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Rating the Steam Award 2020 Nominees

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,289
Some of these are pretty spot on and some of then are pretty WTF. Let's just get right into it.

Sit Back and Relax
Factorio's a little old but alright. Not really my cup of tea though. MFS is pretty neat, but the lack of an offline mode, forced usage of a Microderp account, and the simple fact that it's pretty boring after a while nix it from my list. Satisfactory is Factorio in 3D. Sims 4 is buttfucked with mtx and forced Origin. Honestly, Untitled Goose Game is pretty much the only pick here.

Best Soundtrack
Doom Eternal is... Meh. I realize I still haven't played it yet, but if it's anything like Doom 4, it'll have like one or two good tracks on it with the rest being pretty average. MCC games came out years ago. Great soundtrack for them all, yes, but I hesitate to include them in the runnings. Rest of the games, I've never played before. All in all, don't have experience with enough of these games to call a personal winner here.

Outstanding Visual Style
Battlefield V? It's almost the exact same as all the other Battlefields. Next. Black Mesa, fuck yeah. Marvel Avengers, fuck no. Ori and the Will of the Wisps, maybe. There Is No Game, I've never heard of, but the indie pixelated artstyle we've seen a gazillion fucking times now. All in all, Black Mesa wins this one for me.

Best Game You Suck At
Apex Legends... Woo! Another battle royale, but this time with forced Origin usage and mtx. Fucking pass. Crusader Kings III, maybe. I'm not really a strategy guy, but I don't see anything bad about the game. FIFA, yeah, I love psychological horror gambling games too. Totally, bruh. The last two games, I haven't played, but I keep hearing great things about GTFO. Again, can't call a winner for this one.

Outstanding Story Rich Game
Detroit: Become Human is pretty polarizing. I, personally, don't like David Cage games, but D:BH does do some interesting things, so I won't deny it that at least. Horizon Zero Dawn I heard had a bunch of stability issues, but looking at the reviews now, it seems they fixed it so I'll have to play it sometime. RDR2... I mean, I didn't hear that the story was bad, but I never saw the story make any headlines either. Mafia: Definitive Edition is sorta cheating because that game's story technically came out a long time ago, but I guess I can include it. Metro Exodus... No experience with that one, but it didn't look that exciting to me at all. Once again, no winner I can call here.

Most Innovative Gameplay
I mean... Control's an amazing game, but I don't know if its gameplay is really that innovative. Maybe in a few parts. Death Stranding... Ugh... Best I can say for that one is that it wasn't a money grab at all. Noita, absolutely. Simulating physics on every single pixel and incorporating it smoothly into the gameplay for an enjoyable experience... I've never seen that before. Hats off to them. Superliminal is a very intriguing case here. Now, technically, we already have Antichamber for trippy visuals and tricky reality-defying puzzles, so that kind of game has already been done before. But I don't want to just toss it aside either, because what it does do specifically is pretty unique. I guess I could see this going either way. Teardown is really cool to see, but it's not entirely unique at all as we've already seen this (mostly) from Red Faction. One could even argue that Red Faction's GeoMod 2.0 engine did it better as it simulated real-world stress on structures as well as full structural destruction. In conclusion though, I'm going to give this one to Noita.

Better With Friends
Borderlands 3. Yep, it's Borderlands... Again... For the fourth time. Meh. Deep Rock Galactic looked pretty interesting. I need to play it though. Fall Guys is Mario Party Lite. Risk of Rain 2, I've heard people rave about, but I personally don't see anything that wows me about it. Sea of Thieves looked really cool. I especially liked what people did with it, even if the game seems a little pointless at times. For this one, it's a tie for me between Deep Rock Galactic and Sea of Thieves.

Labor Of Love
Among Us was made in a week. Really? ... OK, fine, it was longer than that, but c'mon. I don't have any ill will towards the developers at all, but let's not pretend the game required years and years of precision crafting and intense development. CS:GO what are you doing here? First of all, you were already at the past Steam Awards. Second of all, dev was pretty standard for it and you guys haven't done much with the game (or even the series really) since. In fact, if I really wanted to go there, I could start questioning why the fuck there's still lootboxes in CS:GO. Anyway, moving on... No Man's Sky, yeah, that one is probably gonna win this category hands down. One of the greatest comeback stories in the history of gaming. Terraria is hard to judge for me. I don't personally like the game that much since I prefer Minecraft over it much more, but I see why people like it as well, and I can see that the developers do care about the game. All in all though, NMS still has it beat. The Witcher 3... I mean... I guess? NMS though rises above everything on this list.

