The Game Awards 2018

[killthenet]

I just started God of War myself @Julius, hope to get through that and the first episode of Life is Strange before the awards. I've been better this year at playing recent releases but still only managed a handful, of the nominees for the top awards I've only played Celeste and Red Dead. 

There are rumours that a new Alien game is going to be announced and a lot of people are hinting that a trailer for Metroid Prime 4 with be shown. I hope Nintendo pull the same 1-2 punch they did with Bayonetta last year and announce that the Metroid Prime trilogy will be coming to Switch.

[Julius]

@killthenet, I hope you enjoy it! I’m really looking forward to it.

And yeah, I think I remember reading about 20th Century Fox trademarking “Alien: Blackout”; apparently it will be by Cold Iron Studios, and might be a competitive/multiplayer game? 

Square Enix trademarked “Parasite Eve” in Europe just last week, and seeing as the original game was never released over here, it seems somewhat likely that that franchise is being revived in some way.

Elsewhere, rumours about Rocksteady’s potential Superman: World’s Finest have re-emerged ahead of The Game Awards yet again, so...that’s probably not happening  

Finally, “Metal Gear” and “Metal Gear Solid” have been trademarked by Konami in Europe, but it’s unclear if this relates to Snake’s (and other characters’) presence in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate or Metal Gear Solid’s re-release as part of the PS1 Classic lineup, as opposed to a HD port/collection/remake. 

[Julius]

 

Edited November 29, 2018 by Julius

[killthenet]

I assume Obsidian's game was in production before the takeover was announced, otherwise it's a pretty swift turnaround. 

It seems like the Game Award twitter account will be teasing a game every day until next Thursday, doubt anything huge that we don't already know about will be teased though.

Are you going to be watching the ceremony live @Julius? I'll be staying up late so would be good to have some company on here.

[Julius]

5 hours ago, killthenet said:

Are you going to be watching the ceremony live @Julius? I'll be staying up late so would be good to have some company on here.

So long as I’m not too tired, that’s the plan  

Also, this is kind of random: Christoph Waltz will be presenting at The Game Awards.

Perhaps a little less random is that the Russo brothers (directors of the MCU’s The Winter Soldier, Civil War, Infinity War, and next year’s Avengers 4) will also be presenting:

The title trailer for Avengers 4 should be dropping anytime soon (there’s a lot of winking and nudging going on, and the first [publicly released] trailer for Infinity War was released a year ago as of yesterday), and while those certainly won’t be revealed at The Game Awards, I have to wonder if they could be there for another reason.

A first look at Square Enix’s The Avengers project, perhaps? We were informed in the press release that came alongside the trailer last January that we would learn more about the game in 2018, and with only a few weeks left of the year...well, we’ve been treated with nothing but radio silence. Another possibility could be officially licensed MCU skins coming to Fortnite — that’s just my own speculation, but I don’t think it’s at all beyond the realm of possibility; Disney are trying their best to force their way into video gaming after having achieved total domination of the movie industry, and I think this would be a move in-line with their goals. 

[killthenet]

It'll most likely be to do with Square Enix's Avengers game, would be too huge a scoop to be a trailer for Avengers 4, surely? The SE Avengers game has to be next-gen though considering they've shown nothing off, so it might be too early to give it a proper trailer.

What's the betting Christoph Waltz is in Death Stranding now?

EDIT: I just finished God of War which features several excellent performances from its cast and it occurred to me how sad it is that the Game Awards only has one category for best performance. God of War and Red Dead alone feature a dozen or so fantastic performances between them and yet only 5 actors are recognised with a nomination. The industry itself seems to criminally underappreciate voice actors and motion capture artists, the credits for both GoW and Red Dead roll through the entire development team before the cast get a mention and the Game Awards offers up only one acting category whereas eSports gets half a dozen frivolous ones. Sort it out Geoff. 

Edited December 1, 2018 by killthenet

[Tim B]

Reggie has teased something "very special" for Nintendo at the Game Awards. Bring on the Metroid Prime 4 trailer and Trilogy announcement!

[Helmsly]

I want to get hyped, but I remember his reveal at the 2013 VGA's:

Edited December 3, 2018 by Helmsly

[Sméagol]

1 hour ago, Tim B said:

Reggie has teased something "very special" for Nintendo at the Game Awards. Bring on the Metroid Prime 4 trailer and Trilogy announcement!

Waluigi announced as a playable character. In New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe.

[killthenet]

25 minutes ago, Sméagol said:

Waluigi announced as a playable character. In New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe.

Alongside Bowsette

[Ronnie]

Funny how it's basically guaranteed to be Metroid, even with no hinting or suggestions from Nintendo themselves.

Is anytone watching (or heard of) the Kinda Funny Showcase the following day? Greg Miller and Tim Gettys filling the void left by no PSX and doing their own digital event type thing. 60+ games scheduled to be shown off, and not all of them indies.

