in and Xbox 360 launch title (And Halo 2 PC port has a much more demanding System Requirement than this shameless cash grab of Activision’s.) it went up against in 2005. As for F.E.A.R., even among First-person shooters published by Sierra, Half-Life 2 from the last year can still mop the ground with it in many aspects. No comment on PGR 3, didn't even remember that it was an Xbox 360 launch title until putting up the link above.

2006: Gears of War

(Outshone Ōkami, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Company of Heroes)

Ain’t Keighley’s eager to say “The Next-gen is now!” back in 2006, even though PS3 had just came as kind of a facepalm. Anyway, Gears of War was considered the best looking game across everything. It’s certainly demanding as I did dread if it would blow up that borrowed Xbox 360 I played it on.

And what the fuck was Oblivion doing here? This is best-looking game after all. Also, personally think GRAW is better looking than COD4, so what exactly were people losing their shit over during E3 2007 remains a mystery to me.

2007: Crysis

(Outshone BioShock, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Mass Effect)

When should one stop asking “will it run Crysis”? My answer is the year 2011. I got a not-quite-built-for-gaming laptop that year and installed Crysis and Crysis Warhead through you-know-how-method on the machine. After turning loads of things off, the game can actually be played with a reasonable framerate on said laptop. The same could not be said about them Unreal Engine powerhouses, even after the game looks like dogshit it could not be played with a reasonable enough framerate on said laptop. (Anything powered by Source Engine like aforementioned Half-Life 2 runs fine on that machine by the way, had to find that out by registering my Steam account in 2013.)

Anyway, guess when it went up against 3 Xbox 360 games (2 of which would be ported to PS3 later, with Bioshock being one of the earliest games achieving parody between their Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, and COD4 managed to eat Halo 3’s lunch with its user base on PS3 back then), the so-called hardware killer on PC did win.

2008: Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of Patriots

(Outshone Sonic Unleashed and Fallout 3)

I wonder if the game’s summer blockbuster like trailer had any swing over it winning. Or maybe Keighley just put up his boyfriend's forced magnum opus against some real weak source compatitors. Even among the polygonal extravaganzas from Japan, MGS4’s victory at VGA would be short-lived. Resident Evil 5 would come out the March after. As much as I loathe the game, the Capcom title does have more convincing human skin texture on its characters. MGS4’s cast looks like plastic in comparison. And for fuck sake, why would they nominate a Bethesda RPG again?

2009: Uncharted 2 Among Thieves

(Outshone Batman: Arkham Asylum, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Killzone 2 )

Batman got robbed, robbed I say! Among Thieves is a very important game for this lousy industry. But importance here does not mean excellence. Its focus on production value sure did a number. I mean Microsoft still have not covered from finding their Uncharted killer or AAAA pursuit. EA was fucked by this mentality when they were not willing to invest as well if Jason Schreier’s Kotaku stories are to be believed.

As for the rest of the nominees, making military shooters look good was even hard back in 2009, I guess. Set it in space did not help, either.

2010: God of War III

(Outshone Heavy Rain, James Bond 007: Blood Stone, Red Dead Redemption and Kirby's Epic Yarn)

Guess those severed limbs and spilled guts rendered in details needed some acknowledgement. The game having Zeus as its final boss again after 2007’s God of War II’s anti-climatic ending just killed all my incentive to play it. I will just stick with Xbox 360, thank you very much.

This highlight of 2010 might be Kirby’s Epic Yarn on Wii being nominated here. Suppose after the Keighley’s left Spike, this can be seen as the inception of Best Art Direction.

2011: Uncharted 3 Drake’s Deception

(Outshone Batman: Arkham City, LA Noire and RAGE)

Batman got robbed again by the same son of a bitch named Nathan Drake! Naughty Dog and Keighley’s sure are thick as thieves. While Drake’s Deception always looks bit off to yours truly, it just was the beauty in the eyes of a beholder known as Keighley’s. Oh well, got to hand Naughty Dog something if they were to announce the Last of Us here. I personally think Intergalactic announcement in 2024 is just as empty as 2011’s LOU teaser, but everybody loved Naughty Dog back the, right?

Also, what was the unholy creation of id and Bethesda doing in the best-looking bunch? And I guess uncanny valley in 1940s' Los Angles could not win either.

2012: Halo 4

(Outshone Assassin's Creed III, Dishonored and Journey)

By this point, yours truly just got to suspect that Crysis winning 5 years prior is saying “Okay PC ‘master race’, take it when you can because it’s console town all the way down.” It would have been “PS3 all the way until next-gen” if not for this one. Personally, I think Dishonored got robbed but at the very least Viktor Antonov’s work got acknowledged back in 2004 and this year again with Half-Life 2 winning game of the decade.

