The jury for TGA are mostly large publications (think IGN, GameSpot, Eurogamer). They decide internally what to vote for, and obviously large publications like that have people on their teams who collectively have played pretty much every major release last year.
They just basically email a bunch of people and get them to rank the games from best to worst for each category. There's no discussion, I don't think they even have to have played the games.
You really shouldn't care about the result, it's a show primarily for trailer reveals, the awards are essentially filler
If their entire job is to judge the game I feel like they should. Or like, the games should be judged by people who have played at least 15 hours. It’s kinda ridiculous
Edit: Silksong got absolutely CHEATED out of Best Art Direction jfc. If Silksong deserved to win anything over Clair Obscura it would be art direction, I’m kinda furious
That's why they are always a fiasco but yet we still watch them in case someone gets something right lol. What matters is what people, communities think.
Being devils advocate, being a "game awards judge" isn't a full time job, its a once a year thing.
I would guess they dont know who the nominees are so much before the public, so if they haven't played most of the nominees yet, there is no way they can dedicate 15h to each game till the event.
Stopping being an attorney of a lost cause, yeah, they should play at least past early game from at the very least the goty nominees
Thats 6h per day in a month, focusing in the story of each game instead of getting inmersed in them and actually exploring their world and side content, which is a big part of the appeal of most of these nominees.
Also, being forced to play a game of a genre you dont enjoy for that long, can have the opposite effect, instead of discovering its marvels, they could grow to despise them.
I agree that the actual system is completely flawed, but the solution isn't as easy as just make all the judges complete every nominated game.
Also, that is just for GOTY nominees, if they had to add every nominee of each category the time would escalate ven further
My suggestion then. You don’t have to be a judge for every category then. Just the ones you’d be up for playing the games in. Drastically cuts down on the time. Makes more sense anyway. For ex ppl who often play fighting games could judge fighting games. Cause having knowledge of the genre and other games in it is important too.
Agreed, but if that's you, you shouldn't be judging for a video game event that necessarily features games of all genres.
I will admit that I would be a terrible judge because I have zero interest in fps games, and I just don't enjoy playing them.
The point is, these are the people deciding what games are "best" so they should be people who actually appreciate video games in their many forms, and can accurately assess their merits.
i have a full time job and i played all those games. there are people who have and those people should replace the current judges who couldn’t give a fuck
Right?! I feel like when it comes to awards for movies and games they should wait a year.
They need to be able to judge a game/movie based on its own merits, but also weighed against the quality of competition in respective fields.
That way when a game/movie actually wins they can get a second wind of sales by getting a special GOTY edition rerelease or a 1-2 week rerelease at the box office for the Oscar winners.
It gives the people who actually vote on the award recipients ample time to appreciate the art behind each project, while also giving the winners the acclaim a 2nd special release and the longevity of staying in people’s memories
I'm sure there are people out there who have 100% completed every game on that list... It seems to me like having people who actually played the games be the ones to judge them would be a better way to decide which game deserves the title.
Whenever something like this happens all communities that didn't win say it's rigged and worth nothing and all the communities that win say that it's so justified and important lol
Where did you get this from? The jury is made up of a variety of games journalist publications, most of which have played or reviewed every major release of the year, and certainly the games that made it to the major categories of the game awards.
While not every publication finishes every title, they get way more than 5 hours, although to be fair to them, Silksong didn’t give out review codes, so I wouldn’t be surprised if many sites didn’t have time to finish it, which I think is fair.
i mean game reviewers LOVE when games start temporarily sucking a tiny bit and getting frustrating for narrative reasons. just look at how much they loved death stranding, the last of us 2, or tears of the kingdom. also i dont think act 3 is THAT frustrating. i think the weight of what is happening pushes the player to try harder(at least it did with me), and the final boss was amazing, both narrative and gameplay wise. not to mention hornets best lines and characterization happen on act 3. i think at least the reviewers would think its good, but they probably stopped playing as soon as they reached the first ending, if they even reached it at all
I love act 3, but between Coral Tower, the Flea games, the abyss enemies everywhere, and Lost Lace herself, I definitely felt more frustrated playing through act 3 than I did in acts 1 and 2. Story-wise though I do agree it’s the strongest of the three.
I thought act 3 was the easiest act tbh. Maybe died 3 or 4 times outside of boss fights, and other than lost lace none of the bosses took me more than 10 or so tries. Even coral tower was like 3 tries to finish.
