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2021 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Best Voice Acting

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/13/2021

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Voice acting is essential for cinematic story-driven games, but the good voice acting is even more important. The acting can’t just be good though it needs to match the character, give it life, and bring out the other half of what makes a character memorable. We’re far from the days of the original Resident Evil, but there are still many games with good yet forgettable acting and just plain bad voice acting.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Rift Apart wins out due to the unhuman nature of getting the characters across. Ratchet & Clank has always had great acting since the first game, but this time around each character just nails it perfectly and it feels like a Pixar movie. Each character comes to life in their voice, they show emotion, excitement, anger, and sadness. Emotion is a huge part in voice acting and it can be hard to pull off without sounding fake. Many games this year featured great voice acting so this was a hard one.

Runner-Ups

Deathloop

Far Cry 6

Life is Strange: True Colors

The Medium

2021 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Best Graphics, Technical

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/13/2021

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Games can stun us with their tech even if they aren’t very colorful or artsy. These games push hardware to their limits or do something new with clever engines. Lighting, textures, models, physics, cloth, water, reflections, and everything else that makes us want those dozens of graphics options to tinker with. These games make you want a new TV, monitor, graphics card, or next-gen console.

Forza Horizon 5

Forza Horizon 5 may be similar to Horizon 4, but the engine has been pushed further and it looks absolutely stunning. Amazing textures, car models, water effects, and lush trees and reflections. There were many technically impressive games this year, mostly taking advantage of AI anti-aliasing and ray-tracing, but we’ve seen that stuff already.

Runner-Ups

Resident Evil Village

Far Cry 6

Deathloop

Halo Infinite

2021 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Best Graphics, Artistic

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/13/2021

Posted in: 2021, Game of the Year Awards. Leave a comment

Art is probably the single most important aspect of graphics. While a game can look great on a technical level, not all games are artsy. Sometimes not-so-impressive tech can be countered with beautiful art. There are a lot of games that come to mind that many consider interactive art, and many games this year were quite impressive in this category.

Psychonauts 2

Psychonauts 2 was more than a decade in the making and the visual style of the game is like none other. The character design, squiggly lines, and overall unique aesthetic looks like Psychonauts should. When you see just a shot from a level you know it’s from this game due to the amazing art that went into it. While not super impressive in tech it sure makes up for it in color.

Runner-Ups

Chicory: A Colorful Tale

Kena: Bridge of Spirits

Lost in Random

Happy Game

2021 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Best New Character

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/13/2021

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This category has been absent for a while, but there were quite a few new and memorable characters this year from big-budget franchises and smaller games. From memes to sex icons to cosplay and fan art. A great new character is usually widely talked about and remembered.

Lady Demitriscu – Resident Evil Village

Lady Demitriscu isn’t just a new fetish for tall vampire ladies or those with mommy issues, but she’s a brooding violent and intimidating character with lots of personality. She is striking in her outfit, vampire powers, and the Mr. X style stalking in the game. Her voice actress is great and despite her short screen time, she is the most memorable character of the year.

Runner-Ups

Rivet – Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Colt Vahn – Deathloop

Giovanna – Guilty Gear -STRIVE-

Kena – Kena: Bridge of Spirits

2021 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Most Exciting Return

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/13/2021

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Long-term hiatus is never a good thing, but sometimes it can be good for the series development-wise. Many game franchises skip generations or decades. Usually, these tend to be first-party titles that fans cry out for to return, but the publishers turn a deaf ear.

Metroid Dread

Metroid games have released every few years, but this is the first time a new original 2D Metroid game has released since 2002’s Metroid Fusion on GameBoy Advance. Nearly two decades! Fans also want a new Metroid Prime game, and while that’s been quietly being developed, we got a pinball game, a forgettable new FPS, and a couple of remakes in between. This was a huge event for Metroid fans and the game held up fairly well. While there are some gripes it’s worthy of being in the Metroid franchise.

Runner-Ups

Diablo II: Resurrected

Halo Infinite

Psychonauts 2

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

2021 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Worst Game Launch

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/12/2021

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A bad game launch doesn’t mean the game is bad or that it can’t be improved upon. Usually, the core design is fine, but there are plenty of bugs, glitches, crashes, or overall the game is unplayable on a technical level. These are more common in the age of patches and internet-ready consoles and developers pushing unfinished games out to patch them out later.

