Okay. Here are the Game Awards Game of the Year nominees in alphabetical order:
Astro Bot
Balatro
Black Myth Wukong
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Metaphor: Refantazio
Now, The Game Awards are Geoff Keighley’s baby (dating all the way back to Spike TV) and as easy as it is to make fun of the famous Doritos/Red Alert Halo picture, he’s done a somewhat okay job of being somewhat independent.
There’s *SOME* politics involved but it’s more-or-less within acceptable tolerances. I mean, some years there are games that get included that arguably shouldn’t, games that get awards when better games are on the table, and, of course, the games that don’t get mentioned at all… but, hey. Same thing happens with the Oscars.
The big drama this year is that the Elden Ring DLC Shadow of the Erdtree is on the list when, you guessed it, it’s a DLC.
Now, is it an absolutely amazing DLC that recaptures the agony and ecstasy of Elden Ring even for people who beat the game the first time? Yes.
If it was in a category of “DLC of the Year”, should it be a shoo-in to win? Absolutely.
But is it a problem that the DLC is nominated for GOTY? Well… yeah. It’s not a GOTY. It’s an add-on. And it’s an add-on that requires that you play through quite a bit of the original Elden Ring to get to. You can’t boot it up and pick Shadow from the main menu. You have to play through and get through the (spoiler) and kill (spoiler).
But that’s a minor complaint, really. It’s not like when Last of Us II beat Hades.
The main thing that I notice about that list is Balatro. Balatro? It’s shown up on the Steam home screen for me a couple of times but I just saw that it was a poker roguelike and I didn’t think that it was that compelling.
It’s a GOTY contender? Maybe I should check it out…
I’ve also never heard of “Metaphor: Refantazio” and… oh. It’s a Personaesque game. Okay. I can go back to not thinking about it. Everything else on there is either pretty good or unsurprising and I guess I’m surprised at some of the games that didn’t show up on the list but, hey, I can absolutely understand why they might not have.
And I’m going to put my money on the DLC. And then we can argue about that some more.
So… what are you playing?
(Featured image is The Game Awards Promotional Art.)
Dang. I could have sword you were playing Balatro. I haven’t tried it yet, but given what I have heard about it, and your love of Slay the Spire, I’m surprised you didn’t dive in headfirst.
If Metaphor follows the pattern of the SMT and Persona series, eventually it will come out with an expanded version, and you won’t be able to upgrade from the basic version, so I will wait until that comes out. Besides, I’m only about halfway through Persona 5 Royal.
I really need to get back to Elden Ring and get to the DLC. Just not enough hours in the day.Report
I’ve been playing Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers and it’s an amusing take on blackjack.
Poker? I don’t even know if I want to get into a Poker variant given my misadventures during the Bush administration (remember how they put the WSOP on ESPN? Nutty.) but if it’s GOTY contender…Report