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[Ocelot]

Ladies and gentlemen, you know what it is. Summer E3 is here (a.k.a. Winter E3 for the Bore-thern Hemisphere), and His Excellence, Pope Geoff Keighley, first of His name, King of the Doritos and the First Giraffes, will be gracing us with another of his awards shows. The awards themselves are bunk, obviously, since it's already been announced that Devil May Cry 5 isn't even nominated for GOTY, but we aren't there to watch them anyway. It's all about those HOT. VIDEO. GAME. TRAILERS. BAYBEE. Don't tell me you don't want to see another round of CG trailers for games that won't be out until 2022, because I won't believe you.

 

 

But the Keighleys are still a couple of days away, and I thought we could spend the time talking about, y'know, video games or whatever. Throw a top ten at me. Or a top five. Top one, even; I know how it is. Throw some curveballs at me. Make up an award category, I don't mind. And, hey, tell me about movies and books and TV shows and, like, general life stuff, too. I'm not going to ban you for going off-topic in the video game forum. I'll only ban you if you don't pick DMC5 as your GOTY.

 

I'm going to kick things off with a couple of the smaller prizes:

 

Backlog GOTY (i.e. an older game that I only played this year): Bloodborne. What a great game! I went from being too scared to even play a From Software to playing Bloodborne for a solid month this year, and eventually getting the Platinum Trophy, and I loved it. You don't need me to tell you about this game, since it's basically all the internet has talked about for the last four years. Turns out everything everyone said was true and it's really good. The combat system with its wonderful Trick Weapons, the level design that leads you deeper and deeper into a gothic nightmare as the game goes on, a cadre of bosses that go from a scary wolf man to an actual, for-realsies Elder God by the end of it all. How many games have you played where you have to hide from a giant alien brain covered in eyeballs imprisoned in the depths of a castle and sending out pulses of other-worldly light that turns you mad if you look at it?

 

Biggest Stinker: Anthem. Remember Anthem? Remember Bioware? Remember when you found out that they referred to this project as 'Dylan' internally, because they anticipated that it would be THE BOB DYLAN OF VIDEO GAMES?It feels like something from a different epoch. Bioware worked on this thing for like eight years, chewed up and spat out dozens of employees, and I honestly forgot Anthem even came out this year. And I played it to completion!

[Spark]

All right let's knock 'em out. EDIT: and I'll probably add more silly awards as I come up with them.

 

Rotten Banana molded to look like an Award trophy to say it was a real legitimate game

-Anthem apparently wanted to feel like it was worth something, so went dumpster diving for even false validation.

 

Poopoo Stinkytown Award for Incredible Failure

-Pokemon Sword and Shield for not only gutting most of the series core gameplay features, but not even meeting the standard precedent for the remaining features.

 

Mr. Meh Mediocrely's Monotonous Award for Meh-ness

-RAGE 2 was fun in the moment, but I've no real desire to return to it. And can't really speak to anything I particularly liked or hated about it. It's just nothing.

 

Borderlands Award for Being more Borderlands

-Borderlands 3 because congratulations it's more Borderlands that basically does everything Borderlands 2 did but slightly better. And that's ok!

 

Best Fallout Award

-The Outer Worlds by default, and certainly wasn't gonna give that award to Fallout 76.

 

Best Game of the Year ruined by Activision's Microtransactions

-Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled was set to be a glorious remaster of a beloved original just like the Crash and Spyro trilogy sets, and definitely is, but Activision waited a month or two past released and then added ridiculous levels of monetization.

 

Best Remake by a large powergap that was free of Activision's talons

-Resident Evil 2 Remake is a stress-inducingly good time and that's all I've really got to say about it, since I'm still playing it.

 

Game of the Year if I had anything more than an utter potato of a PC to run it on

-Disco Elysium I played a bit of it to see if my computer could run it ok (it could not). I woke up, had a heated argument with a ceiling fan, critically failed a roll to retrieve the tie hanging on one the blades, suffered a heart attack, and subsequently died. Game End. 10/10.

 

Retroactive Game of the Year Consolation Prize

-The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, apparently 4th time in as many years attempting to get into it was indeed the charm.

 

Best Consolation Runner Up Award because I felt like giving it some recognition

-Life is Strange 2 has had a hard and bumpy road, from both people questioning its inherent worth as both a followup and as a game to begin with, but the uncompromising finale episode that just debuted last week solidified it as one of the best choice and consequence games of its type.

 

Capcom Award

-Capcom for consistently knocking it out of the park in a big way, continuing their meteoric comeback saga after languishing in the realm of deader than disco for the first half of the decade.

