How was 2017’s Game Awards Show!

The 2017 Game Awards is a wonderful heartfelt show where gamers all around the world can come together to share and show our appreciation for games. Each year the show has improved, concentrating more on the games, and less on the show being an appealing presentation for the wider audience. The show is still three hours long, with only a limited number of games, which in turn is swamped with television filler such has; advertising, unnecessary presenter commentary, many words of gratitude from the developers, and the show’s orchestra. Yes, the orchestra delivered an amazing performance, however if the Game Awards was a shorter program, with less filler content it might appeal to the newer, more casual audience. World first announcements, exciting trailers, and showing off the best games of this year can give quite an insight into the gaming world. 

The 2017 game of the year winner: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was much deserved. With both fans and reviewers loving the fun, engaging gameplay, beautiful graphics, creatively enhanced fantasy art style, massive interactive world, and continuing to innovate the Zelda franchise, yet still feeding that childhood nostalgia. Ratings usually over 90% with Metacritic at 97%, with GameSpot and IGN giving it a 10/10. Congratulations on Nintendo’s first game of the year for The Game Awards.

Expectedly, Cuphead from studio MDHR won best art direction. The hand drawn 1930’s comic style was intriguing even when they demonstrated early gameplay at E3. The rarity of a black outline design, filled in with a vibrant, lively, but basic colour scheme, brought this game to life. The animation was mostly smooth, with entertaining and clever 2D movements patterns. Scoring of 86% on Metacritic, IGN giving it an 8.8/10, and GameSpot giving it an 8/10.

When the Best Ongoing game award went to Overwatch, I questioned it. Overwatch from Blizzard Entertainment is my most played game of 2017. A comfort pick if you will, but was it deserved for winning this award. The award category specifies at the bottom quote: “for outstanding development of ongoing content that evolves the player experience over time.”. Overwatch has most definitely demonstrated the ability to produce additional or updated content this year. With new maps, heroes, arcade games, the supplementary Game Browser section, special yearly events, not to mention the developer patches, and if you wish to count the animations, mini comics and Esports support Overwatch ticks the boxes from the checklist. However, Overwatch still feels lacking. Maybe it is the over-expectancy of the dedicated players, the repeating special events of last year, or the players insistently asking for another base gameplay mode. Perhaps I am the minority that recognizes that instead of adding all these extra parts to the game, Overwatch could have put more of their focus into the main game. It was reviewed with 91% on Metacritic, 9/10 on GameSpot, and 9.4/10 on IGN.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard by Capcom won Best VR/AR Game of the year. This game came out so early in the year, (24^th of January to be specific) I had forgotten about the game. Resident Evil 7 was a VR headset system seller. If you were brave enough to put on the headset that is. The story was captivating, beautiful detailed atmosphere, with a constant state of looming suspense. At times the game used the Virtual Reality system to its benefit, offering more immersion to the players, and rarely taking them out of that world. At a time when Virtual Reality was still being delivered to various households, and many games to this day still cause nausea due to its gameplay mechanics and camera movement, this game stood above that all. The game was scored with 86% on Metacritic, 7.9/10 on Gamespot, and 7.7/10 on IGN.

Best Multiplayer Game of 2017 was given to PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG). This game was enjoyably addictive, and more so with friends. PUBG gained popularity with the help of Twitch Live Streaming. The game being quick to start, and simple to play, with downtime in between, made the game easy for the audience to enjoy, keep up with, and allowed Streamer interaction. Working together as a team in PUBG is important. As players struggled to survive, new strategies and tactics were born, especially while in a squad. Player finished the game with their own unique stories, or awesome moments depending on the interactions those players had with other players. Those stories further populated the game with tops of 2.9 million concurrent players. PlayerUnknown’s Battleground is still in Early Access, but is currently rated 86% from Metacritic, 8/10 from GameSpot, 5.0/10 from IGN.

I believe the Game Awards was a success in 2017. The games elected and awarded were fair and justified. We took the time to look back, remember, and appreciate the best games of the year. The Game Awards Show made me proud to be a part of the gaming world.

http://thegameawards.com/awards/