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.

Bookend Game Awards: Introduction

Hello one and all, this weekend will see the inaugural Bookend Game Awards, inspired by talking to people at work and really just how out of touch most of the games I play are. Of all the games that got awards in this year, I’ve actually played maybe 5, and a lot of those were gifted to rather than actually bought, so yea, I go out of my way to not support the game industry I guess.

I’m probably likely to at least start playing some more recent games after Christmas, but those guys are going to have to settle for being in next year’s award if I’m still alive by then.

So you know what you’re letting yourself in for, here’s the list of the 39 games I remember playing this year, in alphabetical order:

Banjo-Kazooie

Cuphead

Dark Souls

DOOM

Dragon Ball Xenoverse

Dust: An Elysium Tale

Endless Space

Hegemony: Gold

Hollow Knight

Hyper Light Drifter

ICEY

Inside

Killer7

Killing Floor 2

Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Lone Survivor

Medieval Total War 2

Metal Gear Rising: Revengence

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

Mordheim: City of the Damned

N++

Naploeon Total war

OneShot

Overwatch

Patrician 3

Puppeteer

Red Dead Redemption

Rocket league

Rome Total War

Slime Rancher

Spyro the dragon

Steamworld heist

Sunless Sea

Superhot

Total War: Shogun 2

Transformers Devastation

Uncharted: A Thief's End

Warhammer: Total War

Windward

For the record, I’ve mostly only put games up here I’ve finished, are indefinite in scope or that I’ve played my fill of and have no intention of ever revisiting.

I’m going to give the same categories as the game awards, even though I’m not even sure what some of them are supposed to even mean,  but as I’m sure you can tell from that list, there are some categories that may be a little... eh heh heh... sparse, to say the least.

Up next will be a group of awards that I’m affectionately grouping together into the ‘LUL no’ category. You’ll see what I mean.

Right Bookend Peter signing out.

Episode 32 – Graduation Day at Sonic’s Hole

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We did it guys! Your two bookends are finally finished with Sonic High School and can move on with the important things in life. Eight episodes were about 7 more than I wanted to do after the first week, but we’re nothing if not dedicated to this stupidity.

For such a long chapter, not too much happens. Tails interrupts Knuckle’s sex crime, explains why his chaos emeralds couldn’t resurrect sonic, steal them back from an unconscious Cream and meet up with the rest of the cast to tell them the good news. After having gathered everyone at Sonic's grave, they make the wish, and he comes back to life, blue and with his ball disease a thing of the past. He then proceeds to have sex with Amy in horrific and confusing detail. Knuckles makes a school report about it, everyone says what they’ve learned and the principal comes out an renames the school ‘Sonic High School’ and that’s all folks.

Despite being so close to the end, it’s almost like your bookends don’t want to leave given how off topic they get, or maybe they REALLY just want to talk about anything but Sonic High School by this point. As they waste an indecent amount of time talking about Peter’s pencil cases, whether riding a horse out of a plane would kill it or give it a religious experience, selling bean bags full of olives on Dragon’s Den, the Goosebumps series, the plight of the noble grave robber and the time Peter’s front room was invaded by a screaming frog.

To conclude, Sonic High School is: ‘A series of sex events, with sentences between them. Still not sure if Troll or not.’

You can read Sonic High School (if so inclined) at the following link:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8085414/1/SONIC-HIGH-SCHOOL

Episode 31 - Anacondas in the Ovary Office (feat. Smash Mouth)

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It’s the penultimate episode on Sonic High School your bookends will ever do. This week we’ll be reading Chapters 23 and 24, it’s been 7 episodes on this abortion of a fanfic, and my god does it feel like many, many more.

Shadow the hedgehog finds out the cause of his funeral faux pas was due to missing a Ultra Chaos Emerald. In order to get back the missing emerald he seduces cream the rabbit, and then knocks her unconscious with a piggy bank on the end of his penis. Just as he finds the emerald, Tails bursts in proclaiming he’s worked out what’s going on. We then flash back in the next chapter to the rest of the main cast at Sonic’s wake, commiserating, making teeth, being babies, just wake things. Then Tails sings a sad song about high school, before having the revelation that sent him to Cream’s house in the prior chapter.

Meanwhile, your bookends drag out this already bloated series by getting possibly the most off topic they’ve ever managed. Discussing snake care, water consumption, Tenacious D, the mystic tale of Andorra’s Box and the taste of elbow lubricant. In particular, we spend a long time on planning our perfect Anaconda and Hotdog funeral.

We also sing Tail’s song to the tune of Smash Mouth’s hit “All Star”. You have been warned.

You can read Sonic High School (if so inclined) at the following link:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8085414/1/SONIC-HIGH-SCHOOL

Episode 30 - Impromptu Funeral Dressage

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Spelunking in the caves beneath the mountains of madness yet again, your Bookend Boys Peter and Louis read chapters 20-22 of the twisted fever dream that is Sonic High school, with the end looming tantalisingly close.

After being confronted with the apparent cheating of his true GirlFriend (sic) Amy, Sonic abandons her to stay in her Auschwitz like detention, dyes his fur black and goes on a spree of violence, drugs, public masturbation and truancy. With his mind having been taken over by drugs, he breaks into Amy’s house, beats her up, punching out all her teeth, until she kicks him in the balls, at which point, confronted with the awful things he’d done and confused in his soul, he drove off a cliff to his death. Next we see Sonics funreal (sic), where everyone is sad, until Shadow turns up ruins things by trying and failing to resurrect him with the Ultra Chaos emeralds, leaving us with the sad climax of Sonic remaining dead in a coffin while shadow shakes his cadaver about.

Meanwhile Peter and Louis try to distract themselves from these horrific happenings with talk about Christmas Classic: The Snowman, car insurance adverts, the misadventures of Seagulls, DVD rule 34 and had an open discussion about the varied genitals of the Animal Kingdom.

Two more weeks of Sonic High School and freedom will be ours.

You can read Sonic High School (if so inclined) at the following link:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8085414/1/SONIC-HIGH-SCHOOL