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Skipped it last year, bringing it back this year. Let’s do it.
Best Looking: Return of the Obra Dinn
I thought for awhile on this category, because this year had me experience a new Ben Chandler game, DmC’s incredible art design, a 1-bit send-up to the work of Junji Ito, and even one of the single most gorgeous looking adventure games I’ve ever seen in Silence. However, Obra Dinn got the win for a less is more technique, portraying simple objects and character models and making them pop with an incredible 3D/Mac 1-bit look. The two color style uses contrast to the fullest to make one of the single most striking, original looking games I’ve ever come across. The fact it still had me in awe after I had experienced it years before watching the demo is a testament to just how striking this art style truly is.
Honorable Mentions: -kyofu no sekai- WORLD OF HORROR, Detention, DmC: Devil May Cry, Gemini Rue, Kathy Rain: A Detective is Born, Lamplight City, Mass Effect 3, Parasite Eve 2, SATURDAYS, Septerra Core, Silence, The 25th Ward: The Silver Case, The Night of the Rabbit, This Is The Police, Unavowed
Best Soundtrack: This Is The Police
DmC and Spec Ops were very close to stealing this spot for the overall strength of their soundtracks for both atmosphere and out of game enjoyment, but This Is The Police won me over for just how radically different it is compared to most other game soundtracks out there. Since it’s a sim game, they wisely decided to give you a selection of jazz and classical music, letting you think while not clashing with all the dirty dealings and harsh crime stories being told. The main theme alone still sends shivers up my spine at times.
Honorable Mentions: Bleed 2, Card City Nights, Devil May Cry 4, DmC: Devil May Cry, Dex, Kathy Rain: A Detective is Born, Spec Ops: The Line, The 25th Ward: The Silver Case, The Last Dogma, The Low Road, Tokyo Dark
Best Sound Design – Kathy Rain: A Detective is Born
The Tomatoes are OK was tempting to put here, as was Tokyo Dark’s more trippy sequences and The Hex’s surprising use of motifs and sounds to convey information, but I decided to give it to Kathy Rain. I played this with headphones, which helped me realize there are some nifty audio tricks going on in this game, particularly with the use of changing audio channels and different noises playing at wildly different audio levels without being obnoxious scream scares. All of the best moments in this game partly come from the brilliant use of sound, and I had to give it props.
Honorable Mentions: Detention, Devil May Cry 4, Don’t Freak Part 1, Parasite Eve 2, The Hex, The Suffering: Ties That Bind, The Tomatoes are OK, Tokyo Dark
Most Atmospheric: The Tomatoes are OK
This was going to go to The 25th Ward, which is absolutely absorbing to read in the night hours with its remastered UI, but The Tomatoes are OK is such a strange and striking little game. The colors, the “monster,” the sounds and garbled voice acting. It all comes together to create an experience I can’t get out my head. It’s such an involving game that it still hasn’t left me months later, so it had to get the win here.
Honorable Mentions: A Golden Wake, Detention, Devil May Cry 2, DmC: Devil May Cry, Dex, Don’t Freak Part 1, Gemini Rue, Kathy Rain: A Detective is Born, Parasite Eve 2, Pillars of Eternity, Return of the Obra Dinn, Spec Ops: The Line, The 25th Ward: The Silver Case, The Night of the Rabbit, The Suffering: Ties That Bind, This Is The Police, Tokyo Dark, Verde Station
Best Writing – The 25th Ward: The Silver Case
This wasn’t even a contest. I mean, I played a wide range of games with great writing in 2018, but after I finished The 25th Ward, I knew nothing would top it. The Placebo chapters alone are award worthy stuff, but the wider running themes of social atmosphere, identity, and rebelling in the face of empty, soul destroying apocalypse spoke to me on a level I don’t think any game ever has before. This came out in the mid 2000s, and everything it says applies more now then ever, and I think what it has to say about finding personal fulfillment is something a lot of us need to hear now. Also, SUDA 51 does more meta funsies, and I can never get enough of that because he goes all in whenever he decides to go meta, and nobody else has quite captured his sense of self-awareness and player teasing.
Honorable Mentions: A Golden Wake, A New Beginning, Lamplight City, Mass Effect 2, Pillars of Eternity, Scar of the Doll, Spec Ops: The Line, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, The Hex, The Last Dogma, The Night of the Rabbit, The Shivah, The Whispered World, This Is The Police, Tokyo Dark, Unavowed, Verde Station
Favorite Character: Unavowed (Logan Brown, Eli Beckett)
I really wanted to talk about Dante as he appears in DMC4 in all his dick poem glory (look it up), but Dave Gilbert put out a new game and his character writing was all but guaranteed to win out here. Indeed that was the case with Logan and Eli, an alcoholic medium trying to get a hold of his demons to be a better person and a fire mage with a deep well of humanity and passion who has a habit of burning out. I related to these two more than anyone else this year, and the fact they had real depth to them only made my decision easier.
Honorable Mentions: BANZAI PECAN: The Last Hope for The Young Century (Banzai Pecan), Borderlands 2 (Zero, Handsome Jack), Devil May Cry 4 (Dante), DmC: Devil May Cry (Bob Barbas), Lamplight City (Miles Fordham), Mass Effect (Garrus Vakarian, Tali’Zorah, Urdnot Wrex), Mass Effect 2 (Thane Krios, Zaeed Massani, Legion), Mass Effect 3 (Javik), Pillars of Eternity (Durance), Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (Kreia, Visas, Darth Nihilus), The Hex (Bryce, Rust), This Is The Police (Jack Boyd)
Funniest Game – ANIME: THE VISUAL NOVEL
This game has a versatile stand. If you ever want to understand what it’s like to exist on any anime segment of the internet, play this game. It is very, very accurate. I played quite a few funny games this year, but this short shitpost of a game made me laugh the hardest and gets the win. It included a long winded Love Live rant in the true ending that includes the praising of flat chests, I *had* to give it the win.
