[Roundtable] The Game Awards Nominees
- The Narrativity Crew
- Nov 23, 2017
- 20 min read
The Game Awards have released their nominees for this year's awards, and the Narrativity crew have plenty of thoughts on the selections. They talk about the list of nominees and what the greater narrative is, the stuff they’re out on, and their favorite games from this year.
When you saw which five games were nominated for Game of the Year, what jumped out at you?
Matthew Bickerton: Of the five nominees, the one that jumped out to me immediately was Breath of the Wild. As anyone who knows me will tell you, I'm a huge Zelda Stan, but even with that caveat, Breath of the Wild felt like something special to me. At the risk of repeating a tired cliché, Breath of the Wild completely upended open world gaming for me, and after 125+ hours of playtime, I'm still thinking about the way its mechanics shaped my experience, particularly the way it expanded open world traversal. Who would have thought that the ability to climb any surface, only to gently glide down on the breeze would be such a (literal) game changer? By contrast, when I played Horizon Zero Dawn about a month later, I was shocked at how dated it felt, but I'll have more on that later. Breath of the Wild is not without its flaws (I will never stop arguing that the weapon system needs a re-balance), but it's as close to perfect as anything I've ever played.
The other game that jumps out at me is PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. I haven't actually played the game, but its nomination has caused something of a stir on Twitter, with detractors arguing that since the game is still in early access, and therefore "incomplete," it doesn't deserve to be nominated. The argument raises some interesting questions about the idea of games as a service, rather than as standalone products. With all the hand-wringing over games as a service in the wake of EA's recent shuttering of another promising developer, it can be easy to overlook that, for the most part; games have been trending in this direction for years. Between day one patches, DLC, and other content updates, the concept of a video game as a one-and-done release hasn't really existed for some time now. Controversy aside, it's also hard to think of another game that's experienced such a meteoric rise to acclaim as PUBG. It came out of nowhere, with an exciting twist on a proven concept at a time when the industry desperately needs a shakeup. As much as I love Breath of the Wild, and the way it rethought the open world formula, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see PUBG take home the top honors.
Joshua Covell: Nintendo crushed it. The Switch has been out for less than nine months, and they’ve already released two of the absolute best games of the year. No, sorry,that's underselling Zelda and Mario. Two of the all-time best. The Switch is a runaway success despite Nintendo not having their online infrastructure set up, giving no indication as to when their Virtual Console library will become available, and third party support being solid but less than impressive. How? They found the winning formula that their fans already knew: put out your best first party games in year one.
Justin Emmerton: Expansive single-player games aren't dead (yet). It feels as though we're in the middle of a shift in gaming. E-sports are bigger than ever, and most developers seem to be pushing towards games as a service instead of a product. Despite these trends, we're still getting some absolutely incredible single-player experiences, and I couldn't be happier about that.
Chris Harrison: Definitely PUBG. I don't think I can recall a game of its kind getting that sort of award recognition.
Eddie Losoya: The biggest thing I noticed is that the "Big Budget Single-Player Games are Dead" narrative is as wrong as its ever been. The recent death of EA's Visceral Games studio spawned a ton of discussion that single-player games don't have a future in our games as service climate. Likewise, the internet has been inclined to freak out over whatever current microtransaction implementation we see.
Nintendo is serving as the guiding light here, but other games like Persona 5, Wolfenstein, RE:7, and Nier: Automata prove that single-player games still have the public's focus and will continue to do so going forward. So much innovation and trendsetting happened this year from Nintendo and it makes so much sense that they're here to usher in the next era of single player games.
Matt P: What jumped out at me was that nothing jumped out at me. Of course Zelda's going to be in there, same goes for a mainline 3D Mario. Persona 5 largely seemed to meet its massive expectations. Not a single person has managed to shut the fuck up about PUBG this year, at least from where I'm sitting, so that nomination didn't shock me. And Horizon Zero Dawn, while I've never played it, was a very pretty looking new IP that exceeded expectations both critically and commercially. So after looking at the other games that released this year (some say Divinity: Original Sin II belongs on the list, but, from what I ignorantly understand, it's the RPG equivalent of reading an encyclopedia from beginning to end), it makes sense to end up with those five.
