Game Awards 2021

 With Activision pre-removed

Just love that you scheduled this for a weekday so that I have to sleep and go to work two hours after this show is over, Geoff, but luckily I was stuffed in a hazy nightmare half of yesterday so I'll probably be fine. That nightmare may have come, however, because of the mere ambiguity which the whole 'will they-won't they' Game Awards was embroiled with alongside Activision. Keighley being sly about his words, not confirming or denying anything, even when the rest of the industry was preparing it's sacrificial pitchforks and funeral pyre for the embattled CEO. But now we have it on decent authority that Activision will not be there. And yes, I'm writing in future tense because this is going to be an actively written blog and it's currently t-minus thirty until the events. So I'm just going to play Hollow Knight for the next half an hour before the disappointment begins.

Time skip

First I have to tell you that I was here for the entire bloody event, so that's why I had a day worth of notes to go over and why this is going up on a Saturday. But you know how much I adore writing about this goofy award show, so I wasn't going to miss it for the world and all of it's stars. Even if that meant suffering the pre-show before the real show and seeing the slow trickle of consent. Although it is good that I did catch that, because it allowed me to see if the first of my highly informed predictions hit their mark.

Games for Impact, the Oscar bait category, went to... Life is Strange: True Colours? What in the... did DONTNOD finally figure out how to write a satisfying conclusion or something, why does everyone go on about that game like it's the second coming of Christ? Meh, the stars were misaligned, I mark this misprediction down to celestial phenomena.

But it gave me enough disappointment to stick around for the reveal of possible one of the most poor taste ideas for a game I've ever heard of- Texas Chainsaw Massacre The Video game. It sounds like a joke, I promise you it's not. They went us to run around in a competitive multiplayer co-op game cutting each other into chunks and happily treading over the corpses of your friends. At the very least we can rest assured in the fact that 'based on a true story' is utter nonsense. At best you could say that 'the spirit which birthed the movie was summoned in reaction to unrelated true events' but that's about the extent of truth behind that. I'll probably have more to say later.

Next the awards utterly surprised me, as they rattled through the entire Esports category in the pre-show as though this wasn't the highlight of the entire night! Well my prediction went like this- Athlete of the year went to Simple. (Tenz was clearly robbed, I call foul) Top team went to Natus Vincere, a team who I don't even remember seeing on the ballot of unrecognisable gibberish, so it must have been a fraudulent write in. Best event went to League 2021, I don't know what 'The International' did so wrong except be an objectively pathetic title for an event. And finally there is top coach... Which went to KKoma!!! Hell yeah, baby, I knew he'd stick it out for me! If there's someone you can rely on, it's Kim! I'm on the board, Boyah!

There were some more footage bits thrown here and there, Telltale reared their heads once again to show something that was not The Wolf Among us 2, so I guess that was just a shared delusion all of us had when that was announced. Evil West also got some gameplay, but I mistook the game for 'Weird West' and so I got first excited and then immediately disappointed. Oh and Best Audio Design went to Forza Horizon 5. What did I say for that again? Resident Evil... damn, I'm not really off to a great start yet, am I?

It was the last announcement of the Preshow that shook me to my core, however, in that it the demon hostess led in by calling it an announcement that we "Didn't see coming". I was midplaying Hollow Knight and half heartedly answered "Oh, Persona 5 PC", only to drop my controller when I saw the ATLUS logo pop off. Imagine how shocked I was, to see that the game announced was bloody a Persona 4 Arena Ultimax port for PC. THE SONG SHE REFERENCED ISN'T EVEN FROM PERSONA 4! IT WAS MADE FOR 5! You might as well just mail me a severed middle finger, ATLUS, because I'm feeling the insult from here.

And thus starts the mainshow, with it's confusing number of mainstream celebrities present. Some made sense, like Giancarlo Esposito. (He's in a game, afterall) But Sting? Simu Liu? Ben Schwartz? Jim Carrey? I get it, Geoff, you have famous friends: no one cares. Oh, and that Activision comment that everyone was waiting for from Geoff? Just as noncommittal as I expected. He disavowed 'predatory practices' which, no-duh, that's the baseline stance of most people, Geoff, it would have been more news worthy if you revealed that you were completely behind all this stuff. Then he aimed his ire towards 'online people', making it almost seem he was really commenting on the harsh backlash that Activision had received from the Internet. Not your best speech, Keighley, it has to be said. Also, why did Geoff sound like Dutch during all of that talk? I was half expecting to hear "The game Industry will be better, son, but you got to have some goddamn FAITH! Just give the industry some time to make some money, make some noise, then get the hell out of Uncle Sam's hair and sail... to Tahiti!"

