The Game Awards Are Dumb Bullshit

 

It's that time of the year again! The time where everyone gets together to discuss what the best games of the year were.  The time where we celebrate all the cool titles we have played throughout 2024.  The time where shallow hype merchants peddle their crap opinions at you in the hope to generate some dollar for their high profile buddies in the industry.

Maybe I'm cynical but The Game Awards are something I've always had a certain degree of disdain for but I think even this year the lineup of nominees for the hype machine are sort of grim.  For those that can't be bothered to go look what they are I'll list them here.

-Astrobot 

-Bolatro

-Black Myth: Wukong

-Shadow of the Erdtree

-Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth 

-Metaphor: Refantazio 

This is just the GOTY category but I find that no one gives a fuck about the other awards.  All discussion revolves almost entirely around these titles so who gives a fuck about anything else?  That aside though, this lineup is just fucking depressing.  Astrobot is a shite mascot platformer that failed to push PS5s, Bolatro is the token indie entry in a thinly veiled attempt to make it look like the awards aren't just a AAA circle jerk, Black Myth Wukong is just "another souls-like", Erdtree is a fucking DLC for a game from 2022, FF7 is a padded remake that butchers key scenes from the original and Metaphor is about the only thing on the list that skirts the line of being an "original" game, despite at it's core just being fantasy Persona,.

This lineup has even had the effect of turning me into a tin foil hat conspiricy crackpot.  DLCs have won awards in the past in minor categories but this is the first time that one has been in the running for actual GOTY.  My dumb theory is that some money-men have greased the palms of award show organizers for Erdtree to be entered and for it to win so that FromSoft can make extra dollar of a "Elden Ring: GOTY Edition" that includes Erdree.

But if you ignore the specifics of this years show in particular, The Game Awards are just a pile of dumb bullshit as a concept.  90% of the votes for winners are peformed by a jury consisting of people from various games media outlets and I wan't you to think very carefully about that.  Think of the kind of absolute dumbfuck that works for any big gaming website or publication.  An entire enthuisast press made up of easily manipulated morons that barely have the motor function required to operate a control pad or keyboard pumping out the most stock standard gaming opinions day after day so that they can maintain funding for their site and access to developers and publishers.  These idiots are the ones who get to say what the best games of the year are.  I'd be willing to bet money that the games these people have played over the course of the year can be counted with just your fingers.

But even if it was a completely public vote, a vote where dedicated communties of niche weirdos could push for whatever game they love to get some recognition, it wouldn't matter because deciding a game of the year in the current year is just daft by design.  Not one person, nor group of people has had the time to even scratch the surface of things that were released this year.  I'm not saying that in order to make an informed decision on what a potential game of the year is you have to play EVERYTHING that year, but I guarantee that the judges for this show, along with most people (myself included) have barely scratched the surface on things that came out in 2024.  

There is a channel I quite like on YouTube challed YourMovieSucks who does these "best of" videos.  One example of this is his best films of 2015 video which was released in 2018.  He gave the year of 2015 some breathing room while watching as many films as he could from that year both big and small, and then made a list based on that much broader viewing.  I feel like that's what The Game Awards should be doing.  Fuck GOTY 2024, we should be crowning GOTY 2018 around this game thus giving judges and general audiences a bit more time to experience what 2024 had to offer outside of the big budget, heavily marketed titles. 

At the end of the day, none of it really matters, it's all just twats shouting their opinions from the rooftops.  I base my personal GOTY selections on stuff I played that year rather than stuff that was released that year, none of this affects me on a personal level really.  But these are award shows are somewhat important to developers and publishers and their outcome will have an effect on the industry at large in some way and if you ask me, it's making things considerably worse year on year.

Fuck you Geoff

It's OK just just not play it sometimes

 

Recently two games came out, Sifu and Elden Ring, that dragged the tired and very stupid difficulty debate all over my social media feeds once again and good lord is it tiresome.

First of all, for the people that bought either of these games and are complaining, allow me to point out that your attitude to games fucking sucks shit.  MOST of the people I've seen whining about the difficulty of either of these games have very similar along the lines of "I don't have time to learn how to play", "I don't want to have to put in that much effort to make progress" and it's an attitude I cannot comprehend even a little bit. A lot of people in current year seem to view video games as a "one and done" thing.  Like you buy the game, play the story one and ONLY one time and then move onto the next game.  People who enjoy Naughty Dog games are especially prone to this kind of behavior.  So when a game like Sifu or Elden Ring comes along that actually tries to roadblock you and actually has a decent amount of challenge behind it, they get mad and pissy because they might not finish it before next game du-jour comes out.

But games are expensive and the hardware you need to play it on is even more expensive so why is this your attitude to such an costly purchase?  Some games are a one and done thing, things like Uncharted, A Plague Tale, basically any cinematic first person shooter and the like.  But games like Elden Ring, Sifu, Cuphead and games like it are asking for a bit of a time investment.  They want you to replay them, to explore their nooks and crannies for all their content, to master their mechanics and get a true sense of satisfaction for beating them otherwise what's the point?  

But OK fine, I don't understand the mindset but it's there.  So then maybe you should just admit that these games are not for you instead of complaining about it on Twitter, stomping your feet and demanding easy modes and assist options.

