The Developers' Choice Awards!
The Oscars are next week. Not long after are the Developers' Choice Awards, the closest thing the commercial videogame industry has to the Oscars. (No, I'm not counting SpikeTV's utterly patronizing annual Video Game Awards Show.)
The IGDA has announced the nominees, so I'm going to add my two cents.
BEST GAME
Animal Crossing: Wild World
God of War
Guitar Hero
Shadow of the Colossus
The Movies
For me, it comes down to Guitar Hero and Shadow of the Colossus. God of War was a dull genre exercise, regardless of its ultra slick production value. The Movies... eh. Cool concept, and I admit to having not played the game. But I get the feeling they nominated it simply for diversity's sake. And Animal Crossing is great, but it's just the same thing we saw on the Gamecube + online. In terms of games that appeared out of the ether and managed to make big artistic statements through sheer force of personality, I think Guitar Hero and Shadow are the only real stand-outs.
Between the two of them... hell, I dunno. I might edge more towards Guitar Hero simply because it, at the end of the day, is probably less flawed than Shadow. Shadow reaches for the sky and stumbles a bit. Guitar Hero has very few faults. Still though, both these games distinguish themselves by putting emotion at the center of the experience. One is about making you feel the magic of performing music. The other is about feeling the sweat, agony, and exhilaration of living a myth. Both are utterly human experiences, which is unusual for games.
AUDIO
Call of Duty 2
Electroplankton
God of War
Guitar Hero
Project Gotham Racing 3
Er... Electroplankton, I guess? Seriously, this category confuses me. Is it innovation in sound usage? Is it the technical proficiency? Is it the quality of the emotional experience the sound helps create? I guess I'd give Call of Duty 2 technical props, and Electroplankton innovation. But overall I guess I'd go with Guitar Hero here as well. In terms of combining all the aspects I mentioned into a cohesive, meaningful whole, I don't think there's much of a contest here.
CHARACTER DESIGN
City of Villains
God of War
Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath
Psychonauts
Shadow of the Colossus
Ack! Shadow or Psychonauts? God of War, again, is strictly an example of slickness over imagination. Oddworld and City of Villains have more flair, but not like nothing we've ever seen before. Shadow is a no-brainer champion in terms of sheer artistry: the colossi are triumphs of imagination. But, on the other hand, so is the Pixar-worthy cast of Psychonauts.
If I have to choose, I suppose I'd go with Shadow. Psychonauts is awesome, but no more awesome than what Tim Schafer's done before. I doubt we'll see anything that matches the majesty of those colossi in a game any time in the near future.
GAME DESIGN
Animal Crossing: Wild World
God of War
Nintendogs
Psychonauts
Shadow of the Colossus
Nintendogs. Hands down.
Same story again with God of War. Psychonauts's level design was, I still say, rather pedestrian give the awesome potency of its concepts. Shadow was an impressive argument for minimalism and non-linearity, but I don't think it out-shadows the "Holy shit, why didn't I think of that!" quality of Nintendogs. Shadow merely stretched conventional game design concepts to their limit, but Nintendogs transcended them.
TECHNOLOGY
Battlefield 2: Modern Combat
Guitar Hero
Nintendogs
Project Gotham Racing 3
Shadow of the Colossus
Guitar Hero, Nintendogs, and Shadow strike me as the leaders here. I admit I don't know much about Battlefield 2 or PGM3, so they might be doing some amazing under-the-hood stuff I'm not aware of. But there's not much on the surface to indicate it. Shadow, on the other hand, screams hardware-twisting magic at a mere glance. I think we can forgive a little pop-up considering the developers somehow managed to squeeze a game from 10 years in the future onto the PS2. Guitar Hero isn't amazing graphically, but you have to admit you've probably never seen a better use of a specialized controller. Then of course there's Nintendogs, which transforms the Nintendo DS stylus from a cheap gimmick into the best videogame interface since the invention the analog stick.
I'd probably have to go with Nintendogs on this one. Shadow and Guitar Hero's achievements are just more impressive examples of what we've seen before. But Nintendogs feels like a revelatory marriage of software and hardware.
VISUAL ARTS
God of War
Project Gotham Racing 3
Resident Evil 4
Shadow of the Colossus
We Love Katamari
Shadow of the Colossus. Nothing else is a contender.
