Game Awards 2018

I know, it's been two weeks without a post. The short version is my grandfather passed away and then I caught a cold. On top of that, internet hasn't been working properly and I've been unable to post. So that's been my life lately. Anyway, I watched the game awards live, wrote what I could immediately, and later polished this up. Tallyho.

Pre-show

Geoff Keighly comes out, blahblahblah. Says we're going to get some new trailers. I won't lie, if I didn't have this blog, I'd be here simply for the rumored Dragon Age 4. Also hoping to hear about Alien Blackout.

I think Red Dead Redemption 2 will get game of the year, but I'm pulling for God of War. I'm probably going to sound like I'm complaining about RD2, but I'm not. It will deserve everything that it wins, I'd just like to see some other stuff win as well. It's like when Zelda: Breath of the Wild came out and swept everything. Sure, it's a great game, but I would've liked to see Horizon Zero Dawn and Nioh pick up some more awards. But I digress.

World Premiere Trailer: I don't even know how to describe this. Something from Nintendo. Looks very Tron-like with K-pop style dancing. Not my kind of game.

Josef Fares is introduced. He did A Way Out. I missed what he said.

Okay, the award for best Action Game, it goes to Dead Cells, an indie game. Holy crap that's awesome. I can't believe beat Far Cry 5 and Destiny 2. Awesome. I'd have expected this to go to a AAA title. It's nice to see a good indie beat it. I still haven't played Dead Cells, but it's on my list.

New Trailer: Journey to the Savage Planet. Huh, not enough information to have an impression. Adventure game, you get dropped on a planet by a corporation. Gameplay to be shown next year. So, I guess you can look forward to that.

Another award, best role-playing game. Goes to Monster Hunter World. I haven't played this, but I've heard nothing but good things. I'll get it eventually in a couple years when it's only $20. Completely unrelated to video-games, but I actually understood what the first guy said (in Japanese) so that was cool.

I'm predicting Red Dead 2 cleans up this year, but I'd like to see some more diversity in terms of wins, because this has been a great year for games.

Award, Best Esports team. Cloud 9 wins. Full disclosure, I have no clue what any of this means. Best Esports Game: Overwatch.

Award, Best Esports Event: League of Legends World Championship.

Award, Best Esports Host. Eefje "Sjokz" Depoortere.

Award, Best Esports Coach: Bok "Reapered" Han-gyu.

Award, Best Moment C9 Comeback win. This all may as well be French, because I don't know what any of this is.

New Trailer: The Stanley Parable, mocking all its award nominations, apparently it lost a lot of awards to The Last of Us. It's being re-released for consoles with new content.

Award, Best Student Game: Combat 2018 from Norway. No idea what this is.

New Trailer from an indie studio: Among Trees. Lots of colors, and walking. Looks pretty and boring.

Official show is starting. Oh, holy crap, Shawn Layden, Phil Spencer and Reggie Fils-Aime are all speaking onstage together. Is this the first time that's happened? Oh man, are they going to announce cross play on all systems? That would be huge. Oh, guess not.

Hans Zimmer is playing the orchestra. Damn, that's cool. Side note, I love Orchestra music.

Geoff Keiley comes out on stage.

Award, Best Narrative presented by two YouTubers I've never heard of. I'm betting on RD2, but my vote is God of War. Red Dead 2, yeah. It's probably going to win everything its nominated for.

New Trailer: An MCU Game for the Nintendo Switch, didn't see that coming. Ultimate Alliance 3. Huh, the graphics look very last gen.

Jonah Hill comes onstage, introduces the creator (Visual Concepts) of sports games. NBA2K. I don't play sports games, but I've heard very mixed things about its recent games. Greg Thomas comes onstage. Wow he's tall. Well this speech just keeps on going. And he just invited folks onstage, so this is probably going to keep going. That lack of applause seems pretty damning.

Global Gaming Citizen, I don't know what this is. Okay, looks like it's about disabled gamers and helping people play. That's cool.

Trailer for new Rocket League DLC. I confess I've never played this, but my brother has told me it's amazing. Available tonight apparently.

New clip from Alita: Battle Angel. I'm psyched for this movie. I did a write up on this a few months ago, you can check it out here.

Christoph Waltz and Rosa Salazar presents (they argue about PC versus console. lol) Best Performance. This should go to Christopher Judge as Kratos. Although Yuri Lowenthal was great as Spider-Man. And it goes to Red Dead 2, of course.

My connection dropped, ugh.

Back up, new trailer. I think this is the rumored Far Cry spin-off. Very pink. Honestly, it looks kind of like Rage 2. Far Cry: New Dawn. Yeah, thought so. Oh wow, comes out February. That's quick. I generally like Far Cry, this will probably be good. Hopefully it can scratch that Fallout sized hole in our hearts,

New Trailer: Oh hey, a new Supergiant Games project, wasn't expecting that. Looks like a cross between Bastion and Transistor but with a Greek setting. Hades. Okay, I'm on-board for this. And it's available in early access mode right now, cool.

Panache games, they're doing an open world game set in Africa millions of years ago. Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey. You play as the ancestors of humans, up until the apes evolve into humans. Hooboy, this could go wrong in so many ways. Best comment, Harambe the Game.

Trailer for a racing game, which I don't play. Graphics look good though. It's Forza 4.