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition

Fundamentally GTA Trilogy isn’t a bad game, but it is unplayable. Who thought it was a good idea to port mobile games over to consoles anyways? Since the game launched there have been a few major patches to make the game more playable, but the game seriously needed another year in development. The games don’t look like they should, missing models and textures, horrible lighting effects, crashes, bugs, missions that can’t be finished. The list goes on and on. Grove Street Games has a lot of work to do to make these games worth buying.

Runner-Ups

Battlefield 2042

Deathloop

Diablo II: Resurrected

Forza Horizon 5

2021 Game of the Year Awards — Genre Awards — Best Multi-Platform

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/12/2021

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Multi-platform games are great because usually, everyone has access to them somewhere. Most of the big AAA titles are released on multiple systems from third-party developers and usually tend to be some of the best-selling games of all time. This year had a lot of great multi-platform titles spread across current and last generation systems.

Resident Evil Village

Resident Evil Village is just an amazing action and horror game. While it’s my favorite Resident Evil since RE4, the game introduced great new characters, fun levels, crazy monster designs, and some actual God damn scares! The gun play felt good, the visuals were fantastic, and while the game felt a little static and lonley, it just started and ended really well.

Runner-Ups

Hitman 3

Far Cry 6

Back 4 Blood

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy

2021 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Least Evolved Sequel

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/12/2021

Posted in: 2021, Game of the Year Awards, Microsoft Consoles, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S. Leave a comment

A brand new category was introduced this year. Sequels need to take accountability for not evolving or changing anything. Sometimes you don’t fix what’s not broken, but you still need to add something. There are plenty of sequels released year after year that doesn’t change enough to justify the cost or just exist.

Call of Duty: Vanguard

While Modern Warfare 2019 was a fantastic game and brought the series back to its roots it quickly slid downhill and doesn’t seem to be stopping. Battlefield was successful and bringing the series back to the past, but Call of Duty: WWII was mediocre, and Vanguard doesn’t seem to be much better. While the story campaign is entertaining yet forgettable, I remember the campaign from Modern Warfare 2019 and played through it twice. It was very entertaining and well done. The multiplayer in Vanguard is the most disappointing part. Copied and pasted from the last two entries while shoving some Overwatch stuff in like Plays-of-the-Game and points for voting on the MVP. While the game looks fantastic and plays well we still get ho-hum maps, and lame Zombies mode that takes the best parts out, and just one of the worst games in the series in a long while.

Runner-Ups

Battlefield 2042

Far Cry 6

Halo Infinite

Forza Horizon 5

2021 Game of the Year Awards — Achievement Awards — Best Most Disappointing Game

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/12/2021

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This is an award you don’t want to get. There were quite a few disappointing games this year and not all of them were due to launch bugs and issues. Some were just plain bad from the drawing board. It takes real talent to make a bad game and not see it coming as you make it, but some of these turds really shined this year.

Balan Wonderworld

Yuji Naka isn’t a very talented developer. He got lucky with Sonic and hasn’t made a single good game since. In the 30 years he’s developed games he’s released turd after turd and just doesn’t learn his lesson. Balan Wonderworld didn’t have launch bugs or glitches, didn’t have broken servers, but a broken game. Being the most simplistic and insulting gameplay ever imaginable as playing the entire game with a single button feels like it’s designed for toddlers. There’s no challenge, it isn’t fun, and the entire game from the core is just a big fat turd. How did this even happen?

Runner-Ups

Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood

Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition

Biomutant

2021 Game of the Year Awards — Genre Awards — Best RPG

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/12/2021

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RPGs tell some of the best stories in gaming and weave some of the most complicated and beloved character arcs. Some of the most treasured games and franchises are RPGs. Whether it’s a Western RPG like Mass Effect or Fallout or an Eastern one like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest there’s something here for everyone to love. This was a strong year for JRPGs in particular. Many franchises considered tired and trite pushed new grounds and broke out of their comfort zone.

Shin Megami Tensei V

Shin Megami Tensei V is the best the series has to offer and some of Atlus’ finest work. A fantastically woven story, fun and wonderful demons to collect, and the game can be as easy as pie or as hard as nails thanks to multiple difficulty options for all players. Lots of dialog, great visuals, and memorable characters pepper the game throughout creating one of the best RPGs of the decade and one of the most anticipated in quite some time.