Okay, RE4 was pretty damn good. The way it realized its rural-gothic setting was effective in ways that horror games (including all the previous Resident Evil games) rarely achieve. God of War? Zzzzzzzzzz. Katamari rocks, sure, but we saw the same thing last year. None of these games approach the sum total impression left by Shadow's powerhouse visual design. If Michelangelo painted a fucking videogame, it would look like Shadow of the Colossus. End of story.
WRITING
Freedom Force vs. The 3rd Reich
God of War
Indigo Prophecy
Jade Empire
Psychonauts
I don't really have much of a preference here. I typically find the writing category a travesty, considering what passes for "writing" in videogames. This is the closest thing there is to a Best Story award, and none of the games I played this years that impressed me narratively are on this list. God of War is competent but unimpressive. Jade Empire, while I didn't play much if it, seemed about the same level as KOTOR: good, but not amazing. Freedom Force might be a contender if you count for comedy, but if it's anything like the original it's not much more than a big running gag. Indigo Prophecy at least aspires to something better, but it becomes so obnoxiously self-congratulatory in the process it undoes itself.
Out of all these I'd have to go with Psychonauts. Schafer's eccentric grasp of character and dialogue would be right at home in the next Pixar movie. However, if I could supply my own list I'd have gone with Dragon Quest VIII. It has snappy dialogue (translated, no less!) and a story that breaths real life back into the waning console RPG genre.
The IGDA has announced the nominees, so I'm going to add my two cents.
BEST GAME
Animal Crossing: Wild World
God of War
Guitar Hero
Shadow of the Colossus
The Movies
For me, it comes down to Guitar Hero and Shadow of the Colossus. God of War was a dull genre exercise, regardless of its ultra slick production value. The Movies... eh. Cool concept, and I admit to having not played the game. But I get the feeling they nominated it simply for diversity's sake. And Animal Crossing is great, but it's just the same thing we saw on the Gamecube + online. In terms of games that appeared out of the ether and managed to make big artistic statements through sheer force of personality, I think Guitar Hero and Shadow are the only real stand-outs.
Between the two of them... hell, I dunno. I might edge more towards Guitar Hero simply because it, at the end of the day, is probably less flawed than Shadow. Shadow reaches for the sky and stumbles a bit. Guitar Hero has very few faults. Still though, both these games distinguish themselves by putting emotion at the center of the experience. One is about making you feel the magic of performing music. The other is about feeling the sweat, agony, and exhilaration of living a myth. Both are utterly human experiences, which is unusual for games.
AUDIO
Call of Duty 2
Electroplankton
God of War
Guitar Hero
Project Gotham Racing 3
Er... Electroplankton, I guess? Seriously, this category confuses me. Is it innovation in sound usage? Is it the technical proficiency? Is it the quality of the emotional experience the sound helps create? I guess I'd give Call of Duty 2 technical props, and Electroplankton innovation. But overall I guess I'd go with Guitar Hero here as well. In terms of combining all the aspects I mentioned into a cohesive, meaningful whole, I don't think there's much of a contest here.
CHARACTER DESIGN
City of Villains
God of War
Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath
Psychonauts
Shadow of the Colossus
Ack! Shadow or Psychonauts? God of War, again, is strictly an example of slickness over imagination. Oddworld and City of Villains have more flair, but not like nothing we've ever seen before. Shadow is a no-brainer champion in terms of sheer artistry: the colossi are triumphs of imagination. But, on the other hand, so is the Pixar-worthy cast of Psychonauts.
If I have to choose, I suppose I'd go with Shadow. Psychonauts is awesome, but no more awesome than what Tim Schafer's done before. I doubt we'll see anything that matches the majesty of those colossi in a game any time in the near future.
GAME DESIGN
Animal Crossing: Wild World
God of War
Nintendogs
Psychonauts
Shadow of the Colossus
Nintendogs. Hands down.
Same story again with God of War. Psychonauts's level design was, I still say, rather pedestrian give the awesome potency of its concepts. Shadow was an impressive argument for minimalism and non-linearity, but I don't think it out-shadows the "Holy shit, why didn't I think of that!" quality of Nintendogs. Shadow merely stretched conventional game design concepts to their limit, but Nintendogs transcended them.
