The Game Awards are the gaming equivalent of The Oscars; people wearing expensive clothes, a lot of flashes, plenty of ads and most of all: a celebration of the incredible art and craft it represents.

This year, Geoff Keighley and his team stepped up their game and had some of A-listers to present awards: Jonah Hill (which gave birth to some solid memes), Joel McHale, Jeff Kaplan. Hell, they even had Reggie Fils-Aime, Shawn Layden, and Phil Spencer on stage at the same time, and that’s awesome.

While I didn’t watch the event due to the late broadcasting hour, I caught up and you’ll find my thoughts below. Oh, the title is very misleading, but hey, it was the best moment of the event. Enjoy!

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Announcements:

While I will not list every single announcement, you’ll find here those that resonate best with me. Obviously, the first one:

Persona 5 Protagonist, Joker/Ren Amamiya, joins Smash as a DLC character.

While I am still very well connected in the industry and heard about most of the content shown yesterday, I did not see this one coming. I am utterly happy about it, as Persona 5 was my favourite game last year (tied with Breath of the Wild) and has one of my most loved OSTs ever. While Persona Q series is on 3DS, the “main” series is tied to PlayStation for years. I sincerely hope that this partnership is going to serve as the first step towards more collaborations between Atlus & Nintendo, especially since we know that Shin Megami Tensei V is coming to Switch exclusively.

(Read: please bring Persona 3, Persona4 and Persona 5 to Switch).

 

Mortal Kombat XI:

Mortal Kombat is my go-to fighting series. I have spent countless hours on MKII, MK3, MK9, and MKX. In fact, I even won a company tournament back in February 2017 (which helped pay for my Switch, yay). This trailer can hardly get more Mortal Kombat: gore, impactful, really well-paced. Oh, and the song “Immortal”, from 21 Savage is veeeeeeery solid too.

 

Dragon Age:

Dragon Age is a license that I highly appreciate. In fact, it’s the only one that I’m closely following from all of EA’s portfolio (maybe this will change with Anthem…?). While this teaser doesn’t reveal anything new, at least we have an official asset from BioWare/EA.

 

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled:

Crash Team Racing, or CTR, was PlayStation’s answer to Mario Kart back in the PS1/N64 era. The game was well-made and funny, especially with the wacky and unique cast from Crash Bandicoot. Just like Crash Bandicoot 1, 2 et 3 got a remaster (that sold unholy amounts); CTR is coming back. Rendez-vous in June 2019.

 

Anthem:

As I said above, Dragon Age is the only property I am closely following from EA’s portfolio, however… Anthem has been on my radar since the day it was revealed. The game, supposed to come out on February 2019 will be one I’ll closely follow before buying. It still looks as beautiful as ever, but well: trailers and gameplay on extremely powerful machines.

 

The Outer Worlds:

The creators of Pillars of Eternity and Fallout: New Vegas just announced their new game based on a new IP: The Outer Worlds. The trailer below is slightly different than the preview done by Game Informer. With the huge mess that Fallout76 is, Obsidian have an amazing opportunity to shine, as long as their game is solid. In the meantime, RPG Site has published an interesting interview with Kathrin Megan Starks, the Senior Narrative Designer of the game.

 

Far Cry New Dawn:

While I can’t play games such as Far Cry (motion sickness, once again): I appreciate what Ubisoft is doing with their brand. FC5 has overperformed and that is a good news, given the (potentially controversial) setting they had.

Just like Primal was a follow-up to the 4th episode, New Dawn will serve as a transition title until the next “main” Far Cry game comes out. While I’m not really good at Far Cry’s lore, it seems that this one has a connection with the ending(s) of Far Cry 5.

 

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order:

Honestly speaking: I have no interest in this game for now, and the IP leverage isn’t enough for me so far. The trailer isn’t the best, from my perspective. Hopefully, the game will be polished before its release. However, no matter what: the game will generate a lot of revenue (except if it’s a FO76 kind of a mess…)

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Awards:

Game of the Year: God of War 

I couldn’t finish it, due to motion sickness. But the game is impressive, on all levels. If you ask me what my GOTY is; I’ll go with Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age. A masterpiece in the J-RPG genre. Although, I must admit that there is a negative point: the lack of orchestral soundtrack.

Best Game Direction: God of War

Best Narrative: Red Dead Redemption 2 

Best Art Direction: Return of the Obra Dinn 

While I didn’t play Return of the Obra Dinn, I have seen plenty of people being extremely positive about it. And from what I saw about the game, it is not an undeserved award. However, my award for the Best Art Direction goes to Octopath Traveler.

Best Score / Music: Red Dead Redemption 2 

I still didn’t play it. But from what I could hear, the score is solid. However, my favourite soundtrack of the year is Octopath Traveler, right above Super Smash Bros Ultimate.

Best Audio Design: Red Dead Redemption 2 

Best Performance: Roger Clark as Arthur Morgan, Red Dead Redemption II 

Games for Impact: Celeste 

Celeste won and it’s a wonderful news. The game is high on my backlog list… However, I have voted for 11-11 Memories Retold, simply because it’s a project of my previous company.

Best Ongoing Game: Fortnite 

I have voted for No Man’s Sky. I don’t know if you remember the horrendous months that Hello Games had to go through following the botched release of the game? I do. And to thank them for not giving up, I’d have given them the award. Especially when you see how good the game became.

Best Independent Game: Celeste

Best Mobile Game: Florence

Best VR/AR Game: Astro Bot Rescue Mission 

Best Action Game: Dead Cells 

Best Action/Adventure Game: God of War 

Best Role-Playing Game: Monster Hunter: World 

MHW did impressive numbers and helped Capcom on their FY. My favourite RPG of the year is Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age, followed by Octopath Traveler. I tried to get into MHW, but couldn’t due to the heaviness of the characters and the bloated menus – I might give it another shot next year.

Best Fighting Game: Dragon Ball FighterZ 

Best Family Game: Overcooked 2 

While Overcooked is today’s equivalent of Monopoly: a destroyer of friendships and couples (and a very fun, engaging party game), I have voted for Super Mario Party. The online is a bit lacking, and the boards could have been bigger: but it’s still hilarious with friends.

Best Strategy Game: Into the Breach 

Best Sports/Racing Game: Forza Horizon 4

Best Debut Indie Game: The Messenger 

Best Multiplayer Game: Fortnite 

Best Esports Game: Overwatch 

Best Esports Player: Dominique “SonicFox” McLean (Echo Fox, Dragon Ball FighterZ)

Best Esports Team: Cloud9, LoL 

Best Esports Coach: Bok “Reapered” Han-gyu, Cloud9 

Best Esports Event: League of Legends World Championship

Best Esports Host: Eefje “Sjokz” Depoortere

Best Esports Moment: C9 Comeback Win In Triple OT vs FAZE, ELEAGUE 

I did vote for G2 Beating RNG, LoL Worlds. It was unexpected, especially with the absolutely stellar performance Uzi had the whole year.

Content Creator Of The Year: Ninja

Student Game Award: Combat 2018

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All in all, the show is good, and helps the industry to appear as more professional; organized. I just hope to see more events like this, instead of just one (same as my comments with E3). We could see the amazing efforts the team behind the event did, and I wish them the best for the future.

Hope you liked this article, see you!