Two awards rattled past for best Indie game and best indie debut, and they ended up both going to 'Kana: Bridge of Souls'. Which again leaves me down two guesses. Crap. And then Hellblade 2 showed off some cinematic gameplay which blurred the lines between cutscenes and gameplay. All that was somewhat impressive until Keanu Reeves dethroned it later during the same event. (Tough luck Ninja Theory, No one ever expects the Reeves.) Star Wars Eclipse deserves it's own blog, and it's getting one. What doesn't deserve much more talk is the Wonder Woman game which was announced, because it was literally just an announcement, a model reveal, and nothing else. Thank you for that nothingness, Monolith.

Best Performance was the first time of the night I felt truly vindicated, as our 8 foot vampire queen Lady Dimitrescu actually won the award and secured me another point! Thank you Lady D, I always knew you were bigger than the hype. In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, Alan Wake II was announced, although it's so far away that this felt like more of a preventative measure to protect against leaks than anything substantial. We had a Sonic II trailer, Knuckles sounds sexy. Not sure what to do with that fact. 'Horizon: Forbidden West' still looks great, as evidenced by the extended trailer we got. (was that the purpose of that trailer, just to remind us that the game existed? We know, we're waiting.) And then a moment I've been waiting years for; Final Fantasy 7 Remake was announced for PC!!!! HELL YEAH. It's Epic exclusive, but I can wait a year: I just wanted to know that it was coming! Also, the framerate was kinda spotty in the trailer for some parts, thought I'd call that out.

The Best Action game of the year came at us next, and it was a bit of a surprise considering the game in question is a PS5 exclusive, meaning only .05% of the gaming populace even had a chance to play it, and of course it was Returnal. Which means Deathloop didn't get my only pity prize, shame. Of course, this was immediately followed up by two reveals in a row, the first off which was a massive bait and switch. Talking all the big words about some 'Silent Hill Visonary' only to give us a comedy horror with Slitterhead? (I didn't fall in love with the trailer at all, to be honest) And then Arryn Flynn, formerly from Bioware, popped up to throw Nightingale at us, which is a survival game with some of the most heavily conflicting stylistic choices I've seen in a hot minute. From the little we've seen thusfar, I think the design sucks almost as bad as the idea of another bloody crafting survival game. Oh, and Gollum is looking worse the more we see of it, that latest trailer seemed almost last gen.

Cuphead saved the rut the show was falling into at this point, with their full 1930's musical routine celebrating their 'Delicious Last Course' (same joke as last time, but still a little cute cute) which will be an opportunity for me, at least, to finally get into Cuphead. (Liked having the Alastor-esque announcer voice in the trailer, very fun) But then came the big one, the reveal of that Sonic game which I assumed to not be real. I mean, I saw the teaser, but then Colours Ultimate came out and I just assumed the teaser was for that mess. But oh how wrong I was, because Sonic Frontiers is it's own game and it seems to be bringing something very special to the formula: the open world! I cannot rightly convey the amount of times I've wondered about an Open world sonic, and though this will undoubtedly not do as much with that idea as I wish it could, that the step is even being taken is a strong start. But also someone call Nintendo because the trailer was beat for beat an attempt to simulate the hype around Breath of the Wild's reveal.

Best Art Direction came around next, and it's recipient was- Deathloop... what? I mean seriously- what? The game that mimicked grindhouse- got best art direction. I know it seems like I have some sort of vendetta against Deathloop, and I may have actually developed one from that snub alone. Damn. Next was the player's voice, which was the only vote I didn't contribute to, and that landed on Halo infinite. (Pretty sure the campaign for that game was less than 3 days old by the time of the award ceremony, but sure people, call it the best of the year.) Best RPG was rushed by, and thank god it didn't go to Cyberpunk. (though Cyberpunk should have never been in the running in the first place.) The winner was ultimately Tales of Arise. What did I say again? Shin Megami Tensei V? Wow, this isn't my year. Best Score goes to Neir Replicant, meaning Cyberpunk won 0 awards this year. (wow, that sucks. But is totally fair.) And I whiffed that one too. Content creator of the year went to Dream, so I guess that was what the mask meant. Best multiplayer game went to 'It Take Two' (Justice for Josef) for which Keighley gave the snide comment "I've learned not to give him a mic." (coward) and Best mobile game went to Genshin Impact, so I've managed not to get a single right guess in that entire block of awards. You wanna know what's even worse? With my coin toss for Best Narrative Award I was against Guardians of the Galaxy and It Takes Two. I went with Josef's game, and reality sided with the Guardians. (It hurts to be this bad, it really does.)

I'm going to talk about the next bunch of game reveals in their own blogs later, but what I really want to call out is the best action adventure game. I guessed wrong, no surprise, but Metroid Dread ended up taking it with Doug Bowser accepting the reward. Why was the head of Nintendo America snubbing the actual developers from picking up their award? Couldn't they make it? Because Doug didn't explain a damn thing. (First Bowser steals the Princess, no he's stealing artistic credit. Despicable.) Also, there is a Dune game coming out, but it's a 4x strategy game. (Pretty sure we already have like 3 of those already.)