TECHNOLOGY
Battlefield 2: Modern Combat
Guitar Hero
Nintendogs
Project Gotham Racing 3
Shadow of the Colossus
Guitar Hero, Nintendogs, and Shadow strike me as the leaders here. I admit I don't know much about Battlefield 2 or PGM3, so they might be doing some amazing under-the-hood stuff I'm not aware of. But there's not much on the surface to indicate it. Shadow, on the other hand, screams hardware-twisting magic at a mere glance. I think we can forgive a little pop-up considering the developers somehow managed to squeeze a game from 10 years in the future onto the PS2. Guitar Hero isn't amazing graphically, but you have to admit you've probably never seen a better use of a specialized controller. Then of course there's Nintendogs, which transforms the Nintendo DS stylus from a cheap gimmick into the best videogame interface since the invention the analog stick.
I'd probably have to go with Nintendogs on this one. Shadow and Guitar Hero's achievements are just more impressive examples of what we've seen before. But Nintendogs feels like a revelatory marriage of software and hardware.
VISUAL ARTS
God of War
Project Gotham Racing 3
Resident Evil 4
Shadow of the Colossus
We Love Katamari
Shadow of the Colossus. Nothing else is a contender.
Okay, RE4 was pretty damn good. The way it realized its rural-gothic setting was effective in ways that horror games (including all the previous Resident Evil games) rarely achieve. God of War? Zzzzzzzzzz. Katamari rocks, sure, but we saw the same thing last year. None of these games approach the sum total impression left by Shadow's powerhouse visual design. If Michelangelo painted a fucking videogame, it would look like Shadow of the Colossus. End of story.
WRITING
Freedom Force vs. The 3rd Reich
God of War
Indigo Prophecy
Jade Empire
Psychonauts
I don't really have much of a preference here. I typically find the writing category a travesty, considering what passes for "writing" in videogames. This is the closest thing there is to a Best Story award, and none of the games I played this years that impressed me narratively are on this list. God of War is competent but unimpressive. Jade Empire, while I didn't play much if it, seemed about the same level as KOTOR: good, but not amazing. Freedom Force might be a contender if you count for comedy, but if it's anything like the original it's not much more than a big running gag. Indigo Prophecy at least aspires to something better, but it becomes so obnoxiously self-congratulatory in the process it undoes itself.
Out of all these I'd have to go with Psychonauts. Schafer's eccentric grasp of character and dialogue would be right at home in the next Pixar movie. However, if I could supply my own list I'd have gone with Dragon Quest VIII. It has snappy dialogue (translated, no less!) and a story that breaths real life back into the waning console RPG genre.
posted by Matthew "Sajon" Weise at
6:19 PM
4 Comments:
I do think RE4 could probably give SotC a run for its money in the visual arts department. While SotC does have some terrific vistas, RE4's sports a bit more variety while maintaining uniform polish, all the way to the design of the menus.
For audio, I'd probably just use "sophistication" as my vague rule-of-thumb. Call of Duty 2 presents decent competition to Guitar Hero for sophistication of audio production, since the role and cohesion of audio in a game isn't really what's being measured here. Many people do tend to take issue with the faithfulness of Guitar Hero's cover songs, although I suspect that it really was as good as anyone could get with Guitar Hero's budget.
As for CoV's nomination of character design, I strongly suspect that it's strengths are measured using a completely different metric from the other games, since it's really about how the game allows players to create such a huge variety of unique and elegant characters, not about any one design per se.
I'm a little disappointed about the omission of Drill Dozer, but games published for old platforms probably have a hard time getting nominated.
By
Philip, at 10:59 PM
On the "Writing" category, I agree with you on two fronts.
1) I would've nominated DQVIII, too! I'm still playing it and have been consistently blown away by both the uncharacteristically amazing voice acting and the great writing. Unfortunately, I didn't pick up this game until after nominations.
2) So instead I nominated Psychonauts! Writing an actually humorous game probably the most difficult feat you can accomplish. But Schafer did it.
By
Darius Kazemi, at 11:00 PM
On the "Writing" category, I agree with you on two fronts.
1) I would've nominated DQVIII, too! I'm still playing it and have been consistently blown away by both the uncharacteristically amazing voice acting and the great writing. Unfortunately, I didn't pick up this game until after nominations.
2) So instead I nominated Psychonauts! Writing an actually humorous game probably the most difficult feat you can accomplish. But Schafer did it.
By
Darius Kazemi, at 11:03 PM
This video should explain Battlefield 2's technical achievements.
This video should explain the previous video.
By
Philip, at 4:54 AM
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