Bookend Game Awards: Best Narrative

Hmm, a tough one, because I am not easily impressed when it comes to narratives, in Games, books or films. I’m very good at enjoying things, then ripping the shit out of everything I perceive to be wrong with them when I’m done. Plus, not a great deal of games I played this year have been particularly story driven, but let’s see.

• DOOM – Kinda cheeky this one, the story itself is fairly generic doom fare, but I love how the doom marine can pretty much just opt out of it and keep fucking up demons with no context if he wants to, in a more active way than just the player skipping cutscenes.
• Hollow Knight – A little cheeky here too, this is more a matter of interesting lore coming together than the narrative itself, per se. But wanting to understand what happened to Hollownest and how the Knight fits into it all was definitely a further motivator to keep playing.
• OneShot – Super interesting story about restoring the sun of the dying world, being a sort of god, breaking your programming and more that would be a spoiler to mention here.
• Red Dead Redemption – You know, it’s about revenge, atonement, family and stuff. Mostly well done but I’ll be honest, the ending that everyone else loves I found horribly contrived.
• Uncharted: A Thief's End – A competent tale of Nathan Drake being left somewhat unfulfilled living a life without adventure, finding out his presumed dead brother is alive and getting dragged into a mad story of racing a British rich boy with an inferiority complex and a south African Mercenary Lady to find the lost treasure of Pirate Captain Avery. It was fun in an Indiana Jones kind of way, as Uncharted generally is. But it kinda loses me when it starts taking itself too seriously.

And the winner is...

                OneShot

You know, until I wrote out their nomination texts, I was thinking this was going to Red Dead or uncharted by default, but after I actually stopped to think about it I realised that OneShot was the only one that actually made me think or feel an iota of emotion. It’s one of the few games I’ve played twice this year, because... let’s just say the second time round is a very different experience. It’s hard to say much more without spoiling it, but I do recommend OneShot very highly.

Join me next time for Best Game Direction!

Bookend Game Awards: Best Art Direction

Got some strong contenders this year, but I feel like this may be one category where I actually agree with the proper Games Awards...

• Cuphead – I mean, just look at it. The game is well made and fun, but it’s the art style that’s made it big news this year.
• Hollow Knight – I feel  like Hollow Knight has gotten shamefully overlooked, art wise, due to Cuphead coming out, the hand drawn animation in this game is also achingly beautiful.
• Hyper Light Drifter – VOMITING. NEON. PIXEL. BLOOD. Some breathtaking pixel work by the people who worked on this.
• N++ - A minimalist heaven, it’s clean, and allows you to customise the look, but that look is ALWAYS good.
• Puppeteer – A genius idea to present a game like a play, framed with puppets and a stage. It commits to the bit and is truly a unique sight in gaming.

And the winner is...

                Cuphead

Like I mentioned above, basically nobody would care about this game if it wasn’t for the art style, but WHAT an art style. It really is like playing a cartoon and it undoubtedly deserved to win this category in the game awards proper.

Join me next time for Best Narrative!

Bookend Game Awards: Best Audio Design

I have no snark or other comments about this category for once. It’s a legit category and I have some good nominations. There’s actually more names I can think of that I’m mad I can’t give a nomination.

• Hollow Knight – Atmospheric background music, ambient sounds, character voices... eh mumbles, impact interaction foley. Great sound design.
• ICEY – Tries to do a Stanley parable with the narrator, not as well in my opinion, but comes together for a pretty compelling sound mix.
• Lone Survivor – An incredibly atmospheric sounding game, what else can I say.
• Medieval Total War 2 – Another nomination for Europa Barborum 2 in truth. But when the Carnyx wails above recreated ancient music as men scream at each other in our best approximation for ancient Celtic and Latin, just, go damn. Why aren’t the actual Total War games this good?
• Red Dead Redemption – It sounds like the Wild West.

And the winner is...

                Red Dead Redemption

Because the sound direction really does complete the illusion of being in the Wild West in a way few games achieve. You can feel the tumbleweeds.

Join me next time for Best Score/Music!

Bookend Game Awards: Best Independent Game

So, I bitched about how I don’t see the need to split best indie and best Debut Indie before, this is basically the same list for both for me, so probably no surprises here... I’ve copy and passed a lot for this one.

My Nominations:

• Cuphead - It took them long enough to make, but it’s a damn fun little game that looks amazing.
• Hollow Knight – A fantastic metroidvania, with great art, sound, lore and gameplay. What’s not to like? It already got the last award. Will it get another?
• Hyper Light Drifter – A beautiful looking action game with fun, challenging combat and exploration, though it took a little while to click with me.
• Slime Rancher – I never knew how much I wanted to farm Slimes with cat ears until I bought this game.
• Sunless Sea – It might have niche appeal, but this Lovecraftian London is one hell of a trip.

And the Winner is:

                Hollow Knight

What a shock... I suppose it was up against another Bookend Award Winner in Sunless Sea and the decision was quite close actually, but I think Hollow Knight is the better package.

Next up, join me for Best Ongoing Game!

Bookend Game Awards: Best Action/Adventure Game

I’m not totally sure what the difference between an "Action" and an "Action/Adventure" game is, I’ve taken action games to be games where the combat mechanics are the focus, and Action/Adventure has elements of exploration or platforming being a significant part of the experience. But really I think my picks for both could both easily go in either category, so I kind of hate the distinction.

• Banjo-Kazooie – Lots of platforming ACTION ACTION ACTION, a super fun time finding all the puzzle pieces.
• Hollow Knight – Lots of action. Lots of adventure. Lots of insects. What a time to be alive.
• Hyper Light Drifter – Travel the world coughing up neon blood as you kill everything that move. Once you get used to it a very fun experience.
• Red Dead Redemption – Cowboy Simulator of the year, every year, until Red Dead 2 is released at least.
• Spyro the dragon – Glide, charge, flame, rescue dragons, toast Gnorcs. Find a fault, I dare you. Other than the camera.

And the winner is:

                Hollow Knight

What can I say, I’ve already waxed lyrical about how good this game is in the indie category, I just love me some metroidvania, and this is a DAMN good metroidvania game.

Next up we have the Best Action Game!

Bookend Game Awards: Best Debut Indie Game

Yea, I’ll be honest; I don’t really get this award. It does eliminate a few people from the running, but I don’t see why a game should get any more or less props just because the company hasn’t made a game before. It might make the devs achievements more impressive, but the game is just as good either way. Eh, I guess I just give zero fucks about the devs for the most part, so the distinction doesn’t matter to me.

Spoiler, expect my best Indie Game list to look veeery similar.

My Nominations:

• Cuphead - It took them long enough to make, but it’s a damn fun little game that looks amazing.
• Hollow Knight – A fantastic metroidvania, with great art, sound, lore and gameplay. What’s not to like?
• Hyper Light Drifter – A beautiful looking action game with fun, challenging combat and exploration, though it took a little while to click with me, when it did I had a blast.
• Lone Survivor – Jasper Byrne's side scrolling exploration of the nameless protagonist’s mental health as he tries to survive after some silent hill style apocalypse is a strong first game by anybodies standards.
• Slime Rancher – I never knew how much I wanted to farm Slime with cat ears until I bought this game.

And the Winner is:

                Hollow Knight

What can I say, all of the games in this category were great and could have easily won, but for me Hollow Knight just has the whole package, it’s not perfect,  but once it got it’s nail stuck into me I couldn’t put it down until I had completed every last part.

Next up, join me for Best Multiplayer Game!