So far nothing has really blown me away, but Far Cry: New Dawn has peaked my interest. Far Cry is generally solid, and as I've said before, I'm always down for some post-apocalyptic mayhem. Although Hades has me intrigued.

New Trailer: Space Station, ice planet, oh is this Alien Blackout? The ships look like the arcs from Mass Effect Andromeda. Scavengers, ok. No idea what it is. It's from a new studio called Midwinter. Survival shooter/co-operation game. Not something I'm going to play then.

Award, Brandon Yari from Panic at the Disco presents Best Score/Music. I won't lie, I love video game soundtracks. Red Dead Redemption 2. Is ANYTHING else going to win? Probably not.

Award, Best Audio Design: Red Dead Redemption 2

Award, Art Direction: Return of Obra Din

Award, Best Mobile Game: Florence

Award, AR/VR Game: Astrobot Rescue Mission. Other Than Red Dead, I've never heard of these.

Warframe is coming to Nintendo Switch. I've never played this. I'm pretty sure it's Free-to-Play.

Dedicated Servers are coming to Dead by Daylight, whatever that means. And there's a trailer for a new piece of DLC.

Casey Hudson is here, finally. I guess we're going to see some more of Anthem. Fingers crossed for Dragon Age 4. Says "we have a few surprises left." I think this is supposed to be Anthem's story trailer; and it told us nothing. I'm trying to root for this game, but man I don't have a lot of confidence in it. The trailer ends, very light applause, not a good sign. Well that was disappointing.

Crash Bandicoot is here, is this Crash Team Racing? It is. Nice. June 21, 2019.

Suny Soljec and Christopher Judge come on stage. Yes, please just say "boy" once. That's all I want. Judge says it, I'm happy. The Content Creator of the Year is Ninja. I looked this guy up, apparently, he makes $500,000 a month streaming Fortnite. Good Lord, what am I doing with my life?

The designers of the original Fallout are here, and they just announced a new game. You have my attention. The devs from New Vegas are involved, really interested now. It just occurred to me this will probably be an Xbox Exclusive since Microsoft bought Obsidian. New IP called The Outer Worlds, looks kind of like Borderlands, but with the bonus of not giving Randy Pitchford money. Oh no, it's for PS4 too! This is going on my to-watch list.

New Trailer for what looks like Overwatch with dragons. Dauntless, huh. Again, not my thing.

Another Global Gaming Citizen.

Joel McHale is coming out I guess.

New Trailer: Something from Hello Games. Don't know what this is.

Joel McHale is back onstage, more Esports. Best Esports Player - SonicFox. Sorry, I wasn't really paying attention for this

New Trailer: PubG. They really aren't advertising my type of game tonight. That's fine, but it makes it harder for me to care.

Two members of Weezer bring out the composer for Devil May Cry, a musical number starts up. This is where I ran out to switch up my laundry. I came back to a trailer for a pirate game. Atlas, new MMO apparently.

Advertisement with Terry Crews. I assume this is Crackdown 3. Yep, Crackdown 3. The world needs more Terry Crews.

Award, Best Debut Indie Game: The Messenger

Award, Best Fighting Game: Dragonball Fighterz

Award, Best Family Game: Overcooked 2

Award, Best Strategy Game: Into the Breach. This looks like a game I would play if it was released for the PlayStation

New Trailer, BioWare. You have my attention. A voice says, "I suspect you have questions." #TheDreadWolfRises. YES!!!!!!! I did a write up on what I'd like to see in the next Dragon Age game a while ago. You can read about it here.

Award, Best Indie Game. I'm guessing Dead Cells wins. Oh, Celeste wins. I called that wrong.

New Trailer: The Pathless, huh, no idea what this is.

More songs.

The creators of Stranger Things are coming out for a trailer. A Stranger Things game done in retro style. Hell yes.

Looks like a new Mortal Kombat game. Yup, Mortal Kombat Game

Award, Best Sports/Racing game - Forza Horizon 4

New Trailer - Psychonauts? This looks like a new Psychonauts. Oh, wow Psychonauts 2, yeah.

New Trailer for Devil May Cry 5. Certainly, looks action packed. Demo releases December 7.

Another Global Gaming Citizen

Award, Best Game Direction - God of War. Oh hey, nice to see it win something.

New Trailer: Fortnite Season 7

New Trailer: Fortnite, The Block

New Trailer: Some crazy looking shooter. Is this Rage 2? Because it looks AWESOME. Yep, Rage 2. I'm becoming more and more excited for this. We have a release date, May 14, 2019.

Award, Best Ongoing Game: Fortnite, no surprise.

Lost my connection. Argh.

Got it back.

Persona 5 characters will in Smash Bros. Alright. I've never played Persona, but I do love Smash Bros. If anything got me to buy a Switch, it would be Smash Bros. Reggie Fils-Aime being interviewed, didn't hear what he said. Smash Bros looks cool. Another Orchestra comes out to play music.

Okay, here we go for Game of the Year: God of War. WOW! Didn't see that coming. I was hoping, but I assumed it would be Red Dead Redemption 2. Awesome.

Well this was mostly disappointing, but hey, at least Dragon Age 4 is finally official. Be here next week when I explain why a live action Cowboy Bebop show is a terrible idea.