Andrew Ryan: Honestly, the first thing I noticed was that Mass Effect isn't on that list. And by no means should it be on there, but it was another reminder that such a huge game, by far my most anticipated game of 2017 and the game I played the most this year, was nowhere to be found in any of these categories, let alone GOTY. I remember thinking that if Mass Effect wasn't my number one game of 2017, then Bioware would really have dropped the ball. And they did.
What criteria do you personally use to come up with your list of the best games of the year?
Bickerton: This may surprise you, but the first step is trying to remember all of the games I've played this year. The next step is remembering when they actually came out. It's hard work, even in light of the fact that I don't actually play all that many new games each year. When the cost of entry is $80 plus tax, it can be tough to justify an immediate purchase. Financial woes aside, it's honestly not that difficult a process. Once I've refreshed my memory, the decision mostly boils down to what was the most fun, and what did I spend the most time with.
Obviously this year it was Breath of the Wild for me, but in an unusually strong year for games, the race was tight. Persona 5 makes up for its basic dungeon crawling with interesting characters and an insane story, while Super Mario Odyssey's inventive stages helped offset the fact that I finished it in just a few days. I also like to think about how a game made me feel, and how much time I've spent thinking about it when I'm not playing. By that criteria, Life is Strange will end up being my game of the decade, because I'm still talking about it some two years later. There's also a nostalgia factor to consider. I've been playing video games since I was five years old, and I've been chasing the highs of childhood gaming for about as far back as I can remember. I said of Breath of the Wild just before its release that it looked like the game I thought Ocarina of Time was when I was 11: a world of near-limitless exploration and discovery. Consider this a case where I was happily proven right.
Covell: I’d say it’s a combination of several factors:
How it rated on the BDS Scale*;
If I had sustained enthusiasm for the game from beginning to end;
Where I would rank it not only against the others games from that year, but also in the pantheon of great games; and
How often I thought about it when I wasn’t playing and even after I finished.
Games that do well against those criteria make my list of the best games, and those that don’t, well, are lost to history.
*The Big Dumb Smile Scale
Emmerton: For me, it usually boils down to four key factors: genre, gameplay, setting, and playtime.
Genre: While I'll give most games a fair shake, there are a few genres that I don't mess with for the most part. I tend to avoid sports games, strategy games, or racing games with a heavy focus on simulation. Just not my thing.
Gameplay: I usually lean towards action-heavy games with a focus on exploration (Uncharted, Horizon Zero Dawn, The Legend of Zelda, etc).
Setting: The world of a game has always been really important to me. I want a world that feels real and lived-in. I instantly fell in love with the setting of Horizon.
Playtime: I'll be honest. I have very poor time-management skills. I also find that the older I get, the less time I have to devote to video games. That's why I prefer games that don't take me hundreds of hours to complete. As a great big anime dork, I would love to try Persona 5, but I know that I just can't commit that much time to one game.
Harrison: I've been working full time for some years now, so the days when I could loaf around on the couch and play four straight hours of video games on a Wednesday are long over. Even for games I like, I rarely find myself playing for more than an hour or so at a time. But every so often, a game comes around that I just can't put down. If I've killed an entire Saturday playing it, it's going to vault to the top of my Game of the Year list. Also, the amount of time I've spent telling friends that they need to check this shit out is a huge factor.
Losoya: Honestly, I try to read what games others are talking about. My memory of what games I've played often is pretty terrible. The main games I remember playing are the various phone games that implant themselves into my daily routine. From there, I tend to narrow down which games I could talk about for the longest time, and games like Zelda and Mario, well, let me tell you, I can talk about them for quite some time.
P: Not that this isn't a valid question to ask, but I just pick the five games I enjoyed playing the most all year. Crazy, right?
Ryan: I'm looking for that Uncharted 2 moment, that feeling I get when playing a game and I'm just blown away by it. It's something special that doesn't happen every year, but when it does, I know my number one is a lock. I don't have to think about it too much, or weigh the pros and cons against other games; it's just a gaming experience that stands out head and shoulders above the others.
Be a hater for a moment: Which nominee do you just not get the hype for?
