Topic: The Game Awards 2014 - MGO 3 Debuts! Zelda U footage! Mario Maker trailer!

Yeah, whenever someone wants to say something good about SoM, "the nemesis system" is the answer 100% of the time. There is nothing else noteworthy in that game, other than being an affront to Tolkein's world and works. It's like calling The Conduit GOTY because of the cool control customization. A game notable for one thing and being an otherwise derivative and forgettable affair isn't GOTY.

I'm watching the entire show right now, and I'm surprised Hideo Kojima actually showed up this time...

Not a big Tolkien guy but I was under the impression it took place in the movie continuity and not that of the books.

But fair point enough, about the nemisis system not being enough. For granted my Game of the Year contenders were

Dragon Age: Inquisition
D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die
Shovel Knight
Child of Light
The Banner Saga

D4 is this year's Wonderful 101 probably, except even more unfairly ignored. Which is kinda impressive.

Hahaha warped humor.

Pretty balanced list. Dragon Age is definitely on mine too, and I'm happy that it did win GOTY.

My GOTY nominee list would be pretty slim, or otherwise known as "games I actually finished in 2014."

@SpookyMeths, may I ask why you think Shadow of Mordor is an affront to Tolkien?

Not that I disagree, it's just that I'm genuinely curious since I'm not all that knowledgeable about LotR.

Oh my, this thread went places. I couldn't stay up for that long, well I sorta snoozed off before because I was tired...

My takeaway is that it was a good event (amazing compared to whatever that was last year) and main highlight was MGO, the surprise was seeing Zelda U gameplay, increased Nintendo's presence at this event and seeing MGO in action... Did I already say that? My excitement level is over 9000! Speaking of which DBX didn't feature Well at least it will be at PSX.

Overall I'm happy

Added Godzilla to the list of "world premier" games I was excited about. (I can't believe I just forgot about it until now...)

First of all, Peter Jackson's movies would disturb Tolkien greatly. The battle sequences in the movies are central things, in the books they are hardly mentioned (in terms of page count). Tolkien was opposed to war and technology (the LotR world was based on his experiences during WWI). Needless to say, a computer game about slashing enemies would be soooo far from his own values.

Ah, ok. I figured it was probably the violence (from what I remember, even the movies aren't as graphic as this game), I just wanted to be sure. Thanks for the explanation.

It's fairly clear that Metal Gear Solid V will win Game of the Decade.

I came.

So nice to see that they awarded Ken/Roberta Williams for their work at Sierra! They clearly are among the people who has influenced PC gaming the most (followed by John Carmack and others later on). FWIW, the trailer for the new King's Quest contains all the elements that the original had 30 years ago.

Yeah, this is pretty much exactly what I meant. A game centered on and revolving around brutal, sadistic violence something that Tolkein definitely would have hated being associated with his works. LotR is sometimes quite dark and often deals with heavy themes, but even at its darkest, it was always about adventure and wonder.

I actually consider Jackson's LotR movies pretty faithful to the spirit of the books, but The Hobbit is already so far removed. It's so weird and disjointing too. One scene you have Gandalf telling Bilbo that real courage isn't being able to take a life, but knowing when to spare one, and then he pads out the run time with a ton of pointless action scenes in which dozens, even hundreds of goblins and orcs are dispatched through gruesome decapitation, dismemberment, and even a disemboweling. Which is kind of a running theme in those movies. Instead of using wits to get out of a bad situation, such as tricking the trolls into arguing until dawn or tricking Beorn into letting 13 dwarves and a hobbit into his home, the conflicts are all just resolved by violence and force instead.

All in aA;; it was a nice first effort without spikes money and while it showed at times, it was a fun event. The biggest thing that surprised me was how many of the world premieres were for indie games.

The highlights were the opening, the Sierra Award, and the Shovel Knight guys.

You are sorely mistaken

Without spike it was at least 1000 times better (+1)

Yeah, pretty rough around the edges and I hope Geoff will take constructive criticism and have a better show next year, but it was a solid start. Next time, they need to focus on the right awards (Dev of the Year deserves to be on stage more than Youtuber of the Year), a little less filler, better guests, but other than that it was good.

I do understand the need for game ads. That's where the money to do this would have come from. I would hope that next year has a few stronger trailers though. Nothing from the showed really wowed until Zelda.