Ymmv, but honestly act 3 was the most fun for me. Flea games was fun, didn't even know I was getting pale oil, just did it for the fun of it. Then full melee, no spells, no tools, wanderer for lost lace-- was excellent.
Karmelita is one of the hardest bosses in the game, significantly more than Lost Lace IMO (who is just a rehash of previous fights plus the same void tricks we've seen for the whole act, especially with Lost Garmond).
IMO Karmelita was not particularly difficult. I had more trouble with Nyleth, Clover Dancers, and Watcher at the End. Pretty telegraphed, safe arena, good warmup period with the ants, no teleporting.
Weird, I thought Nyleth was pretty pathetic, very simple attack pattern. Only issue was getting close enough to her to attack in phase two and if you're patient you can just wait for her to dash across the screen and pogo off her twice.
Clover Dancers was just a rehash of Clockwork Dancers except easier, kinda disappointing they didn't add more moves to mix things up IMO.
People are good at some things and bad at others and it varies from person to person. Idk why Clover Dancers felt so hard vs Karmelita, but it took me a lot of tries.
Yeah, I think this is true for any lengthy game tbf. Like I don’t think most reviewers were finishing an 80-hour playthrough of Tears of the Kingdom before writing their reviews.
You don't really need to, you can get a sense of a game well enough after 10 hours. If a game takes longer than that to get good, well, maybe they should have polished up the first section more or cut some padding.
Silksong at hour 10 isn't fundamentally different from Silksong at hour 100.
I have to agree, no one hates a game, then suddenly likes it in the last couple of hours. Obviously 10 hours might not be enough depending on the game, and professional critics should be expected to finish the games.
But idea that you have to actually finish it to have an opinion on it is silly.
I don't agree, as long as the professional reviewer is clear about how long they played it's still valuable for them to present their opinion same as anyone else.
The trick is finding reviewers whose tastes match your own. If a reviewer I generally agree with was so frustrated or bored they didn't even finish the thing then that review is still valuable to me, arguably moreso than if they stuck it out.
That's as much a fault of audiences as critics. Some will scream blue murder if you dare mention anything other than gameplay (e.g. dodgy politics or accessibility issues), pretending that a game's politics aren't also a part of the experience.
"Objectivity" is a sledgehammer people use against any kind of critique they don't like and some fans can be vicious (I'll never forget the time when Cyberpunk 2077 supporters were so angry one reviewer pointed out certain scenes could trigger epilepsy that they sent her videos designed to trigger an epileptic seizure).
It's not like anyone here understands the lore of HK games without lore videos, and tbf the lore of Hollow Knight is basically a 1 for 1 copy of Dark Souls.
A lot of Dark Souls games have lots of lore (interesting backstory) but no story, as in nothing interesting happens in the here and now.
Hollow Knight is actually better than Dark Souls at delivering its story IMO as some key scenes (e.g. the void visit, Hornet conversations and flashbacks) aren't missable so you're more likely to get the key points.
There's also more happening in the present what with the advancing infection raising the stakes, something that Bloodborne was also good at in fairness with the town changing as the night went on.
Probs gonna get downvoted but as someone who finished the game and loved it, getting to Act 3 was quite the slog. So many hidden rooms and passages as well as the busywork of finding all those fleas. Definitely felt like padding. Wouldnt blame them for not doing it
I finished act 2 and was like wtf, that's it? Then explored and ended up in a rough area and ultimately said, you know what, I'm good.
Maybe I'll come back some day. I don't even know what you have to do to unlock act 3 but it seems like I would just have to read a guide and follow a map rather than explore and figure it out on my own. I'm an idiot so probably it's all spelled out very clearly somewhere idk
Being honest, its perfectly fine to just read up online how to do it. Act 3 is very good but I wouldnt have known how to do it without looking up some stuff. I got two kids so dont have time to just wander around and hope I figure it out.
If you feel you’re done thats ok too though. No reason to push yourself if youre not having fun
Finding all the maps to complete Shakra's quest is a roadblock. I thoroughly explored but missed Bilewater and even after completing every wish and helping every settlement I couldn't figure out what I missed and had to use a guide.
It's bad design that they didn't let you either miss a few things or have better signposting to what's outstanding.
Easy. Exhaust organ is natural to get to but I’d think most people are there simply to get up the shaft. The second entrance from sinners road could theoretically be missed when clearing that area. It’s a an up/down platform if area where the entrance is and I can understand missing it
It's still all discoverable via the typical map scrubbing one would do if they've played a game in this genre before, even just Silksong's direct predecessor. Bombing walls in Metroid...