Bickerton: Honestly? It's Horizon Zero Dawn all the way. It's a gorgeous game, no doubt about that, but as I said earlier, in the wake of Breath of the Wild, it's just another open world tower climber, with way too much shit to do. It just felt like it ticked every box on the open world checklist, from quest structure, to traversal, to character progression. It just felt the same as any Ubisoft open-worlder I've played in the last five years. It also really bothers me when open world action games are built around a nakedly unambiguous level-up system. Those systems obviously exist in basically every game there is, but I really appreciate it when a developer makes the effort to disguise it. It makes character progression feel more dynamic and natural, and you're not constantly ripped out of the world by a number bar going up. Breath of the Wild's Shrine Orbs, to keep beating that dead horse, are essentially XP drops, sure, but the fact that they're designed as in-universe items does wonders for my immersion. And as gorgeous as it was, I felt the world of Horizon lacked a cohesive design in the same way as Breath of the Wild did. I wrote on Twitter about how much I loved BOTW's use of Hyrule Castle as a central focal point for navigation, and it's the kind of design touch that, for me, made getting around the world feel a lot more naturalistic. These are nitpicky standard of living things, sure, but they mark the difference for me between a good game, and an instant classic.
Covell: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. I don’t get anything about it: the gameplay, the aesthetics, the appeal, the name. It’s a game that is perpetually in beta and yet people are flocking to it. It’s ugly. It doesn’t seem to bring much in terms of originality to the genre. And it attracts—from what I can gather from videos and streams—a community of gamers that I tend to abhor. It’s a phenomenon and I can’t figure out why it’s even a thing.
Emmerton: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. I couldn't care less. I'll admit that I've only played about three hours of the game, but I could never be bothered to play any more. Everything about that game bores me. The setting is bland and the gameplay is slow. I spent most of my time wandering aimlessly until a random player shot me in the head. I manged to kill a guy once and it was pretty cool, I guess?
Harrison: Hellblade just never quite stuck with me. The audio design was tremendous and helped create an eerie atmosphere, but the gameplay didn't really work for me. There were a few too many of the sight puzzles, which often had to be lined up absolutely perfectly to work, and while one-on-one fights worked fine and were appropriately tense, I got really sick of hacking through the same 3-4 enemies over and over. It was a big change of tone and style for Ninja Theory, and I didn't like it all that much.
Losoya: In the RPG section, the support for Final Fantasy XV this year baffles me. FFXV is in a way like a bizarro Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It's a Japanese franchise taking on western-style open world game for the first time. It uses a minimalist take on storytelling and tries to focus on the micro-stories of the "journey," mainly using its sense of fraternity between its four bros. But here, none of it worked for me. Much like Final Fantasy 13, XV only feels like a Final Fantasy in that it feels really expensive and made us wait really long to play it. At this point, there is no clear vision for this series. Each game feels as fractured as the production process that spawned it. I miss the series that committed to a vision from start to finish. Final Fantasy XV starts, but it doesn't even care to finish itself.
P: I've already hinted at my saltiness for this game, but I just don't get the PUBG craze. I've tried—really, really tried three times now to get into this game, but I hated almost everything about it. I know, it's early access, but it's so rough in so many areas—the interface, the shooting mechanics, the performance, the controls, the way the game presents information to the player. A lot of time playing this game is spent waiting for something to happen—waiting to eject your parachute, waiting for the area of play to reduce, waiting in an upstairs attic of a house hoping you can jump an unsuspecting player who happens to wander inside. (I spent too much of my early childhood hiding in my attic to want to simulate doing it in a video game. [Kidding.]) In the off chance that you are able to collect some good gear and maybe even feel good about yourself, nine out of 10 times you'll just lose it all in the most jankiest of firefights. And then that's it. You lost, along with another 98 out of 100 people. There's no closure. Go back to the main menu, pray your computer doesn't crash and go fuck yourself.
Ryan: PUBG. I had fun running around and shooting other people online when I played Halo 3 in 2007. I don't get what's still exciting about it in 2017. I know there's something there that I don't get, but that's kind of the point. I don't get it.
Of the games you played from this year, which are you most itching for a sequel?