 

Game of the Year

-Doom Eternal *checks notes* wait, it got delayed 3 weeks from release all the way to March 2020? Welp, it's gonna have to go against Cyberpunk 2077 and Halo Infinite now.

 

The Actual Game of the Year Award for Game of the Year

-Devil May Cry 5 for being one of the best games I've played in a long time, and I don't even particularly like CAGs of its sort. I couldn't hack Vanquish, MGS Rising Revengeance of Boogaloo or Bayonetta, so I wasn't sure I'd be able to pull this off.
 

Bonus Star Wars Award

-Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order for completely subverting staggeringly low expectations to emerge as one of the better overall games to come out this year, and easily the best Star Wars game in over a decade and a half.

 

EDIT 1:

Dave Fennoy Memorial Award for Best Pub Crawl this side of Edgar Wright's The World's End

-Afterparty , the newest game from Night School Studio, featuring two dead college kids attempting to win a bet to escape hell, by drinking Satan under the table and partying their undead butts off.

[Dalton Westmoore]

Yo it's ya boi Dalton, back from exile to contribute something positive to this site because he doesn't want to get banned.

 

In terms of videogames, I didn't play too much in variety this year, but I was intrigued by Ocelot mentioning starting a discussion because that's something I can contribute to for sure. So, out of the handful of games I played, here are the ones I want to talk about:

 

Dalton's all-time favorite game:

 

It's Minecraft. Yeah, I bet everyone has played this game once or twice in their life, but I've been playing it off and on ever since I got it in 2012. This years was different because up until this point I had been playing single-player campaigns, but this year I've started branching out into doing multiplayer. 

 

Over the summer, me and a friend played through the game, and it was fun because I got outside of my box. I usually stay in one place, but in this game we moved around a lot. We did have a cool little fort in the mountains at the start of the game, but we moved on to trekking across the world in search of a woodland mansion. It was fun moving across the world and having different adventures along the way through all the different biomes. After we found the mansion, we moved on to searching for a fortress, and built a permanent base their were we spent the rest of the time. It was a lot of fun, and I'd love to do it again.

 

Now, a bunch of people at work have created Minecraft servers, and I spent a lot of time of those as well, but eventually my interest petered out. I know I'll get back into it again, but for right now I'm done with it.

 

Retroactive Game of the Year Consolidation Prize:

 

So, I picked up the special edition of Skyrim during a sale sometime this year I think, and even though I have yet to complete it, I'm having a blast with it. I'm having a lot more fun roaming across the world and breaking the game with typical Bethesda glitches than I've had actually continuing the story, which is not a determent to it, but its a testament to how much I enjoy the game. I haven't explored it with mods too much, because I enjoy the base game so much. I have a ton of screenshots that are just of atmospheric images of the weather, which I haven't done for any game before this, except...

Game I love even though it destroys Tolkien Canon:

 

Shadow of War was a surprisingly fun game I played a lot earlier this year. I'd never pick up the first game since the story seems so generic, so I'm glad I skipped it in favor of the sequel. The story is whatever, but the characters are what interest me. Talion is a cool protagonist to follow, but I adore Celebrimbor's embracing of the whole "Asshole Elf" trope: its really fun to see him go full ham with. The supporting characters are alright. I was surprised how well-set up Idril and Baranor are in a story where it could be easily seen as forced diversity, and it makes sense not only in the game but the lore as well. It's weird that Shelob is a sexy temptress but I guess it works for the story. The Nazgul and Sauron are badass, and I appreciate the designs are original, but the real thing I love about the story are the Orcs. The Nemesis system is the best thing about this game and I'm amazed that more games don't try this type of mechanic. I currently have 1272 screenshots of just Orcs created by this system. I have so many stories about all of the interactions and adventures I've had with them. I love them so much that they're basically my children, which is a problem because it cuts me off from the multiplayer stuff since I don't want them to die by accident. If you're on the fence about this game because of the Lore breaking Campaign, just pretend that it's an original fantasy game. Come for the Orcs, stay for the Orcs.

 

Bonus Star Wars Award:

 

I picked up Republic Commando and both Forced Unleasheds this Thanksgiving and so far I'm enjoying Commando. The difficulty with some of the enemies can spike when you first encounter them, but it slowly gets easier. The Clone Commandos are cool characters who are only hamstrung by your bad choices, and I really wish that this game was still canon. Except for the more difficult enemies: they can stay in Legends.

