LogFAQs > #948198761

Like, at worst The Last of Us 2 was a 7/10 game. It was fine. If you want to talk about how the competition was rigged or seethe at how "hypocritical" Naughty Dog are for some reason, you should probably chill out.

I do think that Animal Crossing or Doom Eternal were more representative of this year in gaming though. Doom Eternal is heralding a new wave of nuts-to-butts action shooters, which you could see with some of the Game Award announcements they had. Animal Crossing was a salve the world needed in the wake of this pandemic. I think it would have been a lot more fun to have some Doom or Animal Crossing appreciation, especially seeing as Doom kept getting snubbed in favour of TLoU.

But I do think The Last of Us is a monumental achievement in gaming. It looks and sounds great, I genuinely love Ellie and Dinah's relationship and it was a great game to play with a friend by passing the controller back and forth. The plot switcharoo and epilogue soured the experience for me, but I appreciate its ambition and I did enjoy Ellie and Dinah a lot. It's not at all perfect, but it's definitely overhated and it deserves recognition for its ambition and its accomplishments. It isn't any skin off my back for it to get the Game Awards GOTY.

Idealistically, it doesn't matter what got the Game of the Year award. There have been so many amazing games to play this year, and the GOTY award doesn't diminish the games that didn't win. I think it's more productive to discuss the games that made this year in gaming stand out, whether they were nominated for an award or not.

Cynically, The Game Awards are a 3 hour long ad campaign for upcoming games, and I think Geoff Keighley rushing through 4-5 game awards to get to the next Worldwide Premiere is evidence of that. The GOTY award only means something if you ascribe it value, and for as hollow and corporate as the Game Awards are, I don't think anyone should be taking it seriously - whether it was Doom Eternal, The Last of Us or Animal Crossing, the title of Game of the Year doesn't actually mean anything. It's an arbitrary award handed down by an arbitrary outlet, and it literally only means as much as you're willing to put into it.

Frankly, we shouldn't be putting any stock into Game of the Year awards from any corporate publication, whether it be Geoff Keighley's Game Awards or IGN or GameSpot. What matters are the outlets and personalities you trust, even if you don't necessarily agree with their final pick. Two people I follow are George Weidman/Super Bunnyhop and Vinny from Vinesauce - I trust their judgement and respect their opinion on games, so I put stock in what they have to say. That will always mean more than what the Geoff Keighley Game Awards have to say.

So in short - whether it was TLoU2 or any other AAA blockbuster game, the Game of the Year award would have been a hollow corporate placard at best. The only game that might have actually benefitted from it would have been Hades, everything else that could have resulted from this would have been a corporate pissing match. I would have preferred Doom Eternal or AC, but The Last of Us 2 is perfectly fine on its own, and I'm secure in my video game opinions whether it won Game of the Year or not. Don't let it rule your life, and uplift the games you feel are worthy of recognition instead of trying to drag something else down. Chill.

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Make it through this year, if it kills you outright.
Now Playing: Persona 5, Minecraft, Hyrule Warriors