With VGX 2013 not having category for best looking game, this is the closet to awarding a console generation swan song. Halo 4 was a very pretty game, so pretty that the enemies are dumb as bricks in comparison of the Bungie titles. I mean I soloed 4 on Legendary (The highest difficulty) while gave up Reach’s solo Heroic (The difficulty just under Legendary.) run only 2 chapters in. Geez them Convents are cunning with their firepower under Bungie.

2015: Ori and the Blind Forest

(Outshone Batman: Arkham Knight, Bloodborne, Metal Gear Solid V the Phantom Pain and the Witcher 3 Wild Hunt.)

No, you didn’t read the year wrong. After at least a triple-check, I found out that neither VGX 2013 nor 2014’s very first Game Awards had category akin to best looking game. Then 2015 came with Best Art Direction, and it seemed like participation awards for indies, until it wasn’t.

Anyway, I don’t think Batman was robbed here. The trilogy coda feels wrong in every possible way, while this focused on platforming Super Metroid like deserved it completely. It sure beat Batman Arkham series in their own game: making the night look good and varied.

2016: Inside

(Outshone Abzû, Firewatch, Overwatch and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End)

For the category, 2016 was a big year. For the first time for the Game Awards Wikipedia page, Best Art Direction was moved up to the fourth category listed, though that was at the expanse of indie categories moving down. Anyway, it still was impressive for Inside to surpass ex-Journey devs’ new effort, 2 game with “watch ” in their titles and the incredibly overrated Naughty Dog.

2017: Cuphead

(Outshone Destiny 2, Horizon Zero Dawn, Persona 5 and the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild)

Hard indie platfomers are a diamond dozen and Cuphead managed to stand out on its old cartoon look alone. I mean it’s not hard to see why Giantbomb reduced number of categories after Cuphead took home both Best Looking and Best Styyyyle. As for those in the run with it on the Keighley’s, Cupheard is nothing-we-have-seen-before-in-video-games.

2018: Return of the Obra Dinn

(Outshone Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, God of War soft reboot, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Octopath Traveler)

A monochrome video game is bold for sure. A monochrome game knows that monochrome cinematic classics are usually loaded with details is one to be admired. Lucas Pope’s second solo outing are not just looking good with details. As a game about filling out insurance forms, it offers things for the player to observe and record, like which one of fire squad actually shot the convicted. The look is part of gameplay while other nominees were just pretty faces.

2019: Control

(Outshone Death Stranding, Gris, the Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Sayonara Wild Hearts and Sekiro: Shadow Die Twice)

This was when the category stopped being participation award for indie titles. Not to downplay Control though, it certainly looks good for the bold choices made. Its PC version had one year exclusivity on Epic Game Store, so I guess it did have some indie spirit.

2020: Ghost of Tsushima

(Outshone Final Fantasy VII Remake, Hades, the Last of Us Part II and Ori and the Will of the Wisps)

15 years and a name change later, Keighley’s best looking game was still a last-gen swan song in the year new consoles came out. The third time after the 3 console generations the Keighley’s had been through. If this is not like clockwork, I don’t know what is. You monsters! You robbed Hades and Supergiant blind!

2021: Deathloop

(Outshone Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Psychonauts 2, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and the Artful Escape)

15 years and a name change later, Keighley’s best looking game was still an exclusive on a new console song the year after said new consoles came out. To be fair, this was only the second time this happened. Even though the game rendered less in first-person...

2022: Elden Ring

(Outshone God of War Ragnarök, Horizon Forbidden West, Scorn and Stray)

Long live the King! Long live the King! Long…Oh wait it ain’t no king to me! I got no dog in this fight whatsoever.

2023: Alan Wake II

(Outshone Hi-Fi Rush, the Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Lies of P and Super Mario Bros. Wonder)

Guess Geoff Keighley and Sam Lake can be as thick as thief like Geoff Keighley and Neil Drukmann. The Finlander is fluent with English after all. And as much as some would call the art style in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom “unique”, yours truly just think “It’s just cel-shading” and apparently Keighley’s committee agrees.

2024: Metaphor: Refantasio

(Outshone Astro Bot, Black Myth: Wukong, Elden Ring: Shadow of Erdtree and Neva)

After four “lookers” your truly did not play, Keighley’s 2024 considered my most played game of the year its best-looking game. Metaphor sure has a lot of awe-inspiring images, including the background of its final dungeon. How many RPGs’ final dungeons can be that impressive I wonder.