I don't know if it's only me, And I always hate the "video games sucked this year" guy. So I wanted to ask everyone to be sure
But I really can't help but think gaming fell flat this year.
It really seems like last year we had such a high of quality games. Red Dead Redemption 2 redefined what we thought of realism in an open world sandbox game. It completely blew up the gaming universe. Pure unfiltered amazingness. And won so many GOTY awards and then God of War and Spiderman turned their franchises into a place they were destined to go. Just impeccable adventure games from Sony. From Shadow of the Tomb Raider to games like Far Cry 5. Just so many heavy hitting incredible games.
This year, the game of the year contenders for the video game awards are Death Stranding (One of the most disappointing games since No Mans Sky, maybe even worst since it was by Kojima and everyone had high hopes for a silent hill caliber or maybe a MGS caliber entry into the long running legacy of Kojima greatness. Instead we got a UPS simulator where you take on the task of playing as a post apocalytpic delivery man who has to walk 200 miles and initiate 3 cut scenes to fast travel as if that made any sense, with such mundane game mechanics as traveling empty desolate roads for hours on end to deliver things per quest requirement. Truly a shame. Then Hideo has the nerve and sheer audacity to say "It's not my fault Americans play FPS and can't appreciate a real game, they are too stupid to understand good games. It's not that I made a mediocre game. Its Americans only like shooters and shooters dominate the american market" type of childish blame shifting. Of course not verbatim. But that's essentially what he was poking at. When games like Pokemon and Spiderman massively appealed to our masses and aren't shooters at all. Games like BOTW. I lost plenty of respect for that man. I wish he could accept criticisms with the same tact that the producers of the sonic movie did. And not like an 8 year old boy.
Smash Ultimate is really great, But it's kind of odd a party game is in the running. It's very rare plot driven games take the back seat in GOTY runnings to games like Smash or Mario Kart. But the well ran dry for the big cinematic entries after Crackdown flopped, ghost of tshushima got delayed as did TLOU 2. Outer Worlds which is a fantastic Fallout esq game that I loved a lot
. It's the one I think is worthy of the list. I think it would have my vote.
Outer Worlds was like a golden beacon of hope in a sea of micro transaction EA games and delays from Sony.
2017 we had BOTW, Odyssey, Horizon Zero Dawn, Cuphead.
2018 we had GOW, Spiderman, RDR2
just pure gold.
This year we got a few flops, Luigi's Mansion 3 and a Resident Evil 2 remake.
I could just be bitter because TLOU 2 got delayed again. But who else thinks this year was pretty cold and lonely for gamers?