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 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!