The Awards for 2023 Go to...

Avant-garde Award:

While it doesn't have the level of customization found in most block games, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom still provides players with a great deal of freedom.  In particular, they can choose how and in what order to tackle the challenges the game has to offer.  For better or worse though some more meanspirited people have turned the game into a Korok torture simulator.  I suppose this sort of thing was inevitable, but unexpected nonetheless. 

Backlash Award:

Usually games maintain an air of anticipation until their release day even if the previews don't seem promising.  In the case of Lord of the Rings: Gollum though, it got trashed two days before launch due to gameplay footage being leaked online.  This game literally never had a chance.  The design is awful, the gameplay is awful, the graphics are awful...even the voice acting is not good.  Also, who came up with that design for the elves?  They all look like chemical substance abuse is on their daily itinerary.   

Brutality Award:

While there are five different difficulty levels to choose from, World of Horror is not an easy game even on the lowest setting.  The themes and atmosphere certainly support the notion of being doomed from the start.  When it comes to random elements, the proverbial deck is stacked against the player.  Couple that with the roguelike design philosophy behind the game, and it becomes abundantly clear that the player is in for a world of hurt each time they begin a new run. 

Canvas Award:

While not the most exciting or innovative game in terms of gameplay, Phantom Brigade is certainly a pretty game to look at.  The variety of colors is of course welcome, but the subtle use of varying shades of reds and blues mixed with the pastoral landscapes of green and brown create an interesting contrast between the two opposing sides of the conflict.  Normally in these types of games grey tends to be the dominate color, so it's nice to see a visual design that takes a step back from that.  

Ecology Award:

Koopas, Goombas, pipes and plumbers...coins, mushrooms, stars and question blocks...we've seen it all many times before, and that's not a bad thing.  Mario is probably the most iconic character in video game history.  That said, the folks over at Nintendo seem to really like re-using old assets.  I guess they ascribe to the old adage "don't fix what isn't broken."  Oh well...at least we get a cool new elephant costume this time around.

"Engrish" Award:

Despite rapid improvements to AI translation software, there are still a fare amount of indie games that suffer from localization issues.  In the case of Midnight Shift we have a number of misspellings resulting in great lines like "Good evnening" and "My axe is thirty" Don't worry though because despite being the lone employee on duty at an isolated gas station, it's still possible to call the "Pilice" for help when a masked assailant shows up looking to cause trouble. 

Esoteric Award:

While technically still in early access, I decided to go with Nebulous: Fleet Command for this category because it serves as such an excellent example of obtuse design.  Not only does this game feature Newtonian physics and realistic electronic warfare, it also has highly customizable spacecraft.  Players can even create their own kind of missiles; down to the guidance system, warhead and propulsion.  While it's not quite as detailed as Children of a Dead Earth in terms of the simulation, the complexity is still staggering to behold.   

Lemon Award:

The PC version of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was rated the worst PC port of 2023 by Digital Foundry.  Five months, and many patches later, it still doesn't run well.  It's unclear if it ever will.  While other games released in 2024 such as Redfall are also quite buggy they had low potential to begin with.  Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, on the other hand, is alright on other platforms.  It's simply the PC version that is terrible...which is a shame considering how much effort went into making the game to begin with.   

Testosterone Award:

Are you manly enough to rescue the influencer princess from rogue cyborgs?  Playing like a first-person version of Hotline Miami through an anime lens, Mullet Mad Jack tasks players with maintaining a continuous killstreak in order to prevent their health bar from slowly depleting.  The result, unsurprisingly, is a frantic cornucopia of violence all the way to the finish line.  Seriously, you slide down a ramp while shooting bad guys at the end of each stage. 

Underdog Award:

I was actually very critical of this game in a post made just recently on this blog, but since then have been shocked to hear how few people seem to know it even exists.  A forum post highlighting a link to the game's lackluster sales thus far was filled with response comments that were almost entirely variations on "Never heard of this game" or "didn't even know it was out".  Then again, The Invincible did come out in what is one of the busiest times of this year when it comes to big new releases.  Chalk it up to bad timing, I guess...  

