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Well believe it or not we're entering the last quarter of 2017, which means it's time for publications, critics, and fans within the industry alike to start compiling their year-end GOTY lists. Last week the TIGA Games Industry Awards just released their nominee shortlist, which allows for a public vote on Game of the Year, and GamesRadar's own Golden Joystick Awards are totally open to the public in every category. It's no secret that this year has been uncharacteristically strong and diverse for new releases with no clear frontrunners in any one genre, so I thought this would be a good place to discuss just how awesome 2017 has been, as well as discuss all upcoming award venues. Below I'll be sharing the Golden Joystick nominees, as well as my own personal predictions for who will win in each category. This one is open to the public by the way, so you should definitely cast a vote if you haven't done so already! 1. Best Storytelling Horizon: Zero Dawn Nier: Automata Night in the Woods Persona 5 Prey Pyre Tacoma Torment: Tides of Numenera Uncharted: The Lost Legacy What Remains of Edith Finch My Pick: This is a pretty crowded field with some very worthy nominees ranging from three-hour indie games to mega-blockbuster AAAs. I think Nier: Automata takes this category for its inventive, nonlinear storyline. 2. Best Visual Design Cuphead Dishonored 2 Final Fantasy XV Horizon: Zero Dawn Little Nightmares Monument Valley 2 Night in the Woods Persona 5 Zelda: Breath of the Wild My Pick: Honorable mentions to Horizon for its lush hyperreal environments and FFXV for the most lovingly rendered food in video game history, but I think this will go to the ever stylish Persona 5. 3. Best Audio Destiny 2 Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice Horizon: Zero Dawn Life is Strange: Before the Storm Little Nightmares Persona 5 Project Cars 2 Pyre RIME Sniper Elite 4 Tacoma Zelda: Breath of the Wild My Pick: One of the few categories where I think there's a clear-cut winner. Hellblade's use of binaural audio to help simulate the effects of psychosis is truly immersive, terrifying, and revolutionary, and is sure to be emulated in many horror games to come. Everybody needs to experience this game with headphones. 4. Best Gaming Performance Ashly Burch - Horizon: Zero Dawn Brian Bloom - Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus Claudia Black - Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Jack Brand - Resident Evil 7 Kylie Brown - Life is Strange: Before the Storm Melina Juergens - Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice Nathan Fillion - Destiny 2 My Pick: Aloy became the de facto PS4 mascot basically overnight thanks in part to a great performance by Ashly Burch, and Claudia Black is always so snarkily entertaining. But Melina Juergens basically came outta nowhere to deliver a haunting and transcendent performance as Senua in Hellblade, whose use of facial capture is now the metric by which all future projects will be compared to. The complex and tortured emotions Juergens displays through her character are without equal. 5. Best Indie Game Dream Daddy Everything Friday the 13th: The Game Night in the Woods Pyre Slime Rancher Stories Untold Tacoma Thimbleweed Park What Remains of Edith Finch My Pick: I've played only a handful of games on this list, but I feel confident in saying that the storytelling, themes and characters in Night in the Woods top nearly everything else I've played in the "disparate millennials dealing with drama and also maybe the supernatural?" category, which is increasingly becoming its own awesome genre. 6. Best Multiplayer Game Absolver Battlefield 1 Destiny 2 FIFA 18 Friday the 13th: The Game Injustice 2 Lawbreakers Nidhogg 2 PUBG Pro Evolution Soccer 18 Splatoon 2 My Pick: I can't say I've enjoyed any of the games on this list with the exception of Injustice 2, but PUBG has become a global streaming phenomenon, so I think it will easily win this category. 7. Studio of the Year Arkane Bluehole Boss Key Creative Assembly Guerrilla Games Machine Games Netherrealm Studios Ninja Theory Nintendo EPD Platinum Rebellion My Pick: Maybe the hardest single prediction to make on this list, almost all of them are so worthy. Ninja Theory made good on their promise to deliver an "indie AAA" experience and Hellblade's example will be an important signal for other fledgling studios to strike out on their own. Yoko Taro and Platinum's collaboration on Nier may have saved themr from bankruptcy. But I'm going to give this to Guerrilla Games for completely reinventing themselves from "those guys who make a Killzone game every couple years" to one of the leading, most envied studios in the industry with Horizon: Zero Dawn. They went all in and took a gamble on an entirely new IP that couldn't be further removed from a grimdark FPS, and that spark of inspiration shows in every aspects of Horizon's performance, visuals and world design. 