It's almost Game Awards time, remember to be kind! (Thoughts on Game Awards 2022)

     Hi friends, the nominees for the Game Awards came out last week, so today, as I always do, I would love to talk just a bit about nominations. The impressive thing about bringing the whole games community together for one night, as Geoff Keighley always talks about, is that honestly it seems like most people have something to be upset about. In talking about these different nominations, I want to talk about right off the bat how very little this means. There are tons of award shows and it's always a completely subjective matter, meaning that even if your favorite game of the year didn't win any awards, that's still your favorite game, and really there is no need to apply any logic to it. Sometimes a game will just completely click with you, and when that happens, it's great, even if you can't explain why that is. Control was my favorite game of 2019, and even though it didn't play that well on PS4, there were so many cool things in that game that it stuck with me long after the credits rolled. I just have to start this post off in this way, since I've already seen so many people angry for some games getting nominated while their favorites were snubbed for every category. Again, the awards don't matter, they're just a little fun thing, so it's best to try to enjoy! With that in mind, I'm going to dive in and cover just a few of the categories here, I won't go into all of them, or we'd all be here all day.

    We'll start out with the big award here, Game of the Year. I feel like this is an interesting category typically, because it's important to see how many awards each of the games here are nominated for. The nominees are (listed in alphabetical order, which is how the site has them listed), A Plague Tale: Requiem, Elden Ring, God of War Ragnarok, Horizon Forbidden West, Stray, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Honestly I would have been very surprised if Elden Ring, God of War, and Horizon didn't show up on this list, and I'm glad that the buzz around Xenoblade was enough to get it a nomination, as I've heard great things about it, though I haven't played it myself. A Plague's Tale Requiem is a game that I've only heard whispers of, and even though I have the first game, I have never played it. It definitely sounds like a neat narrative puzzle game with some spookiness to it, but again, I know nothing about it, so it's hard for me to say for sure. Stray is the biggest surprise to me here, as it was reviewed well, but after the game was released, I didn't hear people really talking about it, despite the rampant marketing before its launch during Sony's State of Play presentations. It's an indie game where you play as a cat, and I heard that it's surprisingly emotional, but I can't say from personal experience, because I haven't played it yet. It's always exciting to get these indie games nominated, because it shows just how many cool ideas are out there, and It Takes Two (an Indie game made by Hazelight Studios even though it was published by by EA) actually took home the big trophy of the night last year.

    I'm going to jump ahead here to talk about the Best Performance category. I think that this was actually the toughest award for me to make up my mind on, because there are just so many talented actors and voices in video games now, it's insane. The nominees are: Ashley Burch (Aloy in Horizon Forbidden West), Charlotte McBurney (for A Plague Tale: Requiem), Christopher Judge (Kratos in God of War Ragnarok), Manon Gage (for Immortality), and Sunny Suljic (Atreus in God of War Ragnarok). Again, I haven't played A Plague Tale or Immortality, but I'm sure that both of the actresses did a fantastic job with the characters that they portrayed in those games. For me, I was just torn between Aloy, Kratos, and Atreus. Aloy is just a fantastic character who is brought to life perfectly by Burch, to the point where I really just got to the end of the first game so I could see what was next for Aloy, even though I wasn't crazy about the game as a whole. Kratos and Atreus, on the other hand, have both grown and changed in such huge ways from the end of God of War (2018), and none of that character development could have been done without the huge strides made by the actors involved in the game. Honestly, I would have loved to see even more nominees here, with Lance Riddick as Sylens in Horizon Forbidden West and Danielle Bisutti as Freya in God of War Ragnarok. I could have nominated so many people from both of these games, honestly, but that would be getting into spoiler territory in a lot of cases. I'm at a point where I actually know who voice actors are, so I'm constantly rooting for the best for all of them.

    I have a bone to pick with the Best Fighting game nominees this year. I'm sure all of these games are fantastic, but the nominees are: DNF Duel, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure All Star Battle R, The King of Fighters XV, Multiversus, and Sifu. I have to be honest and say that the only one that I've played here is Multiversus, because of the likeness to Super Smash Bros, as well as the crossover appeal that I always love. The only one I have a concern with is Sifu, because based on what I've seen, I wouldn't call that a fighting game, it is much more like a beat-em-up mixed with an RPG skill tree. It seems like a pretty awesome game based on what I've heard, and it deserves to be here for sure, but I certainly wouldn't have put it in the Fighting games category. I also have this issue with Triangle Strategy, because it was nominated for Best RPG, even though it is clearly a Strategy game, and Best Sim/Strategy game was already a category. I'm glad that these games are being nominated for categories, but I'm just confused at how some of these games are chosen for categories that don't seem the best place for them. To be clear, Sifu is also nominated for Best Action game, which I feel is where it should have been in the first place, but you do technically fight in the game, so I guess I can understand the reasoning of the panel. 

    To wrap up this little mini discussion, I'd like to discuss the announcements that we could potentially see as part of the Game Awards. Nintendo hasn't done much of anything for the show in the last several years, so I'm not holding my breath here, but in the past, we did get the reveal of Joker for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, as well as Sephiroth another year. We also got the trailer for the Master Cycle DLC in Breath of the Wild as part of this show, so maybe Nintendo will bring a new trailer for Tears of the Kingdom, but I'm definitely doubting that anything like that will be happening. I feel like it's definitely possible that we could get a new trailer for the Mario movie, after the Sonic 2 trailer that we got last year! I think it's fair to say that if there is any possible DLC for Elden Ring in the works, we'll be seeing it here if it's far enough along to show anything, though who knows what that DLC could even look like. Last year, we got a look at Suicide Squad Kills the Justice League at this show, so it's possible that we could see some more footage of the game before it's slated to be released next year. I don't expect to see any of Insomniac's Spider Man 2 or Wolverine games, but I would love to be wrong about that, as I'm super excited for those! Honestly there are so many games coming out soon that I would love to have a spot at this show, but we'll just have to wait until December 8 before we know for certain what we'll see!

    Thanks so much for reading this little prediction post for the Game Awards, friends. I think it's going to be a fun show as long as we all don't put too much stock into the concept of the awards as a whole, and instead just look at it as a celebration of all of the great games that have come out in the past year. It's also an important part of the event to be excited for all of the new things that are announced and updated as part of this show, of course. All I want for the spectacle we see here to include Reggie Fils-Aime coming back to present this year, and I hope he will! Thanks again for reading, friends, and happy day after Thanksgiving! I'm thankful for you all and I'll talk to you again soon! This is Jonathan, the Self Proclaimed Awards speculator, reminding you to please not take the awards too seriously and I hope you all have a great week!