2022 Awards

Avant-garde Award: 

Scorn is a game that challenges the player to figure out where they are, what they are looking at, and why they are even there.  The game is incredibly obtuse, to the point that some have suggested that there is no meaning that can be derived from it.  Considering there is no text or dialogue, this might very well be deliberate.  Is human suffering due to karma?...or is it simply the result of random circumstance?  It seems to me most of the meaning in this game is what we give it.   

Backlash Award: 

Ah, Blizzard Entertainment...how the mighty have fallen.  As if bad management and all the reports of internal harassments/abuse weren't bad enough, their handling of China relations (and really their fan base in general) has been a huge disaster.  Adding to the list of issues is the poor quality of their PC version of Diablo Immortal.  It has a "0.3" user review score on Metacritic due, in large part to it being a perfectly functional game completely broken by cynical cash-grab loot box mechanics.

Brutality Award: 

What can I say?  Elden Ring is a From Software game, and as such has all the challenges that one would expect from the makers of Bloodborne and Sekiro.  Elden Ring though, allows for a level of character customization that wasn't previously possible (even in the Souls games).  As such it can be really hard to defeat certain bosses with certain builds; namely the infamous Blade of Miquella and  Goddess of Rot - Melania. 

 

Canvas Award: 

The blackness of space spotted by the white light of stars; the smear of the grey metal hull of the ring station know as Erlin's Eye.  It could make for some dull viewing, but Citizen Sleeper adds much needed splashes of neon reds, blues and yellows, plus the occasional patch of oxygen-garden green.  Of course if you jump up to the data cloud to do bit of spying everything turns an ethereal grey, but this only serves to highlight the vibrance of the real world in all its cell-shaded glory.

Ecology Award:

Considering that it was already remade for the PS4, The Last of Us Part 1 definitely feels like a case of double-dipping.  The full price doesn't do the game any favors either, especially since it lacks the multiplayer that came included in the original.  Heck, it doesn't even integrate mechanics used in The Last of Us Part 2.  The reuse of the original performances by the cast really makes this a case of Naughty Dog resting on their laurels.    

"Engrish" Award:

From the maker of My Summer Car comes Mon Bazou, a game about scraping together enough money to fix up an old junk heap of a car in rural Canada by working a bunch of odd jobs.  Despite (or perhaps because of) it being in early access, the NPC dialogue has some real zingers like "You looks good today" and  "You really talking to me about the rack track, hm".  Maybe their supposed to be French Canadian?  

Esoteric Award:  

Signalis claims to be a horror game, but isn't scary.  It tries to be retro with tank controls, but doesn't utilize cinematic camera angles.  It has some bits from novelists H.P. Lovecraft and Robert W. Chambers, but really comes across as a mix of Silent Hill and Resident Evil.  The story is such a convoluted mess it somehow makes the ending of Evangelion look straightforward by comparison.  Critics appear to like the game, but none of them can really articulate why.  Also, for some reason, nobody has feet.  

Lemon Award: 

It would have been easy to pick an EA sports game again this year, but for the sake of variety Skyrim: Anniversary Edition for the Nintendo Switch is the winner.  It runs terrible do to poor coding and long-known issue involving the installation of mods.  11 years was more than enough time to fix all this.  Of course being a Bethesda game they never got around to it.  That said, the real kicker is the outrageous price tag.  It launched as a brand new full-priced triple-AAA title.

Testosterone Award: 

Do you like games such as DOOM and Space Hulk, but get annoyed by that pesky third-dimension you need to keep track of?  Well, worry no more because Let Them Come is the game for you!  In fact, this game doesn't require any movement on your part.  Every round of play begins with your character hunkered down behind the barrel(s) of a mounted machine gun.  From there it's a lot of yelling incoherently as you blast through waves of alien monsters leaving nothing but spent shells and gore in your wake.

Underdog Award: 

For this (our final category), I'm going to give the award to Horizon: Forbidden West.  It's not an especially good game, but it definitely had its thunder unfairly stolen by Elden Ring (which came out only a week after).  This is especially sad to see given that Horizon: Zero Dawn, in-turn, had its thunder stolen by Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild when it came out last gen half-a-decade before.  Guerrilla Games (the publisher) really can't seem to catch a break in this regard. 