[Julius]

yes yes yes yes yes yes yes

 

12 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Is anytone watching (or heard of) the Kinda Funny Showcase the following day? Greg Miller and Tim Gettys filling the void left by no PSX and doing their own digital event type thing. 60+ games scheduled to be shown off, and not all of them indies.

I’m admittedly not the biggest fan of Kinda Funny, but they deserve a lot of recognition for offering to do this and actually following through. Kudos to them — if the games weren’t going to be enough to convince me to watch it, then the goodwill that they get from hosting it is  

Edited December 3, 2018 by Julius

[Hero-of-Time]

I wish Geoff would have scheduled this for a Friday night/Saturday morning rather than a Thursday. It's going to make getting out of bed for work a bit of a nightmare. Last year's event was a bit rubbish, so I may just skip watching it live and watch the trailers when I get up in the morning. 

 

[Tim B]

I'm planning on staying up for it, as I'll be up at midnight playing Smash anyway and if that's bad or boring, I can carry on playing in handheld mode.

I actually had a dream last night that they announced new Star Fox and Yoshi games, neither of which had names yet and were just called "Star Fox" and "Yoshi". I think I would be disappointed! 

[Ganepark32]

I won't be watching live, mainly as I don't fancy waiting up till 4am to see it all (presuming it's only going to be 2 hours long, though I suspect it'll be longer than that). Just easier to wake up and catch up on everything without most of the pomp, cringe (there is a YouTuber presenting at some point, and I believe she was the same one at EA's dreadful E3 presentation this year) and ceremony. Far easier to digest everything without a sleep deprived mind.

The closer it gets though, the more I'm thinking that a lot of the categories are going to be won over by a very small number of games. I suspect RDR2 will waltz out of the show having won pretty much everything it's been nominated for. My reservation about the game aside, I see that as a likely outcome and don't necessarily think that would reflect the wide spread great and good of the games industry in the last year. But the way people and journalists are talking about RDR2, I see it heard for anything else to top it. I'd love it for God of War (or Celeste though I know it won't happen) to take it but I don't think it'll happen.

Because of this, I'm increasingly more interested in seeing what Kinda Funny Games have to bring with their showcase. I've seen Mike Bithell, of Thomas Was Alone and Volume, is touting something for the showcase so seeing that, I was instantly hyped. His studio, along side Supergiant Games, is one of the few indies that pretty much gets an instant by from me as I've loved all of the games they've put out.

It's just a great example of really good journalistic integrity from KFG with their showcase. I've never watched any of their stuff but giving developers big and small a platform for them to announce their games in the absence of other events is a fantastic move on their part as it's something the industry should do more often. I saw the call go out to devs on Twitter before it became a thing and seeing the response has been amazing. Some of the games are likely to be from small indie devs who might otherwise struggle to get their games out there and noticed so it's a great move from them and I can't wait to see the nearly 70 games they've got to show, especially at a much more reasonable time for viewing.

[Ronnie]

Greg Miller seems to be doing amazing work with the Showcase, he keeps talking about how exhausted he is but I'm sure it'll come together as a really polished production (especially with Tim Gettys producing). I watch all their content (unless it has Jared on it, in which case I avoid like the plague) and I'm really pleased to see them get so much good will with this, fully deserved.

As for the Game Awards, I'll be avoiding the news the following day and watching it that following evening from start to finish (fast forwarding through Josef Fares).

I'd actually be surprised if God of War didn't win GOTY. I think there's been a decent amount of criticism against Red Dead, while GOW was pretty much universally loved. Red Dead's world is mind blowing for sure, likewise storyline, characters etc but I think GOW nails those aspects + has satisfying gameplay on top of it.

I do think Spider Man will be the Horizon of this year though. Except that Horizon maybe deserved one or two awards last year and Spider Man definitely doesn't

[Ganepark32]

2 hours ago, Ronnie said:

I'd actually be surprised if God of War didn't win GOTY. I think there's been a decent amount of criticism against Red Dead, while GOW was pretty much universally loved. Red Dead's world is mind blowing for sure, likewise storyline, characters etc but I think GOW nails those aspects + has satisfying gameplay on top of it.

I do think Spider Man will be the Horizon of this year though. Except that Horizon maybe deserved one or two awards last year and Spider Man definitely doesn't

I'm really hoping God of War does win it as I feel like despite the criticisms levelled at their game, Rockstar have kind of been given a free pass by most outfits on the review front. I'm in no way saying that the end product isn't a fantastic game I just feel that there's certain nuances and mechanics they've made use of that make the game seem meandering at times and some what outdated. God of War, on the other hand, felt like the complete package that most are giving it credit for.

