The annual Golden Joysticks has just passed, doling out real-life achievements for developers and publishers alike. I think it might be worth picking over the results a bit this year, seeing as, you know, they are mostly wrong or stupid or irrelevant.
Family Game of the Year
Won by: Littlebigplanet
Should have been won by: Littlebigplanet
OK, admittedly bad start. Littlebigplanet probably actually deserves this, but lets be honest; family means ‘casual’ and ‘casual’ means bad, so competition isn’t really that high. That’s not to undermine LBP though – finding a game kids and adults can play together that doesn’t just involve flailing a stick is something to be celebrated.
Handheld Game of the Year
Won by: GTA Chinatown Wars
Should have been won by: Professor Layton and the Curious Village
Professor Layton is the first handheld game I have enjoyed in years. It’s full of character, interesting puzzles, amazing cutscenes, and just stuff to do. GTA is GTA, and yes that’s good, but it’s not really embracing the idea of handheld – games you can pick up and play in seconds but can be put down at any point.
Retailer of the Year
Won by: GAME
Should have been won by: Play.com
GAME are fine and all, but they aren’t exactly cheap, they have queues and they also require interaction with people. Play.com is cheap, easy as hell, and always on time with delivery. Simple as that. Also, the last time I went into a GAME I tried to buy Mount and Blade but they couldn’t find the disk. Useless.
Mobile Game of the Year
Won by: Metal Gear Solid Touch
Should have been won by: Honestly don’t know.
Honestly, I don’t know anything about mobile games. Every single one I have played has been a poor excuse of a shambles (apart from DOOM on a symbian of course) so yeah, MGS Touch, whatever.
Nintendo Game of the Year
Won by: COD World at War
Should have been won by: Madworld
This, honestly, is hilarious. World at War was hailed as average pretty much everywhere, then the Wii get’s a stripped down version, and then that get’s named as the best Nintendo game? Really? At least Madword was an exclusive, and at least it had a bit of uniqueness to it. It can’t get more ridiculous than this surely?
Multiplayer Game of the Year
Won by: COD World at War
Should have been won by: Left 4 Dead
Oh it can. Are these people insane? Standard shooty multiplayer or something that was designed for multiplayer from the ground up and described along the lines of ‘one of the best co-op experiences ever’. Left 4 Dead took multiplayer to places it hasn’t been before and actually did something innovative, rather than JUST DOING EVERYTHING THE SAME.
Soundtrack of the Year
Won by: Guitar Hero World Tour
Should have been won by: Fallout 3
I don’t think I’m arguing with semantics when I say that Guitar Hero doesn’t have a soundtrack, it has songs. This is like naming NOW 276 ‘album of the year’. Fallout 3 thought about it’s music, made it fit into the world, and provided amazing radio voice work along the way.
Xbox Game of the Year
Won by: Gears of War 2
Should have been won by: Gears of war 2
Ok, I have to concede again. GoW is pretty much what the 360 is about, so fair cop.
PC Game of the Year
Won by: Fallout 3
Should have been won by: GTA IV
Ooh, it’s the big one (for us anyways). This is pretty close to be fair and the only thing I have to say is that when it comes down to it, I prefer the idea of playing through GTA again rather than Fallout. It has to be said though that both games were poor examples of PC compatibility (crashes, bugs, GfWL integration) which is just a sad truth of the current times. Also, can I note that Empire: Total War wasn’t even nominated.
UK Developer of the Year
Won by: Jagex
Should have been won by: R*
Have you noticed the past two results have actually been rather sensible? Back to insanity. Jagex? They just make Runescape right? R* make Grand Theft Auto. I can’t even go into this without frothing at the mouth.
Playstation Game of the Year
Won by: Killzone 2
Should have been won by: Little Big Planet
I take innovation and originality over another shooter any day. Yes killzone is lovely and all that, but LBP is something new and fresh, not just a shooter that people complained had loads of problems.
Publisher of the Year
Won by: Activision Blizzard
Should have been won by: EA
EA are a good publisher, now anyway. They give developers freedom with their games and actually put out some really good, original stuff. The also publish Valves games right? Activision Blizzard strictly play it safe, releasing only titles that stick to a formula of selling a crapton – and while that makes them good businessmen, it doesn’t make them good publishers.
Online Game of the Year
Won by: Left4Dead
Should have been won by: Left4Dead
Fair cop for all the reasons I said above. We might finish up with a streak of sanity here. Or not.
One to Watch
Won by: COD Modern Warfare 2
Should have been won by: Borderlands or Just cause 2
At this point, Borderlands wasn’t released so hindsight is mixing in a bit but I’m pretty dam sure it looked incredible – boasting bazillions of guns and a new art style. Just Cause 2 is blowing my mind with every trailer it releases, capturing that essence of what makes games ridiculously fun. Modern Warfare 2 looks like MW1, but with fiddy cent, a lack of dedicated servers and uninspired action scenes.
Ultimate Game of the Year
Won by: Fallout 3
Should have been won by: GTA IV
The big big one goes to Fallout then. Wrong again, because of what I said earlier. GTA IV had a good plot, good characters, was stupid fun and is insanely re-playable. I loved GTA IV immeasurably, and while I loved Fallout, it was definitely missing something. It stopped being fun, it had a excruciating ending, and the DLC situation has been nothing short of a fiasco. GTA was undoubtedly the king of last year.
So, do you agree with me, the idiots at Golden Joysticks, or do you think we are both insano stupids and are entirely off the mark? Sound off below and have your say.
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Why on earth make World at War multiplayer game of the year and then name Left 4 Dead online game of the year!? What’s the difference!? Oh yeah, LAN and console splitscreen. But in both cases L4D is still way better, so again: WTF?
Your selection is definitely better than the official awards, but there are a few I’d have done differently :)
PC / Ultimate GOTY would have to be Dawn of War 2 for me. It’s been the most entertaining game in the past year, more-so than Fallout 3 / GTA IV imo. I’d also have voted DoW 2 for best soundtrack, although Fallout 3 cuts it close.
And One to Watch: Dragon Age: Origins. Not just because it’s the best RPG since… The Witcher… but also because it’s been #1 on my watchlist for the past two years anyway.
Modern Warfare 2… ehh, not so much. It’ll probably be another 5 hour way-worse-than-Crysis singleplayer campaign, now combined with stinky as shit multiplayer. I mean: no dedicated servers, 9v9 max, no console, no lean, (almost certainly) no mod support, no banning cheaters and best of all: the devs consider 100ms a ‘perfectly playable’ ping. Seriously, 100ms. I don’t even join servers that rate in over 60ms!
Not that I’ve ever thought highly of CoD multiplayer before, but with this Infinity Ward is managing to make Wolfenstein (2009) multiplayer look like the greatest thing since sliced bread.
In fact, that might make for a great reverse campaign: get everyone who no longer wants MW2 due to its multiplayer shenanigans to buy Wolfenstein so we can all play a (fairly) decent multiplayer game. It’ll be the opposite of what happened after RtCW, when everyone left for CoD rather than go play Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory.
You know Canabalt is a mobile game, right?
Is it? Oh. That wins then. Hurrah for Canabalt!
The multiplayer thing isn’t surprising. It just goes to show that video games are all about consoles now, and most of these awards were considered in the context of consoles. PC games are slowly being eroded each year by the mentality that a lot of mainstream developers have that the money is in console games now. And we have the Wii to thank for that.
This is a great post and its very creative indeed but if only you people would properly give cubefield a shot. Its a great game. Very addicitve and very entertaining to all age groups.
Cubefield is ok but way too slow – I lost interest before I died.