VR Game of the Year
I have no idea. Certainly am not gonna give this one to fucking EA though with Squadrons, I'll tell you that much.

Game of the Year
Death Stranding. No. Doom Eternal... Eh. The game's got problems. It may be decent, but I don't think it's GOTY material. Fall Guys, is this a troll? Hades is good, but I don't think that one's GOTY either. RDR2 is also not GOTY as, though the game has crazy detail to it, we've seen a lot of what it does before. My verdict? None. None of these five nominees are GOTY material.
 
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gaijinkaiju

Lord Inquisitor
Sanctuary legend
Sanctuary contributor
Messages
612
Sit Back and Relax
Factorio's a little old but alright. Not really my cup of tea though. MFS is pretty neat, but the lack of an offline mode, forced usage of a Microderp account, and the simple fact that it's pretty boring after a while nix it from my list. Satisfactory is Factorio in 3D. Sims 4 is buttfucked with mtx and forced Origin. Honestly, Untitled Goose Game is pretty much the only pick here.
Factorio is great and I absolutely love it, even if it is very micromanagement heavy. It gets my vote. Flight simulator would be a runner-up, Haven't played it, but I enjoy flight sims.

Best Soundtrack
Doom Eternal is... Meh. I realize I still haven't played it yet, but if it's anything like Doom 4, it'll have like one or two good tracks on it with the rest being pretty average. MCC games came out years ago. Great soundtrack for them all, yes, but I hesitate to include them in the runnings. Rest of the games, I've never played before. All in all, don't have experience with enough of these games to call a personal winner here.
Yeah, not sure really. Doom maybe, It's got some great tracks. Can't remember the Helltaker soundtrack. I'd probably put NfS up maybe, Racing games typically have good soundtracks. Yeah, honestly, none really stand out for me.

Outstanding Visual Style
Battlefield V? It's almost the exact same as all the other Battlefields. Next. Black Mesa, fuck yeah. Marvel Avengers, fuck no. Ori and the Will of the Wisps, maybe. There Is No Game, I've never heard of, but the indie pixelated artstyle we've seen a gazillion fucking times now. All in all, Black Mesa wins this one for me.
Someones taking the piss. Three of those are samey looking AAA games and one is a gimmick game. The only one that has an actual good visual style is Ori.

Best Game You Suck At
Apex Legends... Woo! Another battle royale, but this time with forced Origin usage and mtx. Fucking pass. Crusader Kings III, maybe. I'm not really a strategy guy, but I don't see anything bad about the game. FIFA, yeah, I love psychological horror gambling games too. Totally, bruh. The last two games, I haven't played, but I keep hearing great things about GTFO. Again, can't call a winner for this one.
Haven't played any of these. No answer. Pass

Outstanding Story Rich Game
Detroit: Become Human is pretty polarizing. I, personally, don't like David Cage games, but D:BH does do some interesting things, so I won't deny it that at least. Horizon Zero Dawn I heard had a bunch of stability issues, but looking at the reviews now, it seems they fixed it so I'll have to play it sometime. RDR2... I mean, I didn't hear that the story was bad, but I never saw the story make any headlines either. Mafia: Definitive Edition is sorta cheating because that game's story technically came out a long time ago, but I guess I can include it. Metro Exodus... No experience with that one, but it didn't look that exciting to me at all. Once again, no winner I can call here.
I've played both Detroit and Horizon (Haven't finished either yet though). I'd probably say Detroit, mostly due to branching paths and choices, but it's hard to say.