[broons]

Yo it's ya boi Dalton, back from exile to contribute something positive to this site because he doesn't want to get banned.

 

Banned for making light of the situation.

 

For real though, I've played one new game all year and that's Fallen Order so I guess that wins the award for best game of 2020 from me.

 

Here's some more awards!

 

Game that I would have Bought Except Blizzard Supports China Against a Democratic Hong Kong:

 

Modern Warfare.  I was so pumped for this reboot, and then Blizzard went all anti-Hong Kong so I threw any ideas of buying it in the trash

 

Game I'm excited to finally play:

 

Halo: Reach.  I'm excited to see what Noble Team is all about.

 

Game of the Forever:

 

Arma III.  Get it.  Come run ops with me.  There's usually a lot of war crimes committed and friendly fire and sometimes DL-44s.  

[Rune Walsh]

Alright, let's see if I can actually remember what games I played this year...

 

Most Improved:
Sea of Thieves

 

Best Castlevania:

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

 

Best Game I really shouldn't have played without a controller:
Devil May Cry 4 (Runner up: Yakuza 0)

 

The "Internet Made Me Think It Would Be Bad But Then I Tried It For Free And It Was Great" Award:
Just Cause 4

 

The "Waiting For Ocelot To Review It So Your Opinion Can Be Validated" Award:
Astral Chain

 

The "I Bought This Game Literally Today, but I Can't Play It For 4 Weeks Because, Again, I Have No Controller" Award:

Devil May Cry 5 There, it's on the list. Please don't shoot me!

 

Best Halo Game I've Been Able To Play In The Last Decade:

Halo Reach

 

The "Playing This At My Friends House Is Actually Making Me Look Into VR Setups" Award:

Beat Saber

 

There's probably more because I'm still unsure how the passage of time works. Might update later.

[Ocelot]

The "Waiting For Ocelot To Review It So Your Opinion Can Be Validated" Award:

Astral Chain

 

I promise I'm going to! I really want to finish Astral Chain and Death Stranding before the end of the year, but I took a break from DS because it was murdering my PS4, and Astral Chain kind of fell by the wayside when I put the Fire Emblem Three Houses cartridge into my Switch and then didn't take it out again for like three months. Speaking of...

 

Most Unexpected Game That Took Over My Entire Life: Fire Emblem Three Houses

 

Where did this come from? Why did I buy a turn-based strategy/waifu simulator in the first place, and, next question, why did I love it? I played eighty hours of this thing this year, which was only enough to complete one of the THREE-ISH, KINDA FOUR campaigns on offer, and I genuinely want to go back and play through the other ones. I started an Edelgard run immediately after finishing my first playthrough with Punished Dimitri, and I'm itching to get back to it. I've never played a Fire Emblem before this, didn't follow this one at all, hadn't even seen so much as a trailer, but I bought it on a whim after hearing some interesting stuff about it on a podcast and now here we are. I'm pretty sure this is going to be my runner-up GOTY for 2019. How did this happen?

 

Game Where It Feels The Best To Kill A Dude: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

 

So I loved Jedi Fallen Order, but one thing its very Sekiro-inspired combat system makes clear is just how important visual and audio feedback is to a sword-based combat system. Fallen Order is a wonderful game, but it isn't the best about telling you when you're successfully hitting a guy, or when that guy is hitting you. Sometimes you'll be bonking away at a fellow with your lightsabre, only to have him block your combo and starting hitting you, and you won't realise it for a second or two because it's all just kind of a blur of snap-hiss-crackle noises.

 

But Sekiro? Oh boy, Sekiro. I can still hear that game ringing in my ears. Sekiro's combat has such distinctive audio design to it that you can almost play it with your eyes closed; sword-clashes, enemy barks, music, and this booming CRASH you get when finally break an enemy's posture entirely and can go in for the kill. The game has clearly defined sound effects for a badly-timed parry, an OK parry and a perfect parry, so defending is almost more fun than attacking, and the RUSH of endorphins you get when you finally land that last deathblow on the FOURTH phase of a hard-as-nails final bossfight is just incredible.

 

Sekiro also has this thing called the Mikiri Counter, where any time an enemy does a lunging, thrusting or charging attack at you you can hit the B button to just stomp the tip of their weapon into the ground, and it's the most wonderfully disrespectful thing. Just UNGH, have a bit o' that, mate. That's what I think of you. UNGH.