2021 Awards

Avant-garde Award:

There are quite a few games about the Cthulhu Mythos, but The Shore stands out for having the pretty much all the big hitters of the pantheon on resplendent display. Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth, Dagon, Shub-Niggurath, Nyarlathotep and Great Cthulhu himself all make noteworthy appearances.  Other than deities, there are Deep Ones, Elder Things, Shoggoths, Dark Young, Insects of Shaggai, Xothians, and probably some more that I missed or failed to recognize.  Every single one of these horrors is modeled in exquisite detail.  A lot of the environments they are found in are also pretty surreal.  

Backlash Award:

Where to begin...?  With over 11,000 reviews and only a nine percent approval rate, eFootball is the lowest rated game in Steam history.  Despite Konami's boasts that this soccer game surpasses FIFA in quality, it's a bare bones sports sim that has bugs, glitches, and weird character models (especially when it comes to people in the stands) with plenty of videos and screen caps around the internet that might elicit some good chuckles.  Free and worth every penny.

Brutality Award:

Playing like a polished up greatest hits compilation of the first three games in the series, Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection is old-school hard.  The designers, for whatever reason, chose to preserve the feel of the classic game right down to Arthur's awkward movement and unforgiving jumping mechanics.  It is possible to finish the game in under two hours if you're a pro, but chances are it will take a lot longer than that assuming have the patience and determination to finish the game at all.   

Canvas Award:

The genius of Narita Boy lies in its utilization of old CRT displays.  The game even goes so far as to copy the slight blur and lensing effect these old monitors had.  The "trichroma" (red, blue and yellow) color scheme perfectly suit the Digital Kingdom both in terms of visuals and lore.  There have been many attempts over the years to copy the style of the 1982 film "TRON," but (in my opinion) this game marks the first attempt that has actually improved on the aesthetic.  In truth, I feel like the look of Narita Boy is so strong, the non-visual elements of the storytelling actually detract from the overall experience to such as degree that I would have preferred if this game had no text at all and instead relied entirely on images to tell its tale.  In other words, this game is too good for its own good.

Ecology Award:

It stands to reason that when exploring the same alien sea for a second time, one would use the same equipment and encounter the same (or similar) sea life.  That said, this stand-alone expansion of sorts feels like a small step backwards for the franchise.  This is mostly because the best parts of Subnautica: Below Zero were already in the original game.  What little new there is, doesn't add much and, worse still, some of the best bits of the original are missing in the new game. 

"Engrish" Award:

The product of a lot of creativity and hard work, Highfleet is a Russian-developed strategy/air-combat sim.  It also hails MicroProse return to game publishing after a more-than-decade-long absence.  Sadly, they seemed to have stumbled a bit out the gate.  An untranslated lever marked "ДЕСА́НТ" isn't a problem, but somewhat oddly worded tips like "if a serious repair is applying, docking will speed up" are the reason this game wins this award.  Overall though, the localization work is free of weird grammar issues.

Esoteric Award:

Part H.P. Lovecraft inspired horror game, part third-person bullet-hell shooter, Returnal has a mind screw storyline that has yet to be unraveled by even its most dedicated fans.  Some much ambiguity exists with regards to major plot points, it is practically impossible to separate hallucinations from reality.  Tantalizing clues abound, right down to the labels on bottles of prescription medications, but no matter how deep people dig they are left with more questions than answers.  Is Helios the protagonist's son or her brother?...or is it just the name of a spaceship?   What's the "White Shadow?"  Is it a allusion to the moon?  A ghostly astronaut that appears periodically throughout the game?...or is it just the name of a rock song?  Nobody knows...and maybe nobody ever will...

Lemon Award:

An ambitious design with a high asking price, this sequel to a twenty-two year old proto-RTS has about as many issues as the real life "Gerald R. Ford" aircraft carrier had launch.  A.I. pathfinding problems remains the biggest one, while some smaller bugs have since been patched: aircraft that crash on takeoff, helicopters that explode on landing, and phantom sea currents.  However, unintuitive controls and an inadequate tutorial typify why this carrier wasn't ready enter service just yet.    