8. Best VR Game Dead Effect 2 Farpoint GNOG Resident Evil 7 Robo Recall Superhot Star Trek: Bridge Crew Statik Thumper Wilson's Heart My Pick: I don't own a VR set, but my blind prediction is that Resident Evil 7 will probably win this category on name recognition. Maybe Superhot. 9. eSports Play of the Year 10. eSports Team of the Year 11. eSports Game of the Year My Pick: Nobody cares about esports... 12. Best Streamer + Broadcaster Hannah Rutherford Jacksepticeye Markiplier Maximilian Dood Polygon Waypoint What's Good Games My Pick: A lot of these streamers are straight-up obnoxious, but I like Hannah YOGcast for her thoughtful and often deep insights into the story-based games that she plays. Honorable mention to Polygon doing their own weird thing. 13. Handheld/Mobile Game of the Year ARMS Bulb Boy Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle Mario Kart 8 Metroid: Samus Returns Pokemon: Sun and Moon Splatoon 2 Super Mario Odyssey Zelda: Breath of the Wild My Pick: This is basically just the "best Nintendo game" category thanks to the advent of the Switch. Breath of the Wild is going to take this category, but I personally vote for Metroid because more Metroid is always a good thing. 14. Playstation Game of the Year Everybody's Golf Horizon: Zero Dawn Nex Machina Nier: Automata Nioh Persona 5 The Last Guardian Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Yakuza 0 My Pick: Wow, can anyone even remember that Nioh was released in 2017? Really strong year for the system, I think Horizon: Zero Dawn edges out everything else with its mainstream appeal. 15. XBOX Game of the Year Cuphead Dead Rising 4 Forza 7 Gears of War 4 Gigantic Halo Wars 2 Pit People Slime Rancher Tacoma My Pick: lol. I'm guessing Forza will take this category, although I would love to see a little indie game like Tacoma win GOTY for the most xxxtreme home console. 16. PC Game of the Year Dream Daddy Endless Space 2 OneShot Planet Coaster PUBG Rising Storm 2: Vietnam Stories Untold Total Warhammer 2 Dawn of War 3 West of Loathing My Pick: Notable snub Divinity: Original Sin 2 aside, there's no way PUBG doesn't steamroll the competition this year. 18. Breakthrough Award Ashly Burch (HZD) Brendan Greene (PUBG) Cavalier Game Studios (Sexy Brutale) Game Grumps Giant Sparrow (Edith Finch) Infinite Fall (NITW) Melina Juergens (Hellblade) Nick Popovich (Slime Rancher) Nina Freeman (Tacoma) SMAC Games (Tokyo 42) My Pick: Another hard category. Ashly Burch was great as Aloy but I feel like she's already a known entity to anybody who's played Borderlands or Life is Strange (i.e. many people). Infinite Fall should definitely be commended for their superb debut with Night in the Woods, it was well worth the wait. But I'm gonna go with Melina Juergens here because of how improbably she came out of nowhere to deliver a haunting and arresting performance as Senua. To later learn she wasn't even a professional actress, but Ninja Theory's video editor who got recruited after standing in to help them experiment with their facial capture technology is unreal to me. I'd be shocked if she wasn't offered more acting work because of this, in video games or elsewhere. 19. Most Wanted Game Beyond Good and Evil 2 Call of Duty: WW2 Death Stranding Far Cry 5 God of War Metro Exodus Metroid Prime 4 Ooblets Red Dead Redemption 2 Sea of Thieves Spider-Man Star Wars Battlefront 2 The Last of Us 2 My Pick: I am sufficiently hype for a lot of these but Death Stranding looks so transcendently weird that I must see more. 20. Still Playing Diablo 3 EVE Online FIFA 17 Final Fantasy 14 Hearthstone Minecraft Overwatch Pokemon Go Pro Evolution Soccer 17 Rocket League TES Online World of Tanks My Pick: This is an easy one for me, as the only game from this list that I am still playing is Diablo the Third. 21. Ultimate Game of the Year Assassin's Creed Origins Destiny 2 Dishonored 2 Horizon: Zero Dawn Monument Valley 2 Persona 5 PUBG Resident Evil 7 Super Mario Odyssey Zelda: Breath of the Wild What Remains of Edith Finch My Pick: Wait a minute, how does Destiny 2, Monument Valley and an as-yet unreleased Another Assassin's Creed Game end up here over Nier, Night in the Woods, Hellblade, or The Better Arkane Game to Be Released in 2017? My personal pick for GOTY is Horizon: Zero Dawn, but I think Zelda or PUBG will take top honors for being a must-have on a new console and global phenomenon, respectively. Yeah okay, I'm done! Let's discuss our favorite games in this most promising of years.
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Sep 27, 2017 15:46
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PITY BUMP
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Sep 28, 2017 09:31
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I feel... dunno, out of touch? Old? When I haven't even played most of these. I predict Pokemon will win in the categories where it's available, and I hope Dishonored guys get some recognition, their games are cool. Also your best performance list is missing Ryder from ME: Andromeda. 
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Sep 28, 2017 09:46
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