Bickerton: Despite what I said in response to the previous question, Horizon is probably the game I'd most like to see a sequel to, of the games listed. I'm not the only one who thinks Breath of the Wild is going to be a major game-changer, and I'd like to see the Guerilla Games team expand on the world they built, and incorporate some lessons from Breath of the Wild. (Aloy is a super tough warrior woman whose entire life was spent in the wilds! Let me climb things, dammit!) I'm also interested to see where the story goes from that ending, since I thought HZD's spin on the standard post-apocalypse was actually kind of clever. So yeah, give me Horizon One Noon, and focus on making the good stuff better (story, combat, robots), and fix the bad stuff (boring open world, immersion-breaking systems).
Covell: Super Mario Odyssey. It has to be Mario. There’s more imagination in a single area in Odyssey than there is in the entirety of most games released today. I want a sequel, and I want it now. But because I know that that kind of creativity takes years and years, I’ll patiently wait for that team to give me another Mario game when they’re darn good and ready. In the meantime, I have like 750 Power Moons to track down.
Emmerton: A Hat in Time. I absolutely adored that game. To be blunt, the game is not innovate, but that's okay. It's a perfect throwback to N64 and PS1 platformers and I love it for that. It isn't a game for everybody, but it was the perfect game for me and I want more.
Harrison: This answer may lose me some gamer cred, but I'm really looking forward to seeing how EA follows up its story mode "The Journey" from this year's FIFA. Sports games have been dabbling with story modes for the last few years, with the most notable example being the work done in the NBA 2K series and its robust character creator (before they more or less shit the bed with this year's effort). EA has gone a different route, though, with a streamlined story mode focused on a specific character, a young footballer named Alex Hunter. The first iteration, found in FIFA 17, was mostly fine, but 18's was a surprisingly engrossing and affecting story with some genuinely cool moments where the story and gameplay intersected in interesting ways. I'm looking forward to seeing how this Disney-esque inspirational sports tale continues as Hunter makes the step from young stud to global superstar.
Losoya: I need another Mass Effect game in my life. I refuse to let this series die. My favorite game series deserves better than its current fate. Obviously I'm fine with the franchise taking a small hiatus after Mass Effect: Andromeda, but I hope they find their footing soon. There is still so much more that could come from this great universe, and I hope we get it some day.
P: I spent a lot of time playing Zelda: BOTW thinking, man, I'd love for Nintendo to Majora's Mask this shit. That's not to say I want a moon descending onto Hyrule, or a doomsday clock, or even the general gloominess of Majora, but rather a total re-imagining of the game using the same core concepts and assets of BOTW (without regurgitating the same game over and over a la Assassin's Creed), much like what Majora did for Ocarina of Time. And I think that's exactly what they'll do. BOTW was released so early in the Switch's lifecycle, and the Switch has been such a success, that it would be kind of irresponsible of Nintendo not to crank out another Zelda in the next couple of years using the new formula established with BOTW.
Ryan: I'm with Eddie: Mass Effect. I put approximately 120 hours into that dumb game this year, and about 20 of those hours were really fun. This series is too good and has too much potential to abandon it just because the B-team churned out a watered-down version of an excellent franchise.
Come up with a new category for The Game Awards.
Bickerton: I've actually got two half-baked ideas. "Platform of the Year," in which we determine which platform had the best year. Say, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Xbox One, Sony Playstation 4, PC, Nintendo 3DS, Mobile (iOS/Android). I think there's a case to be made for every system. Mobile has its accessibility and reach; PC for having the best versions of multiplatform games, as well as a ton of unique independent stuff; Sony's studio exclusives have been pretty exceptional for a good two years running; Nintendo 3DS has arguably the best mobile library in existence; Switch came out of the gate doing gangbusters, and already has arguably two of the best games ever made (Zelda, Mario); and Xbox One X… well, it's very nice looking.
Alternately, you could do a "Studio of the Year" award, highlighting lesser-known development studios that are doing good or interesting work. The industry can always work harder to give more of a spotlight to the little guys, so this would be a good opportunity for exposure, especially at an awards show that's otherwise so aggressively focused on marketing and a toxic hype cycle.