This type of content is designed for players like that, and for players who end up enjoying exploring the game's world so much that they become that type of player who scrubs the map. It's an intentional funnel to reward people for being curious.
Because you were probably already planning to 100% it anyway. I finished act 2 without even getting the double jump so there was a lot of content that was easy to miss.
Bilewater, the ducts, the slab, the mist, Verdania, Karak, mount fay, and memorium, were not necessary to the plot. The fleas specifically felt like padding because how are you supposed to know how many you need to get. And you didnt even have to go to the area where the flea map person was.
Unless you were planning to 100% and scour the map anyway then you most likely werent gonna spend the extra 10ish hours to trigger act 3.
You don't really need to know how many flees exactly? Just collecting flees naturally will do until you eventually hit the required number. Heck, I moved the flees to fleatopia before I even bought the maps from Vog and before I knew it was even a requirement.
But yeah i do really have a completionist mindset when I play these games lol. I feel like that's the fun of the exploration for me I kept my eye out for every nook and cranny the first time I played and triggered act 3 naturally as well. It wasn't a particularly long playthrough too, I finished act 3 and beat the whole game 100% in like 52 hours.
I honestly don't know how people play something like a metroidvania without wanting to explore every nook and cranny. To me, discovering a new map, item or boss is just more of the game I get to enjoy that I'm already enjoying.
You can explore thoroughly and still miss stuff you realise?
Well-hidden optional content is fine if it's actually optional (e.g. the hive in Hollow Knight), not if it's mandatory for a huge chunk of the story. Hollow Knight didn't hide its content for the true ending this well.
If you're not as invested in the game then why do you care which ending you got? This argument only strengthens the justification for designing it the way it was because it rewards people who just want to play the game more and get as much enjoyment out of it as possible without arbitrarily demanding it be done by x amount of hours playtime.
You can only call it padding if you insist on only counting gameplay that's not directly plot relevant toward that, but that's not how this genre works. It's a video game about exploring a world and finding secrets. If you need a plot hook to justify digging around for treasure like a kid in a sandbox then, respectfully, what on earth are you doing here?
Finding all those secrets you listed as "not necessary" is the core experience of the game and the genre. If I just want plot then I honestly wouldn't know what kind of media to consume. There's so much more to enjoy than plot in just about anything.
I was invested in the game and finishing act 3. Just because I didnt like certain elements of the experience doesnt mean i didnt enjoy myself.
For me, the flea search was not fun. Making the flea search practically mandatory to unlock act 3 was not fun for me. If other people enjoy that then thats cool but the combat and cool boss fights were the most important part of the game to me.
If anything it was a pacing problem. I would have preferred a longer act 2 and making it mandatory to visit some of the optional places so that the game didnt come to a screeching halt after I beat GMS for me to search for more fleas.
Most of the good content honestly. Collecting every energy tank and missile upgrade in Metroid isn't actually as fun as gathering upgrades and finding new areas and bosses so.
You genuinely stumbled into finding the putrefied ducts? Or found vog to get the flea markers? I’m about 50 hours in and still on act 2 and never would have started clearing everything needed to get to 3 soon without a bit of online lookup.
I actually did get those two but missed Bilewater, people play differently which is why making so much content mandatory and having no signposting of what's still missing is a problem.
Yep I found all of that on my own. Act 2 was by far the biggest game time pad for me but I finished my true ending in around 35 hours.
I have a LOT of Metroidvania/platformer experience though, most relevant of all being 112% completion of the original Hollow Knight, so a lot of this was targeted firmly at a player like me. Despite that, I'm confident even if my playtime got as high as yours i wouldn't have tapped out but that's likely due to me having a different view on looking things up. I outright refuse to do it for anything involving core progression. I did end up using a spoiler map to help wrap up the last 3% of my 100% completion.
Yeah definitely fine to do it, I just struggle when I have to completely rely on it. Pause, scour map or search incredibly long walkthrough for very specific detail and basically find what I think im looking for them go there in the game and it's not what I need.
Really, after finishing act 2 and realizing that act 3 is like a surprise mystery I was intrigued but ended up in the putrified ducts for the first time and said maybe not lol
It's not though, Shakra's wish doesn't appear unless you discover all areas, some of which are easily missed. The game needs better signposting here and with the path to Nyleth in Act 3.
