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 Role Playing Game

I’ll admit it, I was shocked at how few RPG’s I played this year. Some of these are real tenuous, I can’t deny. In my defence I played a couple of long ones last year, but yea... here are my nominations, plz no bully.

• Dark Souls – You can level up and upgrade gear, it’s an RPG action game, so I’m counting it.
• Dragon Ball Xenoverse – You can level up and re skill your character, so again, fight me irl.
• Dust: An Elysium Tale – Yea, there is levelling, and that’s about it, the most tenuous imo.
• Lost Kingdoms – A real time rpg where you use cards to summon monsters and powers in combat. From FROMSOFT of the Souls series fame! I still need to finish it, but it’s pretty interesting.
• Sunless Sea – Prepare your steamer and crew, and have all sorts of adventured in and out of port in sunken London. It may not be what you traditionally think of as an RPG, but there are more opportunities for “role playing” in this than a turn based RPG that just pushes you down a corridor and throws plot at you.

And the winner is:

                Sunless Sea

I love this game, it’s a shame the ship combat is weak, but the setting, ship management and role playing opportunities were massively entertaining. Choose to be a trader, a pirate, follow the stories of your crew, smuggle souls to demons, Help the Admiralty defeat the Khanate or go on an ill advised trip to the surface and smuggle back a box of sunlight. Dip your toe into the inky abyss now and join the fun!

Next up we have the Best Action/Adventure Game!

Bookend Game Awards: Best Family Game

Yea, this is an award that I don’t totally understand, I suppose it’s supposed to be game with no objectionable content that people of any age could play? But also not too hard? So just kinda accessible? Whatever, these are my nominations:

• Banjo-Kazooie - A classic for a reason, I barely need to make any excuses for this game like I do for most of the rest of this first iteration of 3D platformers that came out in the 90s.
• Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past – Another absolute classic for good reason, and the last zeelda game outside of handhelds to work in this format but a damn good time. Possibly a bit hard for a “Family Game” though, but who cares.
• Puppeteer – Super interesting style, framing the game as a play with puppets. Gameplay is simple but quite fun and while super wierd, is one hell of a game to see in motion.
• Slime Rancher – Just the most inoffensive fun imaginable. Wander the world finding new slimes and faming them for plorts. The tar can be a little creepy though...
• Spyro the Dragon – Not my favourite Spyro, but probably the best made and most consistent gameplay wise. Spyro’s first adventure has aged very well in my opinion, and is always a good time for the whole family.

And the winner is:

Banjo-Kazooie

It was tough choosing between this and Spyro 1, but In the end I decided as I play at least one of the Spyro games every year, I can’t even pretend to be objective towards them, so thought I better give it to the one I played for the first time. Maybe you already have to be somewhat used to the world of 3D platformers, but as they were developing this with no prior 3D platformers to draw inspiration from, I think it overall plays amazingly well and was a super fun time. I can only imagine how good it must have been playing this when it was new.

Up next we have Best Role Playing Game!

Bookend Game Awards: Best Strategy Game

Now, I love me some strategy games, though I admit I’ve not played as many new ones as I should have this year, mea culpa. Still, the Total war series is like crack to me, so I’ve made an effort to put some other contenders in there so it at least looks like a contest...

• Hegemony: Gold – Hegemony is a strategy game that offers a very unique approach to moulding the empire management and troop movements of other games. It’s in real time, and has lots of logistical management of supply line. But both the building and combat border on the simplistic side. Regardless, it’s a game I expect myself to keep coming back to, before feeling dirty about how long I spent playing it by the time campaign ends.
• Medieval Total War 2 – This feels a little unfair, as it’s more of a vote for Mods than the game itself, though over a decade later Medieval 2 is a hard game for it’s predecessors to beat, and Kingdoms must be one of the best expansions for a game ever. If only CA didn’t come complete DLC whores starting with Empire...
• Patrician 3 – I don’t know why, but I love this Hanseatic League Simulator. Something about transporting goods around the Baltic and increasing my hold over the towns just gets that dopamine flowing. Another game I come back to more often than sense would dictate.
• Steamworld heist – Take captain Piper and her steamboats across space, fighting all sorts of foes in a strange steampunk western version of space. Not the deepest strategy game in the world, but the turn based squad management with manual aiming is a fun time.
• Warhammer: Total War – Better than Rome 2 and pretty fun in general, but made a load of choices I question which make it far too shallow a strategy game, not to mention all the DLC makes the entire game cost £90 full price, which is about  three times what it’s worth in my opinion.

