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: Games for Impact

What’s this supposed to mean? Like, I think I know when I see a game that would get “Games for impact” as an award. But I hate what a nebulous concept it is. Something progressive? Something that raises awareness? Is it impact on the game industry? The playerbase? Society as a whole? Could a game that has had a horrible impact still be considered a “Game for Impact”? Eh, to me it seems like an excuse to talk about games that look good to nominate, but are unlikely to win by merit in any other category. I’ll try not to be too much of a troll with my nominations.

• Lone Survivor – Lonlyness, depression, survival. Lone survivor is more like Silent Hill 2 than modern Silent Hill’s.
• Inside – I feel like there is something here to do with experiments, exploitation, being hunted. I dunno. There’s something here, but I played it so early in the year I'm fuzzy on the details...
• Killer7 – You play as a man in a wheelchair, in an abusive relationship with a schoolgirl/Maid, who is an assassin, and is probably insane. Of the other Killer7 you play a black guy, a Mexican, an albino, a blind boy, a self harming woman and a Luchadore. And there’s a gimp. Diverse. As. Fuck.
• OneShot – Cute little cat child tries to save a world full of robots struggling with sentience and organic people trying to hang onto what’s left of their decaying world, and you, the person sitting at the computer,  are basically a character and god. It’s something.
• Overwatch – The cast line up is more diverse than a UN meeting. And not a single one I wouldn’t bang. But I have a special place for my bae Roadhog <3

And the winner is:

                Lone Survivor

Jasper Byrne always deserves more love for this game, plus this and OneShot were pretty much the only non Joke answers, quite hard to pick between them though, but overall I feel Lone Survivor is dealing with more relatable themes so it wins this in my opinion questionable category. I’m 50/50 on if I was joking about Killer7. 

Join me next time for Best Performance!

I’ll level with you, this will be another mostly joke category for me.

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!