You can always see on the map if you haven't fully explored somewhere. Rooms will not be filled in entirely if there is more to explore. The new act 3 ability also incentivizes you to revisit old zones with high places you couldn't reach before. Besides, the wishes will take you to most of the places you might've missed otherwise. One of them takes you to Sinner's Road and all you need to do is explore it to discover Bilewater.
That's not true of breakable walls, I explored everywhere and filled out my map and still missed Bilewater since every path in involved breakable or illusory walls and thus weren't highlighted by a telltale incomplete branch on a map.
And if you miss that the first time? Because you're distracted by the giant door to the Exhaust Organ. Nothing is going to take you back to that location or hint at it so is the player supposed to scour the entire map with no signposting.
You'd lose nothing from having some sort of fortune teller character telling you where to go next in exchange for rosaries. The game already helps you find the last few missing fleas once you find most of them and they should absolutely do the same for well-hidden stuff that's needed for the main plot.
I found everything in Act 2 apart from Bilewater. Was I supposed to scour the edges of the entire map looking for breakable walls and a hidden area I didn't even know existed?
If they're going to be this stringent they need better signposting, lack of that is bad design.
Game awards is not that important. It might be neat to bag awards, but Team Cherry know their audience. I played E33 and I am now in act3 for HKS. Love both experiences. Meanwhile, I bought KCD2 Royal edition and will hop on after beating HK. Just play and enjoy your time.
Well tbh the only reason i even knew act 3 existed was because i got spoiled by this sub. The game doesnt even hint at you having to do specific sidequests to actually unlock the finale.
Nah, Act 3 is actually the weakest part of the game gameplay-wise since it's just bosses and one new area (two if you include a hidden optional one). It's a fraction of the size of the others since the map is already fully unlocked meaning the sense of exploration is gone and all you have left is combat.
There's some interesting narrative stuff in Act 3, but even at its strongest Silksong isn't as strong narrative as the first game IMO.
Oo hard disagree about the narrative. HK had great lore establishing a universe but the narrative was pretty bare bones. Go to the grave of this once important bug and loot it
If you want to be reductive Silksong's story is "go kill this bad guy, wait seal them first and make them stop struggling so they don't pull the kingdom down with them". Basically nothing significant happens in the first two acts.
The knight's story as a discarded vessel who still fought its way out of the void and found a new way to fulfil its purpose is a way stronger journey of self-discovery than Hornet's "maybe I should be nicer" arc in Silksong. You have to find out the vessels' original purpose then find an alternative, claiming throne and void as your own before challenging a god.
There's basically no mystery in Silksong, Hornet just sets out to kill a bad guy and does it. Mother Silk and the Citadel are exactly as evil as they immediately appear to be, there's no tragedy to the citadel's downfall the way there was Hallownest, its king and knights.
I disagree. The citadel is evil but its pilgrims are good and bad and Hornet acting as a knight errant for these poor people is honestly very interesting. It’s all very Arthurian.
Hollow Knight is way more arthurian since we have a lost paradise, an avalon that's fallen. A place with literal knights who all died or became faded memories of what they once were.
I like Hornet but her eventually deciding to be nicer makes for a functional character arc but not a super interesting one IMO. We already broadly know who she is and what she's about and there's nothing as dramatic as the discovery of the horrors that went into the Knight's creation or the tragedy of what happened to the original Hollow Knight.
Silksong is just too much of a rehash. Silk is a weaker, less impressive Radiance, Lace is a less mysterious or compelling rival compared to Hornet. Hornet becoming more heroic is nice but not nearly as interesting as the knight learning his history and eventually going against his programming.
Yeah like a huge portion of content is locked behind act 3, It includes new bosses two new ancestral arts, 1 new silk skill, a new ending, a new area, lots of added stuff to the narrative, It basically is like a third of the games content. It's a bit sad that it's so hard to find tbh.
Act 3 is ridiculously small compared to Acts 1 and 2. It's basically just one new area (maybe two if you include the optional Verdenia) and a set of combat gauntlets. It's virtually a boss rush. I'd argue it's the weakest part of the game since exploration is way less of a focus.
Fair enough, its just the bosses in act 3 were personally my favorites and the content was of high quality, act 1 was alright, act 2 was really fun and act 3 had me hooked entirely.
The pacing of Act 3 is weird. You're basically compelled to do all the things you'd normally do at the end of a metroidvania (tracking down the last few hidden areas, fleas and upgrades) just to unlock the third act, meaning it feels like the game is already basically over with nothing left to show you.