I definitely agree with regards to Spider-Man. It was a solid game but of the three big Sony exclusives, I'd put this third behind God of War and Detroit: Become Human. The latter game I feel definitely deserved the nod over Spider-Man for GotY but you know what people are like if a Quantic Dream game gets nominated for the big award, can't be having an "interactive movie" being a GotY contender now can we  it'll most likely pick up more awards than Horizon (I suspect one of which will be the Best Performance one though that should be going to the guy who did Connor from Detroit I feel) did but then I think that came out in a far more competitive year (and I'd rather replay Horizon than I would Spider-Man as I loved that world).

As I say, some of the awards seem somewhat predictable and while that doesn't necessarily dampen the whole Game Awards, I don't think it gives the best showing of what the industry has done over the last year of only 2 or 3 games win everything.

[Ronnie]

9 minutes ago, Ganepark32 said:

I'm really hoping God of War does win it as I feel like despite the criticisms levelled at their game, Rockstar have kind of been given a free pass by most outfits on the review front. I'm in no way saying that the end product isn't a fantastic game I just feel that there's certain nuances and mechanics they've made use of that make the game seem meandering at times and some what outdated. God of War, on the other hand, felt like the complete package that most are giving it credit for.

I definitely agree with regards to Spider-Man. It was a solid game but of the three big Sony exclusives, I'd put this third behind God of War and Detroit: Become Human. The latter game I feel definitely deserved the nod over Spider-Man for GotY but you know what people are like if a Quantic Dream game gets nominated for the big award, can't be having an "interactive movie" being a GotY contender now can we  it'll most likely pick up more awards than Horizon (I suspect one of which will be the Best Performance one though that should be going to the guy who did Connor from Detroit I feel) did but then I think that came out in a far more competitive year (and I'd rather replay Horizon than I would Spider-Man as I loved that world).

As I say, some of the awards seem somewhat predictable and while that doesn't necessarily dampen the whole Game Awards, I don't think it gives the best showing of what the industry has done over the last year of only 2 or 3 games win everything.

Spider Man was a solid game, like you say, ...that I'll completely forget about in a few years. That's what makes the really special games stand out in my opinion, whether I find myself thinking about them constantly when I'm not playing them, or if I constantly think back to them years down the line. Spider Man was basically the culmination of a decade of refining openworld games, but in no way did it stand out or was particularly memorable, for me at least. God of War, Red Dead and Celeste did something special and deserve the praise coming their way. Completely agree with you that Detroit is far more worthy of nominations.

My only criticism of God of War was that it lost a lot of steam towards the end in my opinion. Like they felt they had to add four or five hours to the game. But other than that I'd love to see it win

[killthenet]

It's hard for me to decide between Red Dead, God of War and Celeste - they were all exceptional games but at the moment I'm leaning more towards God of War because throwing the axe and recalling it feels so damn satisfying, neither of the other games elicited that simple joy in me that hurling the axe at a Draugr brings me in God of War. 

[Julius]

Not too much of a surprise, but I’m glad that they got out and said this ahead of The Game Awards to not get anyone’s hopes up:

@killthenet, I’m loving the feel of the Leviathan Axe too; there’s a real heft to it, and I love hurling it from particularly high spots and falling out of the camera’s view, only for it to soar back brilliantly into Kratos’ hand. Feels just as rewarding a miniature feedback loop as Spidey’s swinging in Spider-Man. 

[Aperson]

I'm kind of looking forward more to the announcements than who is actually going to win...

 

Mortal Kombat XI and Crash Team Racing Remastered look dead certain to be remastered, there's also a Nintendo presence at the awards so it's either Smash DLC (most likely) or if the rumours are to be believed a new trailer for Metroid Prime 4.

[Hero-of-Time]

Come on Metroid Prime Trilogy/4 and Wonderful 101 Deluxe ( Kamiya is rumoured to be there ).

[Julius]

What have we here?

I think we all know that Reggie is going to be bringing the goods to The Game Awards — I’d say that his body is ready; given just how many studios Xbox have acquired and how much they showed at E3 earlier this year, and how aggressive Xbox has been in laying the foundation for a strong finish to the end of this generation and the start of the next one, it seems somewhat likely that Phil will have something to show too; and, well, I don’t see Shawn wanting to be upstaged by either of those two, so...maybe, just maybe, we’ll get something new, big and exclusive revealed for each major home platform tomorrow night? 

Please?  

Or, you know, some PlayStation and Xbox characters being revealed for Smash DLC? Kratos and Banjo, anyone?  

Edited December 5, 2018 by Julius

[bob]

Why are all the game studios announcing stuff during this, and steering clear of E3?

When did this event become such a popular date in the gaming calendar? Who runs it?

[Hero-of-Time]

2 minutes ago, bob said:

Why are all the game studios announcing stuff during this, and steering clear of E3?

When did this event become such a popular date in the gaming calendar? Who runs it?

It's been going for a few years now. Geoff Keighley hosts it and has been pushing it to be bigger and bigger every year. To be honest the show still needs a lot of work and the announcements at the show are very hit or miss.