2015 Game of the Year: Day 3

Welcome to Day 3 of my personal Game of the Year awards. Today is a big day with Best Performances, Best New Character, Best Gameplay, and finally Best Story/Storytelling. It goes without saying that there will be spoilers for every game mentioned today, so be aware. I will bring up major points for all of them and a few of the videos are spoiler heavy. Let's get to it.

Best male performance:

• Troy Baker- Rhys in Tales from the Borderlands
• Paul Darrow- Paul Rand in Contradiction: Spot the Liar
• Mark Hamill- Joker in Batman Arkham Knight
• Chris Hardwick- Vaughn in Tales from the Borderlands
• Nolan North- August in Tales from the Borderlands
• Roger Craig Smith- Crane in Dying Light
• Peter Stormare- Dr. Hill in Until Dawn
• Davey Wreden- Himself in The Beginner's Guide
• Elijah Wood- Shay in Broken Age pt. 1

Runners up:

Paul Darrow- Paul Rand in Contradiction: Spot the Liar: You don't meet this character until after the halfway point of this game, but when you do he immediately stands out. This character is delightfully evil and the performance backs it up in an incredible way.

Peter Stormare- Dr. Hill in Until Dawn: Even though he exists primarily in Josh's mind, Peter Stormare brings a fantastic performance as the creepy as hell Dr. Hill. As the game goes on, Stormare's performance only gets better.

Winner:

Troy Baker- Rhys in Tales from the Borderlands: After winning in 2013 and narrowly losing out on this award last year, Troy Baker is back on top with this phenomenal performance. Throughout all five episodes, he gets to play a different role than the usual gruff protagonist. Here he gets to play a pencil-pushing push-over, and this allows him to do some fantastic things. On top of that he can also pull off a spot on impersonation of Patrick Warburton. Even if you listen extremely closely you can just barely tell that it is Troy Baker.

Best Female Performance:

• Laura Bailey- Fiona in Tales from the Borderlands
• Ashly Burch- Chloe in Life is Strange
• Anarosa Eizaguirre- Emma in Contradiction: Spot the Liar
• Jennifer Hale- Hope in Broken Age
• Stefanie Joosten- Quiet in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
• Masasa Moyo- Vella in Broken Age
• Viva Seifert- Hannah/Eve- Her Story
• Tara Strong- Harley Quinn in Batman Arkham Knight
• Hannah Telle- Max in Life is Strange
• Jo Wyatt- Ciri in The Witcher 3

Honorable Mention:

Hannah Telle- Max in Life is Strange: Over the course of the 5 episode of this game, Max Caulfield goes through a transformation from shy, awkward teenager, to self assured, yet still awkward teenager. This transformation is nailed every step of the way by Hannah Telle. Almost every scene where Max and Chloe are together stand among some of the most wonderfully acted moments of the year.

Runners up:

Viva Seifert- Hannah/Eve- Her Story: As the only person in the game, Viva Seifert was tasked with carrying the entire game by herself. I could say she succeeded and move on but that would understate this performance. At times it's perfectly subdued, and at other times attention grabbing, but at all times the performance fits the events of the story. Her Story is a fascinating game that would be lessened by a different performance.

Laura Bailey- Fiona in Tales from the Borderlands: Laura Bailey is one of the mainstays of video game voice acting and for good reason. Her performance as Fetch in last year's inFamous Second Son was a runner up in this category, and her performance as Fiona is possibly even better. At all times she sounds like she was having an absolute blast recording the lines and it shows through in one of the best performances of the year.

Winner:

Ashly Burch- Chloe in Life is Strange: I have gone on ad infinitum about how good this performance is, and I could continue going on about it. Instead of a long winded explanation, I’ll let the phenomenal performance speak for itself.