Tiny Tina's Wonderland found all that footage that Randy Pitchford vetoed for E3 so that he could tour a movie set. It was okay, I think I found the woefully ill-advised movie set-tour more memorable in it's sheer unadulterated cringe. Among Us VR is a thing, because trends can't just die anymore. Spiders is shooting out yet another self contained RPG, proving they are every bit the studio Bioware could have been. And Metal: Hellsinger looks suspiciously like a rhythm action DOOM. I don't mean in concept alone, I mean the entire feel of the game from the UI to the movement, made me think of 2016 DOOM.

Best Ongoing game and community support went to Final Fantasy XIV, of course it did, and I picked neither category right. (Slowly losing the will to live over here.) And Epic Games announced a game which very much looks like their own competitor to their own game, Rumbleverse. It had no gameplay and it still looked like complete hot trash. Plague Tale 2 slithered onto stage to remind me that I haven't even started playing the original that I've had laying around for about a year now. (Really need to get to that) Dying Light 2 tried desperately to recreate that original Dead Island trailer, which famously was tonally alien to it's final game. The result was confusing and felt a little try hard. Crossfire X had a long drawn out trailer which looked better than it should, but still sort of felt completely identity-less. I think I've said it before, but Crossfire X looks and feels like that video game which is being played in the background in TV shows, a shooting game that exists to be everyone's stereotypical shooter game. In a total surprise to me, Supergiant Games got themselves a random send-up with a rendition of some of Bastion's amazing music. It was pretty good too, until it just turned into a song from Arcane, because everyone is still going crazy about that show.

Now I thought I had Innovation in accessibility in the goddamn bag; Vale is a game like no other! How was I supposed to know that Forza Horizon 5 added in sign language? What good even is that? So that people can follow along the incredibly in depth narrative of a bloody Forza Horizon game? Crap! It's all crap. At least GTFO showed up to alleviate some of that pain, with a 1.0 trailer that looked simply incredible. I love the idea and execution of GTFO and more of that game is soothing nectar to my soul.

There was some more stuff I want to talk about at a later date in detail, and a trailer for the live action HALO show which still looks tacky. I don't know if it's the lack of colourgrading, the handcam camera angles, or just a lack of heart behind the project, but every shot with a Spartan in it looked bad. There isn't a cinematic bone in this show's body yet. (I hope things change around.)

Best Game Direction went to Deathloop, there it is. (I'll spare you the essay on why that's unearned.) Best Esport went to League, bite me. Best Family game went to It Takes Two, again that's a couple's game. Best Fighting Game went to Guilty Gear Strive; OH THANK GOD I GOT ONE. But my elation was short lived, because Age of Empires IV got Best Strategy game. Oh, oh! But RE4 got best VR! Is this the sign of a late game comeback? (Very late game as the show is almost over) Most anticipated game went to Elden Ring for a second year straight. (Guess not) But at least we got an Elden Ring trailer to soothe that burn, and it was a story trailer! Of course, people still whined about lack of gameplay even after a whole month of raw player gameplay flooding the Internet, but people are idiots, what can you do?

Skipping those boring inbetween reveals, Keanu Reeves virtually took the stage in order to show his unbridled excitement for that mysterious Matrix experience which had been floating around the days leading up to the Game Awards. All we knew was that this was going to be a collab with Sony and was showing the power of the new Unreal 5 engine. Since then the thing has been playable for a day, and as I hinted earlier, it's visually mouth-watering. It looks truly incredible. And probably took way more effort than is feasible to recreate for a fully fledged game, but still this is impressive. Good job, lone Wachowski and crew!

And then came the finale, a Game Awards Orchestra medley rounded out by the game of the year. This year's medley was better than last year's, with tunes that actually flowing into one another and not  stop and starting so much, but the performance was still a little overshadowed by Imagine Dragons dragging out their rendition of 'Build That Wall' into Arcane's 'Enemy'. And the Ultimate Award itself? Yeah, I got that wrong as well, it went to It Takes Two. Well crap. At least we got to see Josef Fares take the stage in order to immediately swear twice and then ramble on about having kids and really loving them. Damn, this guy really is a treasure, isn't he? That little warmth of humanity will really keep me warm as I cry myself to sleep about the less then 5 predications I got right this year; what a travesty. Someone end me.

All in all, I found the show to be a load of fun, even if there was no huge showstopper reveal moment. The two years in the making announcement was merely, I assume, Star Wars Eclipse (which is disappointing already for a plethora of reasons) and the Matrix reveal event was already being built up before the show. I think the skits were totally tolerable this time around, although I recognise that I might have just been trained to think that after this year's E3 had some of the worst and most painful skit packages that I've ever had to endure. In comparison, the worst it got here was a few jokes going on too long, like the Simu Liu 'Halo' bit. (Okay that was pretty cringe from the offset in hindsight) But I'd prefer events like this over the vast majority of this year's E3, a definitely biased B+ For the night. Oh wait, actually the event was so long that I had no sleep and almost died the next day, make that B-. Not the best, not the worst, would have been better if they got THE RIGHT PERSONA GAME; YOU SONS OF-