Vorph
Silver Baronet of the Realm
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Both Yotei and KCD2 getting shut out made me almost as happy as E33 winning everything.
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The Game Awards 2020
- Thread starter spronk
- Start date
Both Yotei and KCD2 getting shut out made me almost as happy as E33 winning everything.
CaughtCross
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Phazael
Confirmed Beta Shitlord, Fat Bastard
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The sad truth is that this was mostly a shit year for games with a couple of outstanding exceptions. E33, Silksong, Dispatch, and..... maybe the FFT Remake if you want to count that? Rest were holdovers from wokified studios recouping costs before they get gobbled up by other companies or middle tier crapola / uninspired lootbox sequels that people will completely forget in a year or two. And unless Larian works its best magic on DOS3, next year is looking even worse.
Metalhead
Vyemm Raider
- 1,147
- 3,285
I dont know, February is already pretty stacked with some big stuff. Resident evil, Kiwami 3, Nioh 3, Fatal Frame etc. Really looking forward to Nioh.
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Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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Honestly, I'm relieved that Dispatch didn't win anything. Calling it a "video game" feels like a massive stretch. It's closer to an interactive experience or a glorified narrative vignette than an actual game in any meaningful sense of the word.
Awarding something like that over titles with real mechanics, cohesive systems, and sustained engagement would have sent a pretty bad signal. One that suggests games are just vibes and cinematics rather than interactive works that demand design rigor. So yeah, I'm glad it walked away empty-handed. There's room for projects like Dispatch to exist, but pretending it belongs in the same category as actual games is just dishonest.
Awarding something like that over titles with real mechanics, cohesive systems, and sustained engagement would have sent a pretty bad signal. One that suggests games are just vibes and cinematics rather than interactive works that demand design rigor. So yeah, I'm glad it walked away empty-handed. There's room for projects like Dispatch to exist, but pretending it belongs in the same category as actual games is just dishonest.
Intrinsic
Person of Whiteness
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Is it like that Gone Home “game” where you watch the tranny come home and find out her whole family is gone because they’re so disgusted?
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Phazael
Confirmed Beta Shitlord, Fat Bastard
- 15,780
- 35,341
Valid point and in general I am not a fan of the whole Telltale Games style. But.... this, when viewed as an entertainment experience, was well written with excellent voice casting and a very satisfying game loop. It also was inexpensive and had some replay ability. I guess if you do not consider Dragons' Lair a game or the most recent Star Trek narrative game from a couple years ago a game, I get your premise. But the story quality and dialog was at least on par with E33, which is just a french nihiism/depression simulator (a very well written one, but very esoteric plot). Having said that, the only award I could see it catching E33 in would be writing by a very narrow margin. E33 was clearly the superior game in every other way.
But realistically most games are simple gameplay loops between exposition dumps, usually via cutscene. Or just mindless loops like pretty much all looter shooters and MOBAs. Outside of open world games (with their own set of issues), pretty much all games are some variation on the narrow story path between narrative Segways. Even E33 is mostly linear without player agency until sort of Act 3 where the story went completely "this is what really is going on" in act 3, which is imo its biggest flaw from a writing standpoint. Full narrative with no gameplay loops beyond choose your own adventure style shit? Yeah those are not games. But Dispatch had the shifts which were well paced, tied to the story well, and had multiple approaches for success.
But upshot is both are great games and literally nothing else out there deserved a single award this year. And more importantly both were done by smaller startups who actively gave a shit about what they were doing, instead of just EA or Ubisoft style cookie cutter overproduced slop. Its like no one learned a damn thing from Larian's BG3 success.
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Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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I get your point, and I don't actually disagree with much of it. Dispatch is clearly well written, well acted, fairly priced, and made by people who gave a shit, which already puts it ahead of most AAA slop. I'm also not a fan of the Telltale-style lane in general, but I can acknowledge when something in that space is competently executed.
Where I still push back is the category issue. There's a real difference between light mechanics and barely any mechanics at all. Even heavily scripted or linear games still ask something of the player - execution, mastery, or engagement with systems. In Dispatch, the "shifts" are well paced and thematically cohesive, but they're doing almost all the work narratively. At that point, it feels more like an interactive story than a game.
The Dragon's Lair comparison kind of reinforces that for me. It's historically interesting, but it's always been an edge case, not a benchmark for what we should be elevating today. Same goes for modern narrative-only titles: enjoyable experiences, but they shouldn't be examples of the medium.
I'll concede that Dispatch could plausibly compete in a writing category. I don't agree it's on par with E33 thematically(E33 is more ambitious and risk-taking than Superhero shit)but I can see a narrow argument there. Outside of that, though, E33 is clearly the superior game.
And we're 100% aligned on the bigger picture that this year was bleak, and the fact that two smaller studios stood out says a lot. The industry said not to "expect" titles like BG3 because they're "too hard" to create, essentially. So it's no surprise we got what we got.