Covell: I'd love to see a "Re-Assessment Award" for the games that were released 5, 10, 20 years ago that have aged the best (or worst). Which games were products of their time, which remained timeless, and which went unrecognized years ago but found another life in the present? Awards shows are, by their very definition, prisoners of the moment, so it'd be fascinating to see the relative appreciation and depreciation of games over time.
Emmerton: "Best Original IP". In a world full of sequels and remakes, it'd be nice to give new original games some recognition.
Harrison: Given that "Best Esports Player" and "Best Esports Team" are awards, why not take a page out of the ESPYs' playbook and have an award for "Best Esports Match"? It'd be a cool way to showcase a really exciting comeback in a championship or something along those lines.
Losoya: Honestly, we need more mobile games categories. I remain baffled by everyone's ambivalence to the creativity going on in the mobile space each and every year. Puzzle games, strategy games, adventure games, mystery games, experimental games, etc. There is so much innovation going on in the mobile space, and I hope the gaming sphere realizes this so we can promote talented developers.
P: I would add a category for "Best Original Concept". Each nomination must be a totally or reasonably new concept for a game. The description for "Best Game Direction" reads, "Awarded to a game studio for outstanding creative vision and innovation in game direction and design," which is kind of the same thing, you might say. But then you look at the nominees: Wolfenstein 2, which is a regular-ass first person shooter; Resident Evil 7, which I'm sure is one hell of an experience in VR, but nothing revolutionary; Zelda: BOTW, which, okay, turned the open world genre on its head in many ways so I'll give that a pass; Super Mario Odyssey, which is a fun platformer but again, nothing revolutionary; and Horizon Zero Dawn, which I haven't played so I can't comment on. But what about like, fucking Pyre, a game that gets created by forcefeeding LSD to a game studio every day for two years of development and being told to mash Alice in Wonderland and NBA Jam together into some sort of new, playable thing. WHAT ABOUT PYRE?!
Ryan: "Best Moment". It's impossible to present the nominees for this without spoilers, but I really love hearing which moments resonated with people and why. In a year where I don't have a lot of games that I loved overall, there are still a lot of great 2017 gaming moments that stand out in my mind.
Which five games would you nominate for Game of the Year?
Bickerton:
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Persona 5
Super Mario Odyssey
Night in the Woods
What Became of Edith Finch
Like I said, I didn't play as many games as I thought. There are still a ton of games I want to get to (Nier, Wolfenstein, Golf Story, Hellblade, Danganronpa V3, Life is Strange: Before the Storm, to name a few), but I think 2017 has been a real banner year for games all around.
Covell:
Super Mario Odyssey
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
The first half of Resident Evil 7
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
Picross S
I swear, I am not a Nintendo superfan. Halfway through the Wii’s run, I had all but disowned Nintendo. I thought that I had outgrown the brand, or that the company had stopped making games that would appeal to me. In fact, it might be because I had written them off so emphatically that I was wowed by the Switch’s year to the extent that I did. It says something about a console when, any time a new game was announced or released throughout the year, I would react with, “Man, if that came to Switch, I’d get it.”
Emmerton:
Horizon Zero Dawn
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Resident Evil 7
Life is Strange: Before the Strom
Sonic Mania (it's insane that a Sonic game released in 2017 is actually good)
Harrison:
Horizon: Zero Dawn
Persona 5
Danganronpa v3: Killing Harmony
Cuphead
The first half of Final Fantasy XV before the story and pacing go completely off the rails
Losoya:
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Super Mario Odyssey
Persona 5
Card Thief (iOS)
Hidden Folks (iOS)
P: I didn't get to play (or finish) nearly as many games as I'd have liked to, so I'm not exactly choosing from a very large pool here, but:
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Sonic Mania Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle Super Mario Oddysey Pyre
Ryan:
Super Mario Odyssey
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Wolfenstein 2
What Remains of Edith Finch
Horizon Zero Dawn
And what was the best game you played from 2017?
Bickerton: In a surprise twist, it was… Okay, it was Breath of the Wild. Nothing else even came close. I think I've covered why up above, but man, what a game. If you haven't played Breath of the Wild, what are you doing here? Go do that!
