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2023 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Most Disappointing Game

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/08/2024

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Well, this category isn’t something you want to see any games in, but they exist every year, and as time goes on it’s actually harder to find the games to put in here due to how many there are. That’s not a good thing. Many games disappointed this year from buggy launches, unfinished products, being a dud in a loved series, or just plain sucking.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum

It’s sad to see a franchise that’s known for high-quality games get put into this category. Gollum suffered from a terrible development cycle that has a whole story behind it. What we got was an unfinished and incomplete game that no amount of patches can fix or restore.

Runner-Ups

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III

Wanted: Dead

Redfall

God of Rock

2023 Game of the Year Awards — Genre Awards — Best Action-Adventure Game

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/08/2024

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Action games are staples of video gaming. The best AAA titles duke it out for the crown of this genre and many a series have been considered the greatest of all time. A great action game should have insanely fun gameplay, incredible visuals, and something to make the game feel like you are in it.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

Insomniac Games somehow manages to top themselves with every release. Spider-Man 2 continues to make you feel like Spidey with smooth web-swinging, some the best visuals this side of consoles, and just tons more gameplay and things to do.

Runner-Ups

Resident Evil 4

Dead Space

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon

2023 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Most Evolved Sequel

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/08/2024

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A game that evolves the most isn’t always the best game out there. Bringing a series back from the dead in spectacular ways, fantastic reboots, or fixing a long-running broken series can go a long way. There were many greatly improved sequels that did little to halt the progress of what it went out to achieve.

Alan Wake II

Alan Wake II is a far cry from the first. Sadly, it makes playing the original game more difficult as it feels so dated in comparison. It’s not just the visuals that evolved, but the entire game just feels like a new IP or reboot rather than a sequel. This type of effort and evolution is rare in video games and only some of the best can pull it off.

Runner-Ups

Baldur’s Gate III

Mortal Kombat 1

Final Fantasy XVI

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

2023 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Best Voice Acting

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/08/2024

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Voice acting has been in games since 3D games have been a thing. Over time the visuals and motion capture have advanced to the point in which we are playing interactive movies. Real-life movie stars can put all of their skills to use as well as talented newcomers. This year had some fantastic voice acting done by incredibly talented people.

Alan Wake II

Each character is a believable well acted experience. From the live actions scenes to the silly TV promos there is a genuine family at Remedy Entertainment that is present in every game and it shows so much here. You feel like these actors are the characters and not just trying to sound or be like them.

Runner-Ups

Final Fantasy XVI

Baldur’s Gate III

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

2023 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Best Atmosphere

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/08/2024

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A game’s atmosphere can make break immersion. This is how much dread it makes you feel just being in the world. It can make you a feeling of nostalgic adventure, it can transport you back to a time when you were a kid…or one of the worst times of your life. It’s very hard to have a game’s atmosphere be consistent and pull you in. This usually isn’t tied to the story or anything like that, but graphics do go hand-in-hand.

Alan Wake II

Alan Wake‘s atmosphere is some of the best in horror. It’s unsettling, surreal, and somehow too familiar. There are rarely any jumpscares and instead the game relies on tense gameplay, uncertainty, and putting what might frighten you right there in your face and making you watch it.

Runner-Ups

World of Horror

Dead Space

Resident Evil 4

The Invincible

2023 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Best Story

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/08/2024

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Stories are probably the most important aspect of a game for most genres. It can supersede visuals and sometimes even gameplay if it’s good enough. Sadly, great stories in-game are hard to come by these days. Memorable characters, interesting twists, and turns, and a fantastical world packed full of lore. There are many ways to tell a story either through text, visuals, or voice acting.

Alan Wake II

Alan Wake II‘s story isn’t just more comprehensible this time around, but feels so unique and different from many other video game stories out there. The mix between live action cut-scenes, the voice acting, the narrative direction, and the overall production values just add up to one fantastic story that lets you catch new things or details you missed with each play through.

Runner-Ups

Mortal Kombat 1

Hogwarts Legacy

Final Fantasy XVI

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood

2023 Game of the Year Awards — Genre Awards — Best Sound Design

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/08/2024

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Sounds are incredibly important in a game. They can transport you to another time, realm, universe, or planet. From crunching footsteps in the snow to foreign aliens to screeching animals. Gurgling bloody screams, realistic-sounding cars, and even the boom coming from your subwoofer at just the right time. Sounds are just as important as visuals and can sometimes even compensate for them.

Dead Space

Dead Space isn’t just a scary game, but it sounds like a scary game. The haunting screams, alien sounds, the music, and weapons add up to one terrifying experience.

Runner-Ups

Mortal Kombat 1

Alan Wake II

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

2023 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Best Indie Game

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/02/2024

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We all love our 5-year-in-development big-budget AAA titles, but the indie games are the ones that have been carrying the industry through the slump since the last video game crash of 2008. These games have been the only ones pushing genres forward, defining new series, establishing beloved worlds and characters, and imaginative worlds.

World of Horror

World of Horror is a title that has slid under many’s radar, but it shouldn’t. This Junji Ito inspired game harkens back to the days of 8-bit PC adventure titles. The representation of Junji’s short stories are present here with bite sized RPG stories that have fantastic art and atmosphere.

Runner-Ups

Videoverse

Sea of Stars

Cocoon

Gravity Circuit

2023 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Best Graphics, Technical

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/02/2024

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We are getting further and further away from the previous generation, but developers don’t want to just let it go. Developing for the Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4 is holding a lot of games back and very few have made the full jump to next-gen only. Until These consoles are finally abandoned this trend will continue.

Alan Wake II

Alan Wake II is one of the few true next-gen titles that isn’t being held back by the previous generation. It melts PC cards and not a single one can run the game with the path-tracing at 60FPS right now even with frame generation technology. It looks gorgeous and is a taste of what is to come.

Runner-Ups

Forza Motorsport

Resident Evil 4

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

Final Fantasy XVI

2023 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Best New Character

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/02/2024

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New characters are something a lot of gamers look forward to. Whether it’s a reboot of an already beloved character or someone who slam dunks their personality onto the gaming world for all to adore and cherish.

Cid – Final Fantasy XVI

So, Cid is not technically a new character, but he is a different character in every entry and is only familiar in name only. Cid this time around is portrayed by a fantastic voice actor and he dominates the screen. He has a ton of personality and is a very interesting character to watch and develop.