End-of-Year Game Stuff Awards that isn't GOTY, 1st Edition!
by aurahack
So, a certain moment happened while playing a certain game today. It was a great moment, one that's happened plenty before, and I wanted to say something about it on Twitter. But I didn't know where my phone was. So I decided I'd put to use the Intuos4 tablet I got for myself on Boxing Day and make some more fancy graphics and build a secondary end-of-year list, one that is for a bunch of award...
So, a certain moment happened while playing a certain game today. It was a great moment, one that's happened plenty before, and I wanted to say something about it on Twitter.
But I didn't know where my phone was.
So I decided I'd put to use the Intuos4 tablet I got for myself on Boxing Day and make some more fancy graphics and build a secondary end-of-year list, one that is for a bunch of awards that don't celebrate overall greatness. It's nothing special and is, in all likelihood, far less interesting than a much better blog about this stuff (such as Pepsiman's totally great Abstract Game of the Year awards), but this entire blog entry stems out of needing something to do while catching up on GOTY podcasts, using a new $440 piece of technology and my unexplainable need to make shit for no reason.
So, without further ado, I present to you...
Banner! Let's start off with the most generic of them all.
If there's one thing Criterion has excelled at since their very first Burnout title, it's being able to work with the limitations given to them and make a game that performs like no other. Few developers have been able to make cars crash as well as Criterion has, make online racing as compelling as they have or give a sense of speed unlike anything we've ever seen. Criterion somehow managed to take the framerate limitation that was imposed to them in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and use it to an advantage, making car models that look as beautiful at top speed or when flipping over into a wall. That, and weather effects that no other game has even come close to topping. Some games might be more deserving for trying something new or perfecting a particular style, but the fact that I went out of my way to stop my car and just look at the sky during a lightning storm in NFS is something I have to give credit for over anything else. | Runners-up! | Considered because... |
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| DJ Max Portable 3 | ... with every release, the team at Pentavision somehow manages to make every subsequent entry in the DJ Max franchise look like it has a million-dollar artistic budget. 90% of their development staff has to have a copy of Photoshop open at all times because with interface design and production values as amazing as DJ Max Portable 3, I can find no other explanation as to how they do it. |
| Pac-Man Championship Edition DX | YO IT'S PAC-MAN AND SHIT GLOWS REAL NICE AND OH MY GOD THE DIFFERENT STYLES THEY ALL LOOK SO AWESOME AND WHEN YOU'RE ABOUT TO DIE AND SHIT ZOOMS IN JESUS CHRIST MY HEAD |
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Fuck this game. Fuck this game. Fuck this game. Fuck this game. I spent nearly 5 hours just beating two fucking levels. The last ones in the story, mind you, but 5 fucking hours none-the-less. With a total death count far past 3000 and a total completion percentage of roughly 60%, the time spent playing/curse words said ratio relating to super meat boy is about 1/3 at this point. Whenever I go back to get extra bandages and ace Dark World levels, that ratio will only get worse. My girlfriend also points out that I apparently said "fuckmoose" a lot while playing it. Fun stuff!| Runners-up! | Considered because... |
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| VVVVVV | ... while the game is relatively short (I beat it in roughly 2 hours), some of VVVVVV's levels are complete bastards. The controls aren't as tight as they are in games like Super Meat Boy, which leads to some extra frustration but the puzzle elements thrown into the later levels really help make the end-game haul of VVVVVV super rewarding and a ton of fun to play through. |
| Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit | ... when delving into Hot Pursuit for the first time, the thing you will notice first-and-foremost is the game's aggressive rubberband-AI. It feels completely unfair when you start playing the game and it's unfortunate that it's when you learn to master drifting and using nitrous that the game's difficulty becomes more balanced. AI shouldn't be able to zoom past you when you're at your max speed using nitrous. |
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Now, before I am labeled as a hater, let me make this perfectly clear: I really like Deadly Premonition. I bought it the week it came out and beat it a week later and loved just about everything it offered. You will hear no argument from me that it's one of the most original titles of this year and York is probably one of the best characters of the year. You will also hear no argument from me that it's something everyone probably should have on their personal GOTY list.With that said, the Giant Bomb community very seriously needs to stop, for the lack of a better term, riding this game's dick. Yes, the Endurance Run was funny and was probably a gag that went on for a little too long but everyone needs to collectively chill the fuck out on this one and get their senses back in check a bit. There is nothing more obnoxious then people making a game out to be more than what it actually is, and while this throne belonged for long to games like Zelda and Final Fantasy VII, the GB community needs to stop. The forums are suffering for it. Seriously.