And the Winner is:

                Medieval Total War 2

                ... to be Precise...

               Mods for Medieval Total War 2

               And if I’m forced to Pick one...

               Europa Barborum 2

As I said above, the base game is still fantastic, but the ability to mod the game gives it infinite replay-ability, even if modders have to wrestle quite hard with the limitations of the game engine by this point. Europa Barborum 2 is a mod I cannot recommend highly enough it you’re interested in ancient history, It’s like playing a history book, but in a good way, if that doesn’t already sound good to you. See if you can’t seat Phyrros of Epirus on the Throne of Makedonia, take Hannibal to beat Scipio Africanus, Try and hold the Arche Selukia together as the empire crumbles or take Rome itself and play out history as it happened. Sometimes the mod is a little overly prescriptive for my tastes in what you can and can’t do as a faction when it comes to expansion, but the work they put into governments and traits is truly exemplary, and they’re improving the mod all the time!

Quisque est Barbarus Alio!

Next up is Best Family Game!

Bookend Game Awards: Best Multiplayer

I’ll be honest, my multiplayer gaming has been pretty moribund this year until pretty much the last few weeks, but I have just enough that I can actually scrape together a top five for nominations:

• Killing Floor 2 – Hardly had any time to play this year, but blasting Z’s with friends is a damn fine way to spend an evening.
• Warhammer End Times: Vermintide – Same as the above, had very little chance to play, but this Left 4 Dead with rats comes highly recommended from this Bookend.
• Overwatch – I’m total garbage at it, but there’s a reason this skill based shooter is still such a phenomenon so long after it released.
• Rocket League – The only way you will ever get me to play a Football game willingly.
• Total War: Shogun 2 – I have trouble finding any friends masochistic enough to face me in a head to head campaign. But ruining their day with my autistic Total War Skills is one of the best ways I can waste an evening, and shogun 2 probably has the best mix of not being shit (*cough* Rome 2) and having decent online support.

And the Winner is:

                Rocket League

I am laughably bad at the game, but it’s a kind of fun that keep pulling me back in a way the others in the list have a hard time emulating for me. I probably recommend never starting just because it can be such a time sink. Also I hate that it has loot boxes, but every new game does nowadays, so at least they’re only cosmetic.

Next up is Best Strategy 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!

Bookend Game Awards: LUL no Categories

First up I’m going to cover the categories that I basically have no games for, because they just don’t interest me or I just never touched due this year by coincidence.

Best Handheld Game

I don’t own a single handheld console, so unsurprisingly I have no games I can really offer in this category, but because it was originally an mobile I am giving my one nomination, and hence the entire award to:

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

A great game even when played on a console (as part of the HD collection) you can see it was designed with being a hand held game in mind, so I can only imagine how great it would have been for those handheld gaming deviants back in the day.

Best Mobile Game

I haven’t played a mobile game since I was into Clash Royale for a few weeks nearly 2 years ago, so my award for this category goes to:

                Apps for learning Kanji

Yea. I’m a weeb, let’s all move on with our lives.

Best VR/AR Game

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

No, I don’t own any VR headsets and don’t play AR games.  I like not wasting my time and/or money.
Probably Superhot VR would win if I did own a headset though.

Best Fighting Game

I’m so sorry fighting game fans, I just stopped playing them years ago because I realised how bad I was. So while it will probably trigger every actual fighting game fan out there, I have to give my only nomination and Prize to:

                Dragon Ball Xenoverse

What can I say, it’s not a great game but I did have a lot of fun punching aliens as a ripped Saiyan woman.

Best Sports/Racing Game

I feel bad for this one, because I actually do quite like racing games, but apparently I just haven’t played any this year, so what can you do? And with that my only nomination and winner goes to:

                Rocket league

Hey, it’s basically football (yes FOOTBALL you bloody Yanks, not Soccer), but with cars. I’m counting it as a sports game.

And with that I’ve got all the categories I have literally nothing to say about out of the way. I’ll now work my way backwards through all the categories they had in the actual game awards until we get to the Game Of The Year Category, so up next:  Best Debut Indie Game.