   

Testosterone Award:

While the main character doesn't exactly exude masculinity, the "lycan" enemy type certainly does.  Not only are they extremely muscular, highly aggressive and covered in copious amounts of body hair, these wolfmen are in a perpetual state of roid rage and shrug off gunshot wounds the way an ordinary person would react to having a small rock thrown at them.  The leader of the werewolf pack brings new meaning to the term "mass monster" and he's got an epic beard to boot.  Oh...and there are absolutely no female lycans to be found anywhere.

Underdog Award:

This blog's 2020 awards came out a bit early and as such Suzerain (being a December release) just missed the cut.  Even so, it's raised the bar so much in terms of both political simulators and visual novels I feel like I have to give credit to what I'm sure passed under many people's radar...including mine.  Therefore, I'm bending the rules a bit for this one in order to give it this award.  As a fictional slogan of the game goes "A Morgna her Coren!" or in English, "The Morning has Come!" 
 

Free and Worth Every Penny

In a relatively recent interview, acclaimed movie director Francis Ford Coppola mentioned that two of his most highly regarded films, "The Godfather" and "Apocalypses Now", were largely panned by critics in pre-release screenings.  In hindsight this all seems rather absurd.  Both motion pictures are currently considered some of the very best in 1970s cinema.  Conversely, look at what has won an Oscar for best film over the years.  Does anyone really hold "Driving Miss Daisy" or "Crash" in high regards these days?  The video game industry is no exception to this phenomenon either.  Giant Bomb's 2017 game of the year was PUBG, a FPS that was even then in the process of being overshadowed by other battle royale games.  Meanwhile, GameSpot is the only major outlet that has ever given a game-of-the-year award to a Souls-series game, despite the immense influence they've had on game design.  So, what I'm I getting at here?  Well...early criticism (particularly in the form of video game reviews) doesn't have much value even if it's coming from a profession source.

This is especially true when one considers early access titles or games that receive considerable post-launch support.  Pretty much any review (written or recorded) will inevitably end up out-of-date at some point in the future.  Generally speaking, patches and content updates improve the quality of a game, but not always.   Trackmania is somewhat famous for being noticeable worse in it's final form than it was earlier on.  Whether it be pre-release hype or restrictive NDA's, attendees of sneak-peeks or preview events have a troubling tendency to be of the enthusiast press variety.  In other words, it's glowing praise or nothing at all.  Of course, once the game is out in the wild, so to speak, the truth becomes known.  Sometimes it more or less affirms early impressions, but oftentimes that's not the case.  Regardless, down-the-road reviews tend to be deeper and more thoughtful in their analysis by virtue of taking the necessary time to digest what was consumed.  That's not to say that later, slower, and longer always equate to better criticism though.

It only takes a few minutes of browsing through an aggregated review website to find a recent review of an older game that is a bunch of poorly thought out garbage.  So, how can we seek out good criticism?  The unfortunately reality is forming a consensus takes time in much the same way one must wait for the cream to rise to the top of a glass of fresh milk.  That said, the thing that I think benefits critical discussions of video games the most is a wide variety of differing perspectives.  Obviously, the pitfall here is critics who are blind to their own biases or lack the empathy to relate to someone coming from a different view point.  This sort of thing is what leads to petty arguments rather than genuine debates. 

So, am I saying that reviews are trash?...kind of...yeah.  If you can find someone who has similar tastes to your own then that might be valuable, but could potentially lead to merely seeking validation over actual merit.  I strongly believe that only through hearing out differing opinions can one truly experience a piece of media to the fullest.  Alternatively, there are a number of streaming and video-on-demand services out there that let us see and to some degree judge a game for ourselves without actually playing or paying for it.  This isn't a perfect solution though, in that it's time consuming and (for better or worse) any particular part of a game may not be indicative of the overall experience.  Simply put, there are games that peter out after the first act, and there are games that take ten or more hours to really get going.