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I honestly thought this came out Christmas of last year. Couldn't tell you why. It's a shame, because had I remembered when it came out, this would of probably broke the top 5 of my list. VVVVVV is an amazing, challenging and fun game that I wish didn't end when it did. It's incredibly short but is inventively refreshing through-and-through. It also claims one other award, of which you will see later on. | Runners-up! | Considered because... |
|---|---|
| Risk: Factions | ... I love Risk: Factions, but every time I play it I feel like this should of been the Risk that's existed for like, 10 years. So much fun, but where the fuck were you when I was actually playing Risk. |
| Mass Effect 2 | ... it's of such high caliber and of such quality that it's baffling this wasn't a fall release of last year. Save for VVVVVV, this was January's brightest gem. |
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Looking back on it, I think Limbo is much more interesting to watch than it is to play .Whatever the case, either situation has the benefit of seeing what is one of this year's most gorgeous looking games. Limbo manages to create atmosphere, horror, loneliness and mystery using 2 shades and variations in between and nothing more. As an artist, I can only hope that I am able to make something as visually heart-stopping as Limbo. | Runners-up! | Considered because... |
|---|---|
| Okamiden | ... it's fucking more Okami and you assholes need to buy it. ART DIRECTION OUT EVERY FUCKING ORIFICE. |
| Bayonetta | ... the game is bananas and constantly has sex with your eyes. Bayonetta is an eye orgy. Like, 1500's-style orgy. |
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... and while it's visual sex, Bayonetta falls short just about everywhere else. Note, this is my opinion. I can appreciate Bayonetta for what it is and I will not argue anyone's decision to put this on their list-- even if it's at the top. Bayonetta just somehow managed to make me infuriated for a myriad of reasons, the biggest of witch (eh? EH?) was the fucking panther ability. I want to be able to dodge a move without accidentally bursting into that ability, especially when you stick me in a corridor with two impossible enemies and cripple me with ass camera control. Chapter VII is why I dislike this game and an hour past that Chapter only reassured me that I can take a pass on it and be totally fine with that. It's a silly point to dismiss a game on, but it brought me enough undeserved anger that I just gave up and I haven't looked back since.+++
Stockholm Syndrome. The menus are garbage, the visuals are insanely inconsistent and the career mode lacks any sort of proper direction. That said, I can't fucking stop playing it. It's like Pokemon but for cars. I need to fill my garage. I need to finish each event. I need to finish all the license tests. I need to upgrade my cars. Everything about it is like it was made 5 years ago, the music is garbage and some of the cars look like GT3 models. There's so much wrong with this game but by being so much fucking fun to drive, I end up forgetting about all of that. No other racing game is like it, no matter how hard they try (and subsequently end up improving upon it's wronged mechanics). +++
I love Skate so much, so it breaks my heart to even have to type this. Skate 3 was a great entry in the series but not only was it busted as shit, it ended up being the same game as Skate 2 with some added backward-steps. They improved upon the online portion of Skate 2 in a terrific way but ended up crippling the offline portion of the, which is unfortunately what I have always come to that series for. The open world is no longer connected, the skaters still look like crap and the environments still look blurry and weird. Worst of all, the gameplay is the same as it's been since the start of the franchise... which is why I keep playing it. It's so much fun, even when taking all of its faults into account. That said, if it doesn't do something drastic with the next entry in the series, I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to give it an apologetic hand as I have for the past 2 entries of the series.