You're just commuting around completing linear sidequests with none of the joy of exploration or discovery the previous acts had.
In Hollow Knight finding the optional dream battles and gathering enough dream essence to unlock the final areas and boss felt self-directed and as if you were uncovering something , but here you're just going where you're told and filling out another checklist (after the previous one at the end of Act 2) just to see a brief true ending.
Yeah I agree, finding out i had to save atleast 20 - 22 fleas really annoyed me, in the original hollow knight you can get every ending without rescuing a single grub, do you miss out on important items and upgrades? Yes but atleast it doesn't lock key progression points for endings. Also I agree most of act 3 was just going from quests in a very linear manner, i guess it would be better if they removed the marker telling you where to go and just gave you a hint or something. The abyss is nice though, wish it had more but its fine, hollow knight's abyss still takes the cake for me but silksong's is good aswell.
The best part about act 3 for me was the bosses, the old hearts were all quite good especially Karmelita which was not only the second hardest boss for me but also one of the most fun. Khann is a bit boring but the arenas before him make up for it in difficulty, nyleth is just meh, seth honestly had a more engaging fight, nyleth allowed for lots of experimentation for playstyles though.
Finally, I feel like the fact they locked lost verdania behind a small side quest is weird to me, the area itself is so incredibly good and the boss while a bit easy was fun and enjoyable but the area is genuinely so hidden like there isn't even a marker for it in act 3 if you get the green prince in the cave which is a bit off.
I agree, I think having Act 3 locked behind so many prerequisites lessened its impact a lot. Even Lost Verdania being an entirely new area was a little disappointing because there were no items or skills to find in it.
I don’t know about everyone else, but Silksong was a very hard and frustrating game to me for a long time, then one day it clicked and I thought I get it and I’ve realized it is one of the most incredible games I have ever played.
You don't need to, Act 3 isn't fundamentally different from or better than the rest of the game. Finishing Act 2 is plenty to get a sense of what the game is about.
I 100% the game with 90+ hours of play. I felt Act 2 made the game very short. The ending scene from Act 3 added depth to the lore brought the entire franchise together. It was my favorite ending.
The main thing that annoys me is that expedition 33 was on indie game of the year. It had a big team gigantic budget and was backed by kepler. How was this an indie game?
Act 3 is the weakest part of the game. You've done all the fun exploration stuff, all you get is some abortive enemy gauntlets and bosses. It's virtually a boss rush with how little new non-combat content it brings.
I loved Silksong, but EX33 fully deserved all the praises. Art direction I could have seen going either direction but that was the only category I figured there was a chance it doesn’t go EX33 and went to Silksong, but even that’s hard because Hollow Knight already exists. The rest seemed like no brainer EX33 would sweep.
As soon as i found out the game awards are player based i knew it was bs (never really paid attention before) just from the game reviews alone i doubt any of them have actually beat a game and fully experienced what it all has to offer
i guess we look at it differently. the liveliness, the dynamic and fast movement of Hornet compared to Ghost is miles better for me. add the floaters and the parkour and the claw line and it's just so much better than just the basic double jump and dash of Ghost. though I prefer the upgraded skills of Ghost over Hornet, but it comes with their difference in what they are anyway.
lol W post description
IT HAS 10 WORDS
Erm ackshually it has 14🤓
There are 3 types of people in this world. Those who can count, and those who can’t.
They say 73.6% of statistics are made up
It’s always the inverse.
Actually it has 13 words and 1 number before the edit
Wouldn't "post's" be 2 words?
Why would that be 2
That "s" in the end indicates a contraction of 2 words, but I'm not sure if you would count these words separately or not
Uhm ackshually, having 14 words necessarily means it also has 10 words 🤓☝️
That’s true. Grandmother Silk unlocks Act 3. The Last Judge can only unlock Act 2.
This is possibly my favorite that I've ever seen in a comment section 🤣
Genuine question, how much of the games are the judges required to play? Are they even required to play the games in question?
None. They don’t even need to own the game. I’m not kidding.
So same as Oscars
no that changed recently I think
Yeah earlier this year I believe it was changed to where they actually had to watch a movie/show to judge it first
Nope it was recommended they watch, not mandatory. So a nothing burger.
No way, that's revolutionary
How were they judging the movie if they didn't watch it?
I think they give their reviews when they reach Bone Bottom for the first time and just Alt F4.
That implies they beat Moss Mother.