[Saber-Scorpion]

I'm pretty sure the only new game I played all year was The Outer Worlds, and I didn't even really like it. I bought Fallout 4 GOTY (which I thought was pretty lame when it first came out) on Black Friday afterward and found myself enjoying it a lot more than TOW. Pretty sad; I was hoping for more from Obsidian. But yeah, still less sad than the colossal mistake that was Fallout 76.

 

My 2019 GOTY goes to Spyro Reignited - even though it's technically a 2018 remake of a game series I played like 21 years ago (!!) - because I just got it this year and it was great.

 

Edit: Oh wait, I also played Apex Legends! It's alright I guess.

 

Bonus Star Wars Award: I picked up Republic Commando and both Forced Unleasheds this Thanksgiving and so far I'm enjoying Commando. The difficulty with some of the enemies can spike when you first encounter them, but it slowly gets easier. The Clone Commandos are cool characters who are only hamstrung by your bad choices, and I really wish that this game was still canon. Except for the more difficult enemies: they can stay in Legends.

 

Don't worry about canon, bro. None of my favorite Star Wars stuff is canon anymore (technically it never was, according to some) but it's still way better than the stuff that is canon now, in my humble opinion, so who cares.

If you're just getting into Star Wars games for the first time, I recommend Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2 and the Dark Forces series (especially Jedi Knight and Jedi Outcast - but not Jedi Academy, which sucks). Oh and X-Wing Alliance and Rogue Squadron if you're into flying games and don't mind them looking pretty dated. Those are my favs. I played nearly every Star Wars game that LucasArts released between about 1997 and 2004, so ask me anything, lol. Fell off the SW train after that though.

 

Game I'm excited to finally play: Halo: Reach.  I'm excited to see what Noble Team is all about.

 

Don't get your hopes up TOO much. It's not as good as the trilogy imo. But yeah I'm looking forward to replaying all of them too.

[Spark]

It's been a real learning experience this past week for a great many people who haven't remained familiar with Reach the last 9 years. It's Halo, and Halo by default is largely better than 90% of the rest of FPS games (yes, even 4 and 5.) But Reach doesn't hold a candle to the OG trilogy any more than 4 or 5 do.

 

Nostalgia goggles are a powerful thing. 

 

I'm still really excited for Infinite.

[Rune Walsh]

I would like to make a retraction: It would appear that Devil May Cry 5 is in fact a video game created with the intent to be played in The Year Of Our Lord 2019, and as such it supports mouse control instead of making me use the keyboard for everything.

 

Game Of The Year:

Devil May Cry 5.

 

 

[God-Emperor Thrawnie]

I really wish that this game was still canon.

Here's a fun thing about fiction, none of it is actually real.

So, you know, whatever you want to be "canon", is.

[Dalton Westmoore]

Don't worry about canon, bro. None of my favorite Star Wars stuff is canon anymore (technically it never was, according to some) but it's still way better than the stuff that is canon now, in my humble opinion, so who cares.

 

If you're just getting into Star Wars games for the first time, I recommend Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2 and the Dark Forces series (especially Jedi Knight and Jedi Outcast - but not Jedi Academy, which sucks). Oh and X-Wing Alliance and Rogue Squadron if you're into flying games and don't mind them looking pretty dated. Those are my favs. I played nearly every Star Wars game that LucasArts released between about 1997 and 2004, so ask me anything, lol. Fell off the SW train after that though.

 

It's okay. It's not as much of a "Wow, this game is so fun I wish it was still Canon!" as it is a "Uh, Disney? This game isn't canon anymore but Delta Squad still is because they appear in the Clone Wars. Could you fix this please?"

 

I'll probably cave and make Lego versions of them, so you can look forward to that sometime in the future.

 

Thanks for the suggestions for Star Wars games! Funny Story: I actually own both KotoR games, but the main turnoff for me has been the controls breaking every few minutes so I have to switch characters in order to continue moving. Potato graphics don't bother me, so I'll be checking some of these out once I make some headway in some of my other games.

 

I'll probably throw up some more opinions once I remember some more games I played a significant amount this year.

[Ocelot]

OK, boys and girls, it's actually time to go already. The Keighley Awards are starting in just a few minutes:

 

 

(Make sure you hide that chat window on Youtube, because some chucklehead is definitely going to post Star Wars Episode IX spoilers in there.)

 

EDIT - OK, it was just a pre-show, but they've already showed some good trailers:

 

No More Heroes 3:

 

And a new FFVII Remake one:

 

Now Chvrches is here doing their Death Stranding song. btw, if you thought Death Stranding was just a game about delivering packages, you were dead wrong, buddy. Sometimes you also have to go and pick up packages.