| Runners-up! | Considered because... |
|---|---|
| DJ Hero 2 | ... what they improved in gameplay, they continue to take 10 steps back by continuing to make the soundtrack composed of mashups. DJ Hero 1's best songs were original mixes (Groundhog, Beats and Pieces) and the fact that they continue in the opposite direction while mixing in some of the worst contemporary music possible is beyond me. Don't get me wrong, I love Prodigy and deadmau5, but someone needs to head over to FSG right now and bash into their heads that Tiesto is long-past his non-existant prime and that Lady Gaga cannot be properly mixed into any other song, no matter how great the mixer. |
| Final Fantasy XIII | ... Hope. If anyone wants to fight me on that one, I have a knife. I'm not going down without a fight. Would someone please let someone other than Tetsuya Nomura try their hand at this rapidly dying franchise? |
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(Screenshot is The Polynomial: Space of the Music) What is best effect? Best effect is that one thing that every game developer's done in 2010. It was virtual sweat for one year, light bloom for another. Pretty sure HUDless gameplay was one, too. One done more than any other this year to it's fullest, however, is HUD glitching. Or color separation. It really depends on the game but for games like Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days or The Polynomial, the effect was glitching the entire screen. For games like Split/Second or Blur, it was separating the RGB color layers on the HUD to create a form of digital distortion that I still need to learn how to do. In either case, it looks great and I hope it's never in any game for 2011. Kind of done seeing it.
| Runners-up! | Considered because... |
|---|---|
| Silhouetting | ... it looks way pretty. In fact, I think there's one game that did it this year that I might of liked enough to give an award to. Hm... |
| Vignetting | ...it's in EVERY FUCKING GAME IN 2010. For those who don't know that the term is, vignetting refers to darkening of the 4 corners of the screen, usually with black. It creates a cinematic effect in direct gameplay and it looks great for the most part. It's a damn shame that it looks fucking worn-as-shit out by now. |
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It's weird to me that I ended up liking Black Ops' story as much as I did, especially since I was pretty bummed out with Treyarch's last Call of Duty game. I guess lowered expectations worked in my favor. Black Ops' story tried to approach the game's narrative structure in a pretty different manner and while it falls short in a few areas, I thought it succeeded pretty well and told a story that I actually really wanted to see end. I might of figured out the final twist before it was revealed, but that did little to keep me from enjoying the end-game as much as I did. | Runners-up! | Considered because... |
|---|---|
| DJ Max Portable 3's lack of features | ... DJ Max Portable 3 was supposed to be a true-and-tride sequel to 2. They took out the Club Tour mode, they took out the Link Disc mode, they took out the OST mode, they took out 5B mode and 4/6B mode and they took out some customization features that were great in previous entries. The Remix Mode is a ton of fun but when compared to Black Square, arguably the series' best entry, it's absolutely baffling how much they didn't include. |
| Being able to play Civilization V | ... I have never been to even understand how Civilization IV played. The fact that I am not only able to understand it but not be total garbage at it is stunning beyond belief and does a great deal of showing how well Firaxis has made the game accessible. Especially to people like me, who are complete shit at strategy games. Also, Ghandi's a dick. |
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Luckily, I remembered while writing this list that VVVVVV came out this year. Then I remembered that I bought PPPPPP-- the game's soundtrack. To say is good is an understatement. To say it's catchy is an understatement. PPPPPP stands out over the rest of the year with only one song and it's to everyone's benefit that there just so happens to be a dozen other tracks on the album. | Runners-up! | Considered because... |
|---|---|
| Super Meat Boy | ... almost every track has insane guitar riffs and it's fucking baller. |
| Alan Wake | ... it does not feature an original soundtrack (Well, it does, but there's no reason to care about it) but it features a license soundtrack and motherfuckingshit does it use it properly. Play the first chapter of Alan Wake and when it ends, come back and tell me I am wrong. I dare you. |
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And we close with the award that started this all. I was playing Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit earlier today as a Racer in a Hot Pursuit event. I dropped a spike strip and when it recharged, the GPS lady said the usual "Spike Strip online". It then dawned on me that I fucking love that sound. There's bass to it. It's awesome. It's... it's so great. Unfortunately, the GPS alerts are exclusive to the Racer side as cops have the intercom chatter for that stuff. For anyone who plays the game as a racer, you know exactly what I'm talking about. So great. +++
And that's it! No more text to add here. Hope you like the list. :) Feel free to chime in with your own entries for whatever unoriginal categories I came up with!