The Game Awards 2020

Phazael

Phazael

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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.
 
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Metalhead

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Phazael said:
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.
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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

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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.
 
Intrinsic

Intrinsic

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Kirun said:
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.
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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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Araxen

Araxen

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2025, the year From Software didn't release a single player game so somebody else could get GOTY. Night Reign was a MP only game really, and was kind of mid.
 
Kharzette

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Has anyone ever told From Software that the name of their company is retarded?

It creates almost as much confusion as a Korean esports player that chose the name "Someone".
 
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Phazael

Phazael

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Kirun said:
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.
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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

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Phazael said:
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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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.
 
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Hateyou

Hateyou

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Phazael said:
FIrst of @Lanx You cannot turn them off (you are thinking of Dispatch), just increase the timing windows a small bit. And @Noodleface Git Gud is not the issue, as someone who has burned through every single Souls game. Its not that I can't do the timing windows, it is that I don't want a turn based RPG to require laser accurate parry timing for over an hour because every boss in the game eventually becomes a giant damage sponge that does deliberately deceptive cues on the timing. It really starts with the Endless Tower fights and peaks with Simon (with literally over a billion hp) who will wipe you on a single fuckup and eventually just autowipes you at one point because fuck you thats why. Its an out of place mechanic in an otherwise near perfect game. The cues are fine early on when the timing is more ubiquitous, but by Act 3 the game is intentionally giving you bad camera angles, fakeout animations/soungs, and a bunch of other bullshit that sucks the fun out of their combat system.

As I said, if you are going to do this shit in turn based games, make it more like the Mario RPGs (consistent reliable visual ques) or Ar Tonellico where its a build up that improves offense but does not affect your defense. Nothing knocks this game down for me more than my wife deciding that when I am half an hour into a boss fight and in the middle of three to four turns of wombo combo bullshit to come in and start talking and I miss an audio timing que and get to start the whole fucking fight over. That kind of shit makes people walk away from what is otherwise a fantastic game.

And yeah the one shot Maelle thing being so obvious and the game seemingly designing its end game around its existence is just stupid.
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I mean, you’re complaining about completely optional post-game stuff. I avoided the game for a long time because I don’t like parrying but ended up trying a demo and enjoyed it enough I bought it and beat it. I didn’t do every optional end game stuff because like you described, it just got very hard and I didn’t feel like doing it. Still was goty for me overall. Not doing content I don’t want to didn’t diminish the game whatsoever for me, and it’s there for people who want to do it. Great design imo.
 
Regime

Regime

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Springbok said:
New KOTOR! WOW!!!
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Its Been A Long Time Waiting GIF



 
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Hekotat

Hekotat

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Hateyou said:
Was it? I still have yet to see these bazongas everyone was drooling over.
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I mean it was way less cringe shit than the past. It had a good balance this time around, it could have been much worse. Flute guy really brought it together though.
 
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