Most Innovative Gameplay
I mean... Control's an amazing game, but I don't know if its gameplay is really that innovative. Maybe in a few parts. Death Stranding... Ugh... Best I can say for that one is that it wasn't a money grab at all. Noita, absolutely. Simulating physics on every single pixel and incorporating it smoothly into the gameplay for an enjoyable experience... I've never seen that before. Hats off to them. Superliminal is a very intriguing case here. Now, technically, we already have Antichamber for trippy visuals and tricky reality-defying puzzles, so that kind of game has already been done before. But I don't want to just toss it aside either, because what it does do specifically is pretty unique. I guess I could see this going either way. Teardown is really cool to see, but it's not entirely unique at all as we've already seen this (mostly) from Red Faction. One could even argue that Red Faction's GeoMod 2.0 engine did it better as it simulated real-world stress on structures as well as full structural destruction. In conclusion though, I'm going to give this one to Noita.
Eh, No idea. Death stranding is a glorified walking sim with the Kojima name attached. No idea about control, heard its good though. Teardown looks fun and like my kind of thing from what I've seen, So i'd give that my vote. Noita and superliminal get tied for runner up because they look interesting.

Better With Friends
Borderlands 3. Yep, it's Borderlands... Again... For the fourth time. Meh. Deep Rock Galactic looked pretty interesting. I need to play it though. Fall Guys is Mario Party Lite. Risk of Rain 2, I've heard people rave about, but I personally don't see anything that wows me about it. Sea of Thieves looked really cool. I especially liked what people did with it, even if the game seems a little pointless at times. For this one, it's a tie for me between Deep Rock Galactic and Sea of Thieves.
Borderlands 3 is shit even with friends. Tried couch co-op with a friend and it was still shit. No Idea about any of the others, Maybe Sea of thieves? It looks like it'd be more fun with friends.

Labor Of Love
Among Us was made in a week. Really? ... OK, fine, it was longer than that, but c'mon. I don't have any ill will towards the developers at all, but let's not pretend the game required years and years of precision crafting and intense development. CS:GO what are you doing here? First of all, you were already at the past Steam Awards. Second of all, dev was pretty standard for it and you guys haven't done much with the game (or even the series really) since. In fact, if I really wanted to go there, I could start questioning why the fuck there's still lootboxes in CS:GO. Anyway, moving on... No Man's Sky, yeah, that one is probably gonna win this category hands down. One of the greatest comeback stories in the history of gaming. Terraria is hard to judge for me. I don't personally like the game that much since I prefer Minecraft over it much more, but I see why people like it as well, and I can see that the developers do care about the game. All in all though, NMS still has it beat. The Witcher 3... I mean... I guess? NMS though rises above everything on this list.
Not sure how Among us or CS:GO got on here but OK. Not sure about The Witcher. Terraria would be my runner up. No Mans Sky is definetly a viable contender but you know what, I'm adding my own choice to the list and you all know what it is. Fallout 76. Next vote.

VR Game of the Year
I have no idea. Certainly am not gonna give this one to fucking EA though with Squadrons, I'll tell you that much.
I've heard squadrons is actually really good, I'm planning to get it at some point so I'll let you know. But Half-life: Alyx gets this hands down. I haven't played it personally, but from what I've seen and heard, It really pushes how good a VR game can be if its built purely as a VR title.

Game of the Year
Death Stranding. No. Doom Eternal... Eh. The game's got problems. It may be decent, but I don't think it's GOTY material. Fall Guys, is this a troll? Hades is good, but I don't think that one's GOTY either. RDR2 is also not GOTY as, though the game has crazy detail to it, we've seen a lot of what it does before. My verdict? None. None of these five nominees are GOTY material.
Yeah, gotta agree with on that. Good games in their own rights, but not GOTY. But you know what is GOTY? The Last of Us Part 2.
 

Vendor-Lazarus

Arch Disciple
Sanctuary legend
Messages
937
I'll reply to this just for the sake of it.
Since I don't use steam DRM.

Whoever named the award "Sit back and relax" have obviously never played any of those games.
That the last thing you do in them. Factorio especially.

Can't comment on "Best soundtrack", since I rarely ever notice the music in games.

Can't comment on Visual Style either. None of those have any outstanding art.
Maybe Ori if I'm generous.

"Best game you suck at"!?
..ok.. CK3

"Story rich game" ..That's rich..
None of them.

"Innovative gameplay".. If only.
None of them.

"Better with friends".
Don't know. Only play SP. Also, I don't have any friends.

"Labor of love".
No Man's Sky and Terraria get to share it equally.

"VR game of.." No.
No.

"GOTY" None of them.
Those listed least of all.
 
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