I just finished up watching The Game Awards 2015 live and this time, I wasn’t laughing for the wrong reasons.
Hosted and produced by Geoff Keighley and co hosted by iJustine (famous YouTuber), The Game Awards went live on December 3rd. The event had a lot of industry giants. And also Shakeel o’Neil. And Mark Hamill, Troy Baker, Kiefer Sutherland, Conan O’Brian and many more international stars. Pete Hines, of Bethesda, was also present and announced a one million dollar raffle for everyone who plays Elder Scrolls Online between now and sometime in January. There was also some pretty decent music from The Chvrches and Deadmau5 (Dead Mouse) and an extra ordinary performance of Quiet’s theme by Stefanie Joosten.
I enjoyed. It was nowhere near as polished as an awards ceremony should be, they were several hiccups and even some major ones. Jade Raymond, ex-Ubisoft producer and current EA employee was on stage to announce the award for best performance and mixed up the announcement. In her defense, it looked like the card she had in her hand was faulty. There was also a controversial reveal as Geoff announced that Hideo Kojima couldn’t make it to the show as Konami had put some legal restrictions on him, further fueling the Konami-Kojima feud.
On the bright side, The Game Awards this year were strongly focused on games. I still haven’t forgotten what a hilarious nightmare VGX 2013 was.
There were some really good world premiers, with Telltale games making their presence known, with two new reveals (wouldn’t you like to know *enter evil grin here*). Battlefront was discussed, Far Cry Primal got a new gameplay trailer, (starring Toothie my new pet Sabretooth). Battlefront was discussed again. Rocket League got a new ‘kinda-sorta’ world premier and then, of course, there were the awards. Battlefield again (yea, EA weren’t subtle). There was also a special tribute to the great Satoru Iwata, ex CEO of Nintendo, who passed away earlier this year in July. It was much appreciated by everyone all around. Overall a significantly good step forward for the show. Although, I personally felt Geoff could have smiled a bit more.
I will save my impressions, my praises and my complaints for a later article. For now, here is list of all the awards, reveals, and whatever that Rockband thing was supposed to be.
World Premiers/Trailers/DLCs
- ‘New Super Secret DLC’ for Goat Simulator.
- First look at ‘Where the water tastes like wine’ probably a card game, from Dim Bulb games, the people behind Gone Home.
- World Premier trailer for Kung Fury Street Rage for the PS4 and Steam.
- World Premier trailer for Tomb Raider’s first story DLC; Baba Yaga.
- Brand new trailer for Uncharted 4, introducing a new character.
- Batman by Telltale games.
- Brand new world premier trailer for Far Cry Primal.
- World premier trailer for Star Citizen.
- New trailer for LEGO Marvel’s Avengers.
- Announcement trailer for Psyconauts 2.
- New trailer for Quantum Break.
- Announcement trailer(or skit?) for Rockband VR.
- World Premier trailer for Shadow Complex Remastered.
- World Premier trailer(rather a teaser) for Rocket League on Xbox One.
- World Premier trailer for The Walking Dead: Michonne from Telltale games.
I am sorry, I just had to put the announcements before the awards. Because Batman. I am on the verge of standing up and singing a song about why this could be Telltale’s best game ever but I am gonna save that for a later article. For now, I will get to the awards. Keep in mind, not all awards were announced on stage. Some of them were just mentioned in the passing, probably due to time restriction, so pardon us if we missed any.
Here are the winners:
- Best Family Game: Super Mario Maker.
- Best Fighting Game: Mortal Kombat X.
- Best Multiplayer: Splatoon.
- Best e-sports team: Optic Gaming.
- Best Narrative: Her Story.
- Trending Gamer: Greg Miller.
- Best Indie Game: Rocket League.
- Best Sports Racing Game: Rocket League.
- Developer of the year: CD Projekt Red (The Witcher 3)
- Best Art Direction: Ori and the black forest.
- Industry Icon: Westwood Studios (Brett Sperry and Louis Castle).
- Best Action Adventure Game: Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain (Also starring, the Konami-Kojima issue).
- Best Performance: Viva Siefert, for Her Story (Also starring, Jade Raymond’s innocent mistake).
- Best RPG: The Witcher 3.
- Game of the Year: The Witcher 3.
We decided not to put in the nominations to avoid a clutter. You can find out the nominees and everything else at the official The Game Awards website.
We will be back with our impressions of The Game Awards 2015 soon but that is all for today folks. Hope you have a gamey day ahead!