Covell: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I'm as amazed as anyone, because until BOTW, I had never enjoyed a Zelda game before. I tried, too. I played almost every Zelda release since the early days of the franchise and inevitably I’d get an hour or two in, grow tired of how slowly they were easing me into the game, and put it down, saying, “Not for me. Maybe next time.” But Breath of the Wild got its hooks in me from the jump and it never let go. Maybe I overrate when a long-running franchise that hasn’t ever appealed to me puts out a game that I love obsessively (along with other examples, like Resident Evil 4 and Persona 4 Golden), but how can I think of them as anything other than exceptional?
Emmerton: Horizon Zero Dawn. I loved everything about it, from the setting, to the characters, to the gameplay. It's a game that truly lets you play however you want. Want to try and sneak past a large group of robo-dinos? Go ahead. Would you rather pick 'em off from afar with your bow? Do it up. Oooorr maybe you want to jump on the back of one and ride it into battle like you're on the cover of a goddamn heavy metal album. Hell yeah, man.
Harrison: 2017 is making me wish I had a Switch right now. That being said, Horizon Zero Dawn is my favorite game from this year. It's one of only a few open world games I've been compelled to finish all the way through in recent years, largely because it avoids Ubisoft Syndrome. There are a handful of sidequests and other markers on the map, but it never feels overstuffed with busywork, which means the two strongest aspects of the game get to shine—the narrative and the exploration. The story wasn't necessarily groundbreaking, but it was a unique take on a post-apocalyptic world and Aloy (who has super dope hair) is a rock-solid main character. The voice work is strong throughout the game too.
But the main draw for me was the feeling of running through the open environments and stalking prey. I chose to go nearly everywhere on foot because why hurry through environments that gorgeous? The choice to make it the "golden hour" all the time meant that nearly every moment was worthy of a stunning screenshot in photo mode. The few towns in the game world are filled with tribes that all feel legitimately different from each other. Combat has a real weight to it too, and it's always satisfying to take out the enemies that populate the landscape. I'm still a little bit behind on this year's releases, but Horizon is the most fun thing I've played so far.
Losoya: It has to be The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. In all honesty, I think I've maybe had more fun with Super Mario Odyssey this year, spent more time with Persona 5, and played more games of Card Thief. But when it comes down to it, Breath of the Wild is magical.
I have lots of issues with BOTW and would still list the 2D Zelda games above it, but BOTW has that secret sauce that only landmark games have. It's the kind of game we look back on and think about what it was like when we first experienced it. The world felt ready to explore and full of secrets. In our internet age where Youtube walkthroughs are on the internet hours after a game launches, BOTW felt mysterious and always ready to discover something new. Nintendo gave us something pure this year in Super Mario Odyssey, but they gave us something truly special this year in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
P: It would have to be Breath of the Wild. It's the shakeup to the Zelda formula we all knew we needed. It definitely has its issues (for instance, whoever's idea it was to make Link slip when climbing in the rain can go straight to hell), but I can't remember the last time I felt so at ease and absorbed in a video game world. So many open world games give the illusion of freedom, where, sure, you're in an open world but you're for the most part following a waypoint to your objective. Not to say that's not present in BOTW, but the biggest draw of the game is the freedom it offers the player. You can choose to fuck around and find some shrines for a while. When you get bored of that, you fuck around and climb a big mountain that catches your eye. Then you fuck around up there and probably find some cool stuff to fuck around with. And every now and then, some absolutely perfect stray piano notes play and almost make me forget about my job that I hate.
Ryan: I know this is an odd choice in a year with so many big, great games, but personally I have to give it to What Remains of Edith Finch. After putting so much time into ME: Andromeda, I felt too burned out to invest dozens of hours into games like Persona 5 or Breath of the Wild, great as they may be. Edith Finch was a small, appetizer-sized game that surprised me, impressed me, and left more of an impact on me in three hours than any of the games that I played for much longer did. Proof that a short game can still be huge in its own way.
I'm sure the best game of the year is Breath of the Wild, but I won't be able to really play that until my wife is done with it, which is apparently never.
The Game Awards will stream digitally across several platforms and services on December 7, 8:30pm ET. For details on how to watch the show, visit their site.
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