Me personally, I'm a challenge oriented kinda guy, I like these kind of stupidly hard games where I have to bash my head off the wall until I get a win.  I like the kind of games that I can really sink a lot of time into to master the ins and outs of them.  I like games that can then, once "mastered" can then have insane personal challenges attatched to them like deathless or hitless runs and have that really mean something to other people who also enjoy that kind of thing.  What I hate though, are slow paced, challenge-less life-sim type games.  Things like Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, The Sims.  Things about farming or decorating houses.  Some people find it relaxing, I think its time wasting dogshit

So do I go on social media and demand that The Sims gets a hard mode where my family have to fend off home invasions?  Do I demand that Animal Crossing insert combat events into the game where NPCs come and kill all my villagers and I have to constantly defend my island from invasion?  No of course I fucking don't, I just don't play those games

One thing you have to remember is that while the whole "video games are for everyone" thing is true, "not ALL games are for everyone" is also true.  If you like Cinematic games with selectable difficulty then go play those, if you like time-wasting-ass life sims that you get all cozy under a blanket with and you can decorate a little house, then fine, I hope you have a nice time.

But if you then go play Elden Ring or Sifu, get your ass kicked and demand that the developer start catering to you specifically just because YOU don't want to put the time in to learn how to do a dodge roll or practice some combos, then go fuck yourself with a cactus.

I know "missing out" is something that people worry about but if a game isn't for you, it just isn't for you, and that's OK

Gearing up to be a Great Year

 

Coronavirus is still in the back of everyones mind and in the last week or so people in Europe a full on War has broken out and everyone's starting to panic about being nuked to death.  Spend any amount of time on social media and it's enough to make you want to crawl into a sensory deprevation tank and never come out of it.  So instead of doom-scrolling through news websites and Twitter, what you SHOULD be doing is playing video games (or watching me live at www.twitch.tv/taurinensis) because BOY-FUCKIN'-HOWDY there is a lot of good-looking shit that's already out and a lot of even better shit on the horizon.  

Truth be told, I've not played a single game released in the current year yet.  Partly due to a busy schedule of work-life-streaming etc. and partly due to my massive backlog that has made me think twice about purchasing new titles.  However I know that eventually I will cave and hoover up all these games so I just want to take a moment to highlight some games that I'm looking forward to playing or looking forward to being released. 

Starting with things that are out but I've not played yet we got 

1) Elden Ring

 Do I really need to explain why I'm excited for this one? It's the next goddamn Dark Souls game.  I'm trying to avoid as much footage/news/discussion about it as possible to go in as blind as possible but I know that the day I do get around to playing it I will probably not be leaving my little hovel for a long time.

2) Pokemon Legends: Arceus

I'm not much of a Pokemon fan, the game looks like shit and it seems to be buggy as all hell but I still want to pick this one up.  The change in gameplay style and the setting have intriguied me enough to want to pick it up.  Plus if I can hide in a bush and yeet a rock into a Pikachu's stupid fucking face then that alone is worth the price of admission

3) Sifu 

When I first saw Sifu I thought "that looks cool, I'll play that one day" and put it away in the back of my mind.  Then the game came out and I saw a clip of a level that was a playable version of the corridor scene from the movie Oldboy and it shot right up the priority list.  It looks cool as hell and apparently it's quite challenging so sign me the hell up.

4) Dying Light 2 

and

5) Horizon Forbidden West

are both games that I will get my hands on, probably this year, but unlike the other 3 I'm not overly desperate to play them.  They look cool, maybe one day when I get through everything else

Now for games that aren't released yet 

6) Soul Hackers 2 

After Shin Megami Tensei 5 last year I thought I was all Mega-Tenned out.  I had decided that this year I would slowly play through basically all the MegaTen games I could fit into my schedule to fill the void that 5 will leave when I reach the ending.  Well turns out I was totally fucking wrong and Soul Hackers 2 not only got announced but also has a release date.  A sequel to a 1997 Sega Saturn game was not something I was expecting but I'm all for it.  

7) Ghostwire Tokyo 

I've seen one trailer, don't really know what the hell its about but it looks exactly like my kind of thing.  First person game doing Onmyo shit to folklore creatures?  Yeah sure, I'm extremely down and ready to have a kuchizake-onna tongue me to death.  

8) A Plague Tale: Requiem 

A Plague Tale: Innocence was a game that I got for free off the Epic Game Store and went in fully expecting it to be a giant pile of garbage that stinks harder than the rats it depicts.  While it wasn't mind blowing by any stretch it turned out to be at least a somewhat decent experience and I was pleasantly surprised to see it getting a sequel.  Nice to see Amica finally got a clue and decided to get a weapon a bit better than just rocks

9) Kirby and the Forgotten Land

10) Stranger of Paradise 

11) The Callisto Protocol 

12) Scorn 

13) Bomb Rush Cyberfunk 

I mean jesus fucking christ I could do this all day.  I'm sure there's games I forgot and games that I have not yet discovered that I will also snap up on release or do a little jig for on annoucement.

So tell all that sad news that you can't do anything about to go FUCK itself, cozy up in front of your TV or PC or even under the covers of your nice soft bed if you're using the Switch and just enjoy all this cool shit instead