Best New Character:

• Cassie Cage- Mortal Kombat X
• Cerys An Craite- Witcher 3
• Ciri- The Witcher 3
• D-Dog- Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
• D-Horse- Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
• Doll- Bloodborne
• Dutch- Broken Age
• Emily- Until Dawn
• Fiona- Tales from the Borderlands
• The Fork- Broken Age
• Gerhman- Bloodborne
• GORTYS Bot- Tales from the Borderlands
• Jade- Dying Light
• Detective Jenks- Contradiction: Spot the Liar
• Mettaton- Undertale
• Chloe Price- Life is Strange
• Quiet- Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
• Paul Rand- Contradiction: Spot the Liar
• Ryan Rand- Contradiction: Spot the Liar
• Rhys- Tales from the Borderlands
• Metal Gear Sahelanthropus- Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
• Space Whale- Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
• Spoon- Broken Age
• Stella- Life is Strange
• Vella- Broken Age

Honorable Mentions:

Stella- Life is Strange: Stella (also voiced by Ashly Burch) is a side character in this game and if you pay close attention, you will find a character that is more interesting than a few of the main characters. Drug addiction, familial troubles, and a heaping helping of gossip ability, Stella is easily the best minor character of the year. I wish she played more of a role in the game.

GORTYS- Tales from the Borderlands: GORTYS is a naive but adorable robot that you get to meet in Episode 2. Voiced by the incredible Ashley Johnson, this robot becomes the main focus of the story and became one of the more heartwarming characters in a year full of heartbreaking characters.

Runners up:

Mettaton- Undertale: Undertale is a game that goes some strange places. None of them are more strange than the moments with the murderous, game show hosting robot. Instead of trying to kill you in a fight, he tries to defeat you in a rigged trivia contest and, in his second form, a dance off.

Ciri- The Witcher 3: Ciri makes this list for two reasons: 1. She, unlike series protagonist Geralt, actually has a fantasic personality, and 2. The moments where you get to control Ciri are the best gameplay moments in the entire game. Her abilities to teleport dodge and eventually do things like this make her one of my favorite characters of the year.

Winner:

Chloe Price- Life is Strange:

I never thought a video game character could be relatable. I thought they would always have a shield of pixels that would prevent them from feeling real. Boy was I wrong. My connection with this character runs far deeper than just liking her for being different. As I said in my review, I had a similar experience as Chloe. What I couldn't say in the review was how both of our situations resolved in similar ways. I already posted the video of the moment where Chloe finds Rachael's body, but that moment was one of the most devastating and sobering moments I've ever seen in any work of fiction. When I was six, my best and only friend went missing and was later found dead in a dumpster behind a shopping center. I can look back on this experience as being a moment in my life where I started seeing the worst in every situation. Much like Chloe, I have been the overbearing, perpetually pissed off person who wants nothing to do with anyone. Much like Chloe, I have been guilty of blaming literally everyone and everything for all the problems in my life. I have never seen a character that was so relatable in so many deeply personal ways. Combined with a top-notch performance by Ashly Burch, Chloe felt so real and human in a way that I have never seen in a fictional character. Being given the choice to assist in her suicide was heartbreaking. Choosing whether or not to sacrifice a character that I was attached to on such a personal level was one of the hardest decisions I faced in a game this year. Much like Max, I was motivated to save Chloe every chance I got because of how deeply I connected with this character. On a less biased note, the way they bring this character around from rebellious moody teenager, into a sympathetic and lovable character is one of the best character arcs of the year.

Best Gameplay:

• Bloodborne
• Batman Arkham Knight
• Battlefield Hardline
• Fallout 4
• Just Cause 3
• Mortal Kombat X
• Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
• Rocket League
• Shooty Skies
• Splatoon
• Honorable Mention:
• Just Cause 3

Runners up:

Rocket League: Rocket League is a as simple as a game can get. You play soccer with rocket powered cars. With hats. This game is insanely easy to pick up, but impossible to put down. The controls are super smooth and every movement feels fantastic. The sense of speed gained from unloading a full boost meter is indescribable to anyone not playing the game. Also you can pull off some truly insane things in this game.