Honorable Mentions: Armed and Dangerous, BANZAI PECAN: The Last Hope For the Young Century, Card City Nights, Da New Guys: Day of the Jackass, Devil May Cry 4, Don’t Freak Part 1, Kindergarten, Rabi-Ribi, The Hex, The Last Dogma
Best Difficulty Curve: Devil May Cry 4
Well, I had to give Devil May Cry 4 props somewhere, and difficulty curve seemed about right. Until 5 releases, this is the most mechanically complex game in the series, and it keeps introducing new enemies to challenge your understanding of the mechanics and your moveset. It just feels great to progress through, even as it gets tougher. The Dante segments suffer a bit with a few encounters with enemies clearly designed only for Nero’s devil bringer, but it’s a game I still have the itch to replay with the three other characters in it I’ve only just barely touched, seeing what new challenges it can throw at me in the bloody palace. I enjoyed DmC more, but it lacks the constant stream of challenges and mechanical variety DMC4 brought.
Honorable Mentions: Bleed 2, Card City Nights, DmC: Devil May Cry, Massive Chalice, Rabi-Ribi
Most Enjoyable: Mass Effect 3
The Vanguard class basically turns you into the 2016 Doom Guy. Very few moments in a game made me smile just as much as figuring out that I had an infinite melee combo I could basically use forever, and getting a good shotgun kill always felt good to pull off. A high risk, high reward style of play that never got tiring, a fun switch over from the more slow and methodical Infiltrator class. Borderlands 2 was a close steal thanks to Zero’s similar mechanics and the addition of a ton of sniping buffs, but he didn’t have an infinite melee charge. Seriously, Plaything through ME3 as a Vanguard was basically playing as a proto-Doom Slayer. RIP AND TEAR, RIP AND TEAR!!
Honorable Mentions: BANZAI PECAN: The Last Hope For the Young Century, Bleed 2, Borderlands, Borderlands 2, Devil May Cry 4, DmC: Devil May Cry, Dex, Lamplight City, Rabi-Ribi, Return of the Obra Dinn
Best Mechanics – BANZAI PECAN: The Last Hope For the Young Century
I have a huge amount of respect for simplicity in mechanics. The easier it is to actually play a game, the more enjoyable it is right away, and the more challenges you can craft around them for a satisfying gameplay loop. Banzai Pecan Is about as simple a beat-em-up I’ve ever seen, which is not something I say lightly, but the sheer mileage it gets out of those mechanics is wild. You get a very bare bones attack pool and a dodge roll plus weave, but the game moves so ridiculously fast that there’s rarely an moment where you can breathe. You die so often, but every time, you get a feel for where you went wrong and get the urge to go at it again and again. I’m normally not a huge fan of ultra hard games, but Banzai Pecan scratched an itch for me that hasn’t been scratched since GOD HAND.
Honorable Mentions: Bleed 2, Borderlands 2, Card City Nights, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Devil May Cry 4, DmC: Devil May Cry, Dex, Into The Breach, Lamplight City, Mass Effect 3, Master Spy, Rabi-Ribi, Return of the Obra Dinn, The Hex
Biggest Surprise: The Hex
The Pony Island guys made another game and I almost went the entire year without hearing about it. Where that first game was something I was already a bit spoiled on and still came out surprised, I came in blind here and was completely floored because it defined every expectation I had based on their previous work. Where Pony Island was a farce, The Hex is an actually serious story with a great bit of dark cosmic humor to it, but how it uses all the ideas it brings up is what makes it magic. On just about every level, The Hex is a marvel, and you should absolutely not sleep on it.
Honorable Mentions: A Golden Wake, BANZAI PECAN: The Last Hope For the Young Century, Bleed 2, Card City Nights, Da New Guys: Day of the Jackass, Plutonium, The 25th Ward: The Silver Case, Verde Station
Biggest Timesink: Pillars of Eternity
After what I said about it on my favorites of the year list, Pillars winning for timesink should not be a surprise. This game is a genuine danger, and not in the usual ways. The mountains of text are all really well written and engaging, the combat is strategic and satisfying once you know what you’re doing, and finding the ridiculous amount of fleshed out side quests to do just never gets old. When I get back to this game, you may not even see me for a month – or longer.
Honorable Mentions: Borderlands, Borderlands 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Devil May Cry 4, DmC: Devil May Cry, Dex, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Return of the Obra Dinn, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Unavowed
Best Concept: Rabi-Ribi
I always appreciate it when games combine two different genres you wouldn’t think work together and make them feel seamless, so I had to give best concept to Rabi-Ribi. It’s a metroidvania mixed with bullet hell, two genres I generally dislike, but combining them ended up with me glued to my screen for hours on end. I also love that it decided to stand out by just ditching anything remotely serious in narrative or art style for a pile of anime nonsense about an actual bunny who becomes a human bunnygirl that gets chased around by a small army of bunnygirl obsessed lesbians. I’m more amazed this game didn’t exist sooner.
Honorable Mentions: -kyofu no sekai- WORLD OF HORROR, BANZAI PECAN: The Last Hope For the Young Century, Bleed 2, Enter the Gungeon, Gemini Rue, Into The Breach, Master Spy, Return of the Obra Dinn, SATURDAYS, The Hex, This Is The Police
Bi The Dark Side 