2018 Game Awards Highlights and Thoughts
The Hype Train:
Mortal Kombat 11: This was a CGI trailer showcasing a brutal battle between Raiden and 2 incarnations of Scorpion. It was scored by some stupid mumble rap song which really stole a lot of energy from the reveal. Ed Boon introduced it on stage, and the opening dragon logo sequence was beautiful. Lightning cracked around the logo in a fresh way. It’s Mortal Kombat, so I’m automatically hyped even without gameplay video.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order: It looks really good. The surprise of the evening for me was it’s exclusivity on the Nintendo Switch. It looks to have as an impressive cast of characters as the previous games. The Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Spider-man, Wolverine, classic Sentinels, Skrulls, the X-Mansion, and many others highlighted in the MCU made an appearance in the trailer.
Far Cry: New Dawn: This looks fantastic. A lot of customization items are available. The setting is post-apocalyptic, but is bright and colorful. Vegetation and animals appear to be abundant. I’m curious to see if there are any mutations in the post-nuclear war setting. The villains are exceptionally vicious and menacing. The scene in the trailer when the car is flying through the air and the dog is hanging its head out of the window, tongue flapping, with a joyous look spread across his face was one of the highlights of the night.
Fortnite is introducing a huge creative mode update. To me personally, it isn’t a big deal, but I feel this will push the game to new heights. Creativity is what is drawing in audiences to many of the biggest games today. Season 7 went live yesterday.
Anthem: This game looks very promising. I had to check out some youtube videos of gameplay, and I am sold. It looks like a huge improvement on the idea of Destiny.
Hades: This is an isometric action game similar to Transistor. I’m impressed by how colorful the developers have made the underworld. The concept of dying over and over is neat. The voice acting was really well done also.
The Outer Worlds: It’s a single player sci-fi RPG by Obsidian. ‘nuff said.
Ancestor: You get to play as different generations of human evolution over the course of millions of years. There is weapon combat, wild predators, a lot of climbing and agility, and pretty cool looking ape designs.
Devil May Cry 5: It’s DMC, but with Kylo Ren! I love the series and it looks promising.
The Meh Train:
Stranger Things: The Game: I’m a huge retro gamer, but this one didn’t grab me like I hoped it would. The gameplay appears to be solid, and I love the retro theme. I just didn’t really get excited. I hope a demo comes out that changes my mind.
Smash Bros. Ultimate DLC: They announced Persona characters as DLC. Cool, but not earth-shattering like Liu-Kang or Kratos would have been. There are so many possibilities with this series.
Atlas: This is a MMO that is 12,000 times the size of a single Ark: Survival Evolved server. The problem is that it comes from the developers of…Ark: Survival Evolved. It featured large pirate ships, gigantic creatures, and a nice looking ocean world. I was getting a little hyped until I realized who developed it. We’ll see.
The Don’t Even Pull Out of the Station Train
Dragon Age 4: That was the must underwhelming tease ever. It showed zero about the game other than the hashtag #thedreadwolfrises. Very Lame.
Scavengers: It looks okay, but we are inundated with survival games. The sci-fi theme is great, and the idea of having to work together to survive, but also compete against each other will be good if it is fully realized.
Journey to the Savage Planet: The CGI trailer hints at the humorous nature of the game. That’s about it.
Rocket League McClaren DLC: McClarens and Rocket League are cool, but aren’t anything to get excited about as DLC. Give me Mad Max’s Interceptor.
PUBG: I really got sick of seeing this game during the show. I’ve never played it. I’m not hating on the game, I just don’t care, yet.
Anti-Vaping Campaign: I don’t disagree, I just got tired of seeing it.
Categories that aren’t actually presented: Apparently the multiple musical performances squeezed time away from the “minor” categories. It’s a game awards show. The host just read a quick list of nominees and the winner before moving on without any sort of presentation. On the flip side, maybe the whole show could have been this way, and I would have been more interested. I was here for the debut trailers.
Musical Performances: One was good. Way too much time was spent on the musical performances. One mid-show and one at the end would have been more than sufficient.
The Youtube Stream: It crashed halfway through and was down for a while. I finished on Twitch.
Absent:
Metroid 4: Nintendo, stop it already. At least give us an image or something.
Aliens: Blackout: I’m hyped because its Aliens. I need some more information. There appeared to be a hidden clue campaign, but nothing materialized.
Half-Life 3: Fuck you, Valve.
Award Winners:
Game of the Year: God of War (I’m shocked RDR2 didn’t pick this up)
Best Ongoing Game: Fortnite
Best Game Direction: God of War
Best Narrative: Red Dead Redemption 2
Best Art Direction: Return of Obra Dinn
Best Score: Red Dead Redemption 2
Best Audio Design: Red Dead Redemption 2
Best Performance: Roger Clark as Arthur Morgan Red Dead Redemption 2
Games for Impact: Celeste
Best Independent Game: Celeste
Best Debut Indie Game: The Messenger
Best Mobile Game: No such thing haha (it was PUBG)
Best Action Game: Dead Cells
Best Action Adventure Game: God of War
Best RPG: Monster Hunter: World
Best Fighting Game: Dragon Ball FighterZ
Best Family Game: Overcooked 2
Best Strategy Game: Into the Breach
Best Sports/Racing Game: Forza Horizon 4
Best Multiplayer Game: Fortnite
Content Creator of the Year: Ninja
Best Esports Player: Dominique McLean
Best Esports Team: Cloud 9
Best Esports Game: Team Fortre….I mean Overwatch
Best Esports Event: League of Legends World Championship
Best Esports Host: Eefje Depoortere
Best Esports Coach: Bok Han-Gyu AKA Reapered
Best Esports Moment C9 Triple OT Win vs Faze
In summary, it was an okay show. They need to trim the award categories and musical performances. The Muppet shtick with Pepe the King Prawn was funny. More muppets. He was way more interesting than many of the “personalities” they featured. Seeing the US heads of Sony, Xbox, and Nintendo on stage at the same time was kind of cool too.