 

EDIT - Geoff is here in a really weird suit jacket with a lapel that looks like it was made out of a karate belt or something. He name-dropped Reggie, Kojima and Hidetaka Miyazaki in the crowd, so I guess that confirms a trailer for Elden Ring for tonight. Now Jonathan Nolan is here presenting the first award. I thought he was Christopher Nolan's brother, but he has an American accent. Mildly interesting.

 

Disco Elysium wins the awards for Best Narrative and Best RPG.

[Ocelot]

Oh wow, they just... showed the next Xbox.

 

 

The Xbox Series X. It's tall. I like it. I actually really like it. Who ever thought of making a tall console?

 

And they've got a new Ninja Theory game to show for it, which looks a bit like Hellblade 2.

 

EDIT - Because it is Hellblade 2:

 

[Ocelot]

OK, so they gave Best Audio to Modern Warfare, which is patently ridiculous because it was obviously Sekiro. Did Geoff not read my post about it above?

 

Now they're showing off some new Square-Enix RPG for the Switch, which might be a Bravely Default sequel.

 

EDIT - Yep, it's Bravely Default 2. Which is weird, because I would have sworn there was already a second Bravely Default, but I don't know these things.

 

 

Geoff Keighley seems a lot more natural and at ease up on stage this year. This is the first officially confirmed Playstation 5 game, by the way:

 

 

It's a 'looter/slasher', and I don't want to immediately poopoo but oh my goodness I couldn't be less interested. Linus Tech Tips is going to be here all night doing advertisements for Samsung, btw.

 

EDIT - Ikumi Nakamura is here, and she's still the absolute most delightful human being in the world. She barely speaks English but she's just going for it anyway and I love it.

[Saber-Scorpion]

This is the first officially confirmed Playstation 5 game, by the way:

 

 

It's a 'looter/slasher', and I don't want to immediately poopoo but oh my goodness I couldn't be less interested.

 

I'm all for generic fantasy games where you loot and slash - I miss the days when a new one came out every week - but not if they're fantasy Destiny clones where every character just looks like a hulking pile of Korean free-to-play MMO armor. Pass. :\

[Ocelot]

Nothing like a show like this to remind you just how much stuff there is in this wolrd of video games that you... just don't care about at all. My eyes have been glazed over for the last twenty minutes or so. But, hey, good that there's something out there for everyone, though.

 

Apparently Norman Reedus is going to be here presenting the award for best action game next, and let me just tell you guys that if it isn't DMC5 WE ARE GOING TO HAVE SOME ISSUES.

 

Margot Robbie is pre-recorded, introducing a trailer in character as Harley Quinn right now.

Grimes is here performing a song she wrote for the Cyberpunk 2077 soundtrack. Remember when her boyfriend Elon Musk called some old guy a pedo for no reason and then the court ruled that it was totally fine and not defamation at all? Just fine, normal things.

 

EDIT - Norman Reedus gave Best Action Game to DMC5, and all is right with the world. Hideaki Itsuno is dressed to the nines in a three-piece suit. What a champ. DEVIL MAY CRY IS BACK!

 

EDIT - The Muppets are here. Beaker has a VR thing on his head.

[Ocelot]

OK boyeees, Raphael Colantonio of Prey and Dishonored fame is here with a new studio announcing a new game. It's called Weird West, and it is not a first-person immersive sim like I'd hoped, but I think it should still be pretty cool:

 

 

They're showing a big expensive ad for Stadia right now, which I bet seemed like a really good idea before Stadia actually launched and apparently flopped really hard

[broons]

If they show anything remotely hinting at a new Splinter Cell will someone please tell me immediately?  Thanks,

[Ocelot]

What's Splinter Cell? Is that something the elders used to play back before the sky burnt black and we could go outside without masks? Tell us another tale from the before times, old man.

[Saber-Scorpion]

The most I've ever felt like an old boomer was when I tried to git gud at Apex Legends. You die instantly in that game. You can spend half the match gathering the best items you possibly can, and then when you feel like you're finally ready to get in there, someone merely glances at you, and you fall over. And then you have to start all over again from scratch. Because apparently kids these days enjoy that.

 

It started to make me feel like my L33T g4m3r skills had faded, and I was just too old to game now... but then I tried Destiny 2 multiplayer again and completely kicked ass just like in the old days, so I'm gonna go ahead and blame Apex.

 

They really need to increase the health of all characters in that game by at least double, for it to be remotely playable.

 

But yeah sure, I didn't even play any of the other multiplayer game nominees, so give it the award, why not.