I guess in the end there aren't any perfect solutions to the problems associated with video game criticism.  Ultimately the best thing any of us can do is to stay one step behind the curve.  Given how FOMO driven gaming is these days though I feel like that strategy is only viable for someone who carefully avoids spoilers, has iron willpower, and doesn't mind only participating in LttP style discussions.  No matter what kind of person you are though, I have one piece of advice I hope you'll take to heart: 

Never trust a day one review of anything.

At best it will be ill-informed, and at worst a blatant attempt to cash-in on whatever the current zeitgeist is.        

2020 Awards

Avant-garde Award:

Disco Elysium is a fusion of table-top RPG mechanics and narrative driven murder mystery all wrapped in a dialogue bramble thicket (rather than trees).  Skill stats and traits are largely mental rather than physical and the setting has the vibe of 1970s America, but with a wholly alternate history and world.  Needless to say, it's a weird game that redefines what the genre can be.

Backlash Award:

Normally, I skip Electronics Arts sports games because they are low hanging fruit when it comes to this category.  That said, Madden NFL 21 has the lowest user score in Metacritic history with logos and labels left over from the previous year.  It also marks four years of this franchise with the same graphics and glitches, but somehow features have been removed.  Also, the loot box mechanics are such that the rewards don't roll over to the next entry.

Brutality Award:

To call SnowRunner a difficult game would be somewhat of a misrepresentation.  There is no "game over" screen, nor any true failed state.  Even so driving through mud, snow and floodwaters can be nearly Sisyphean tasks; a form of torture overcome only by planning, improvisation and a whole lot of patience.  You can't lose, but success can be so elusive at times it feels impossible. 

Canvas Award:

Hardspace: Shipbreaker is made by the same folks who worked on the Homeworld series.  There are lots of bright starships, painted in bold colors and patterns.  The origin of this futuristic look is from paintings by last century artists like Stewart Cowley and Chris Foss. I guess in that way, one could consider this game a feast for the eyes in terms of classic space sci-fi visuals.  

Ecology Award:

Another sports game by Electronic Arts...this time it's a soccer instead of football (that probably doesn't make much sense if you're outside of the USA...anyway...). FIFA 21 Legacy Edition for the Nintendo Switch is a copy/paste job of the 2016 engine just with a roster update.  IGN reviewed the game by simply (and deliberately) copying their review from last year which called it a "macro-transaction", just with a lower score.

"Engrish" Award:

As far as rogue-like shooters go, Gunfire Reborn is one of the better ones out there.  I'm not sure what the title of this game is trying to imply though...is there a lot of bullet recycling going on?  In-game text prompts like "cannot reload by hand, but reserve ammos auto-reload when you stop shooting" don't really clear the waters so to speak either.  Hopefully, the dev team made enough money to give the English localization a second pass.

Esoteric Award:

In this tower defense game gemstones are weapons.  They come in ten varieties, each with it's own upgrade path.  They can also be combined to create hybrids.  Add to this, enemy variety (both in terms of type and numbers) and battlefield topography.  The result is a bewildering labyrinth of strategies with many ways to reach victory in the center. 

Lemon Award:

Despite a long development cycle, Microsoft's latest addition to their Flight Simulator franchise has a few issues; houses in football fields, or on railroad tracks, plane-shaped buildings and most humors of all a narrow tower in Melbourne, Australia that (due to a data entry error) is thousands of feet tall.  Normally this sort of thing wouldn't be particularly noteworthy, but because the emphasis on realism such mistakes standout like a sore thumb. 

Testosterone Award:

I get the impression that a certain subset of bodybuilders really just want to be a big blob of muscle.  Well, in Carrion you get to be just that; eat, sleep and exercise by cutting a path of blood and carnage through passageways and rooms filled with metal machines.  It really is like experiencing a feverish nightmare of someone who's whole life revolves around going to the gym. 

Underdog Award:

The latest entry in the long running Bridge Constructor series teams up with the equally long running AMC mini-series "The Walking Dead" to create something new.  Unlike most cash-ins of popular films and television, this title actually has some interesting mechanics.  The closest thing I can think of to it is that classic puzzle game - Lemmings.  Sadly, I think of potential players have had their fill of both franchises.