Bloodborne: I have a hard time getting into the Souls games. The combat does almost nothing for me and I could go on about how allowing for many class options actually lessens the amount interesting enemies. Bloodborne has none of those problems. By stripping it down to the core gameplay then ramping up the speed, From Software created the best playing Souls game to date. By focusing on one aspect, they were able to fully explore that element of gameplay to phenomenal results. If Dark Souls 3 goes back to the usual Souls gameplay, I will call it an outright bad game.

Winner:

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain: There is a gameplay loop of MGSV that is unmatched by any game this year. The loop of researching, unlocking, upgrading, fultoning, managing soldiers, researching... is one of the most engrossing systems in a game this year. It also helps that the controls are smoother than butter in all aspects of gameplay. This game not only improved on the normally terrible gameplay of the past games (except MGS4), it is also one of the best first and third person shooters I've played in a long time.

Best Story/storytelling:

Not only are game maturing in the stories they tell, they are just scratching the surface of using the medium in incredible ways. This category praises not only the narratives, but how they are told.

• The Beginner's Guide
• Broken Age
• Cibele
• Her Story
• Life is Strange
• Tales from the Borderlands
• Until Dawn
• Witcher 3

Honorable Mention:

Tales from the Borderlands- While the story itself is quite entertaining, the thing that sets this game apart is the way it is presented. The framing device of having both characters tell their side of the story, complete with absurd deviations, is a brilliant way of telling a story and made the game that much better.

Runners up:

Cibele: Cibele is a deeply personal game made by Nina Freeman, and while it explores some interesting topics, the way the story is told is great. It is a story about how emotional connections can be made over the internet and how those relationships can advance even further. There are multiple layers of how this story is told, from the FMV cutscenes, the audio while playing the in-game RPG, and even some conversation logs between Nina and her friends. Each of those ways furthers this dramatization of a real story from her life in some fantastic ways. This game approaches sex with tact and grace in a medium that usually makes a complete mess out of anything relating to the topic and explores how sex fits in a relationship that formed online. The ending of Cibele is incredibly poignant and effective and brings the story to a close in a powerful way. This game takes an hour to beat every minute is a uniquely personal story told in a great way.

The Beginner's Guide: This game is one of the most thought provoking and emotionally conflicting games I've ever played. It tackles topics such as addiction to external validation and how far some are willing to go for even the smallest amount of praise. Whether or not the revelations of theft are true or not completely changes the emotional context of the whole story. If true, this game is a disturbing trip into the mind of someone possessed by their need for validation and leaves me feeling almost dirty for having bought it. The ending moments of The Tower level where the whole story unravels into a spiraling accusation of theft and the following epilogue are incredibly thought provoking and again, if true, make The Beginner's Guide a rather disturbing game. Even if it is a work of fiction, this story is told in a phenomenal way.

Winner:

Her Story: This game's story has led to a ton of conversation about how people view the events of the game. Is it a woman with split personality disorder telling her version of the events, then telling the events from the point of view of someone who doesn't exist? Or is it a set of twins telling their sides of a twisted story of passion and murder? There is evidence that can be interpreted either way and both are equally valid. The way the story is told is equally fantastic because it allows the player to piece together the events and come to their own conclusions. Eventually, when you get the choice to end the game, finding out that you are playing as the daughter of the woman in the videos is a massive moment that re-contextualizes every plot point in the game. One of my favorite endings of the year underlines a fantastic overall story and the non-linear narrative allows for unique experiences between players.

And with that Day 3 comes to a close. Although today was a bit on the heavy side, tomorrow... Day 4, brings some of THOSE categories. Those ones that highlight moments that we'd all like to forget. We will run down the "Best" Line(s) of dialogue, the year's Biggest Trainwreck, things that should either Please Stop or Take a Break, and then end the day with the let's play award for the game that was the Most Fun to Watch. As always, thank you for reading and if you are so inclined, please leave a comment.