2019 Award Winners

It's a bit early this year, but the list is complete and there aren't really any major game releases until 2020.  So, without further ado here are the winners.

Avant-garde Award:

Say what you will about Hideo Kojima, the guy is always trying new things.  In the case of Death Stranding, he has taken the walking sim genre and melded it with the likes of Spintires and Truck Simulator to beef up the gameplay in what would have otherwise been a purely story-driven experience.  Some of the concepts work better than others, but I'm sure there are video game developers that will find inspiration in his latest work.


Backlash Award:

Bioware Studios has done a lot to squander consumer goodwill in recent years.  No more so though than in the case of Anthem.  A botched launch, poor subsequent support, and little to no transparency haven't done much to alleviate concerns over this game and, frankly, the future of Bioware itself.  While I don't know if it deserves all the ire it has gotten there has been a definite lack of new content and story progression.  Of course, it's probably hard to come up with a plan moving forward when the project managers keep quitting. 

Brutality Award:

Conspicuously absent for the last couple of years, this award category has made a triumphant return with Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice...or in my case a whole lot more times than that...ugh...dragon-rot everywhere!  Having played every Souls game and Bloodborne, I can confidently say this is the hardest FromSoftware game to date.  No amount of grinding for levels will avail you here.

Canvas Award:

Overland definitely has some areas of the game that could stand a bit more improvement.  That said, one thing it does excel at is visual presentation (particularly with regards to color pallets).  I especially enjoyed the contrast between warmer tones for stuff like fire, life and all things human against the cold and unwelcoming glow of the alien interlopers.  The game also starts off with a nice vibrant autumn sunset, but as the game progresses the look changes to the drained and bleached black and whites of invasive "reefs." 

Ecology Award:

Aside from the fact that it copies all the sights and sounds you'd expect in a Stars Wars game, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order reuses quite a few gameplay elements found in other third-person action/adventure games.  A lot of reviewers have mentioned Dark Souls, but that's just scratching the surface.  This game is really a Frankensteinian amalgamation of mechanics found in the Zelda, Uncharted, Tomb Raider, and Prince of Persia franchisees, as well as the the Metroid Prime series.

"Engrish" Award:

English is a hard language to master, especially for non-native speakers.  That said, there's something special going on in Spaceland with lines like "you came here and you'll regret it!" and "for how long have I been in the sickbay?" It's as if these lines of dialogue were written by someone who was trying to impersonate what an American would sound like. "I'm a famous explorer of the farthest reaches of the galaxy."  Indeed, I can tell you've been away from home for a long, long time.

Esoteric Award:

It seems straightforward enough; roll dice and apply the results to cards.  Except the number of dice and variety of cards increase over the course of the game as do the available character classes and starting conditions for each dungeon.  Combine that with procedural generated elements and the strategy aspect turns into one of those probability equations that increase exponentially as the variables keep piling on until it overwhelms even the most analytical mind.

Lemon Award:

Fallout 76 won this exact same award last year, but I cannot give it to any other game; Australia forcing refunds, broken premium services, patches creating new bugs and re-instating old ones (plus making the game more of a grind), pay-to-win features despite claims the contrary, "real-life bugs" ranging from helmet mold to non-canvas bags.  The list goes on and on for a game so janky it even broke my award system.

Testosterone Award:

A kind of sci-fi spiritual successor to the more fantasy themed Slain: Back from Hell, Valfaris has just as much gore, twisted architecture and heavy metal music as its predecessor.  The whole look and feel of the game seems like it was pulled directly from sketches in some head-banging high schooler's notebook...and your female AI companion is a naked floating hologram wreathed in green flame because why not? 


Underdog Award:

The original Pathologic was one of those games that has lots of great ideas, but fumbles when it comes to executing on them.  Pathologic 2, on the other hand, fixes pretty much everything that was a problem in the original and gives the entire presentation a massive upgrade in terms of graphics.  Sadly, poor sales have resulted in hard times for the developer.  As is, only about a third of the game is story complete.  Hopefully, the Pathologic IP can gain enough of a following to fully realize the world envisioned by its creator.