... That'd be impossible though. I'm mistaken then.
The jury for TGA are mostly large publications (think IGN, GameSpot, Eurogamer). They decide internally what to vote for, and obviously large publications like that have people on their teams who collectively have played pretty much every major release last year.
They usually play at least most of them because they review the mf games
I wouldn’t be surprised in Geoff plays the games personally tho
They just basically email a bunch of people and get them to rank the games from best to worst for each category. There's no discussion, I don't think they even have to have played the games.
You really shouldn't care about the result, it's a show primarily for trailer reveals, the awards are essentially filler
I'd be surprised if they managed to reach Citadel even. No not Citadel, Halfway Home. No not even Halfway Home, Pilgrim's Rest.
Pilgrims rest is way too far. I expect they didn't even get past bell beast.
They might've thought Moss Druid's voice is a sign for a boss fight and quit altogether lol
Hey that green concoction is scary, man
Lmao
That's assuming they didn't think shakra wouldn't be a boss fight either (I genuinely though she was a boss or sum first time I played lol)
LMAO TRUEEEE!!!!! I ALSO THOUGHT SHE WAS GOING TO BEAT MY ASS AT FIRST 😭😭😭
Realistically I'm not even sure if they interacted with the crest system.
They couldn't get past moss mother.
Tbf, they have like 5 hours to play each game
lmao that's not long enough to judge a game
Yeah, but they can’t spend 30 hours on each game
If their entire job is to judge the game I feel like they should. Or like, the games should be judged by people who have played at least 15 hours. It’s kinda ridiculous
Edit: Silksong got absolutely CHEATED out of Best Art Direction jfc. If Silksong deserved to win anything over Clair Obscura it would be art direction, I’m kinda furious
Well, have you ever even seen Grammys/Emmys/ game awards. The whole thing is ridiculous
That's why they are always a fiasco but yet we still watch them in case someone gets something right lol. What matters is what people, communities think.
Fair enough honestly
Being devils advocate, being a "game awards judge" isn't a full time job, its a once a year thing.
I would guess they dont know who the nominees are so much before the public, so if they haven't played most of the nominees yet, there is no way they can dedicate 15h to each game till the event.
Stopping being an attorney of a lost cause, yeah, they should play at least past early game from at the very least the goty nominees
Hire people to play every single game that is "overwhelmingly positive" on steam lol.
I mean we've known the nominees for over a month. I managed to 100% Silksong in a similar timeframe while working close to 55 hours each week.
I would imagine the game judges could at least beat each nominee between the time of nomination and vote casting.
Silksong (28h) + Expedition 33 (28h) + death stranding 2 (35h) +DK Bananza (18h) +KC deliverance (42h) +hades 2 (28h) = 180h.
Thats 6h per day in a month, focusing in the story of each game instead of getting inmersed in them and actually exploring their world and side content, which is a big part of the appeal of most of these nominees.
Also, being forced to play a game of a genre you dont enjoy for that long, can have the opposite effect, instead of discovering its marvels, they could grow to despise them.
I agree that the actual system is completely flawed, but the solution isn't as easy as just make all the judges complete every nominated game.
Also, that is just for GOTY nominees, if they had to add every nominee of each category the time would escalate ven further
Perhaps liking video games should be a requirement for judging them, lmao
You can love silksong and dk bananza as the most tryhard fan, but despise death stranding and hades gameplay loop, and not being interested in kcd 2
My suggestion then. You don’t have to be a judge for every category then. Just the ones you’d be up for playing the games in. Drastically cuts down on the time. Makes more sense anyway. For ex ppl who often play fighting games could judge fighting games. Cause having knowledge of the genre and other games in it is important too.
Agreed, but if that's you, you shouldn't be judging for a video game event that necessarily features games of all genres.
I will admit that I would be a terrible judge because I have zero interest in fps games, and I just don't enjoy playing them.
The point is, these are the people deciding what games are "best" so they should be people who actually appreciate video games in their many forms, and can accurately assess their merits.
i have a full time job and i played all those games. there are people who have and those people should replace the current judges who couldn’t give a fuck
Right?! I feel like when it comes to awards for movies and games they should wait a year. They need to be able to judge a game/movie based on its own merits, but also weighed against the quality of competition in respective fields.
That way when a game/movie actually wins they can get a second wind of sales by getting a special GOTY edition rerelease or a 1-2 week rerelease at the box office for the Oscar winners.
It gives the people who actually vote on the award recipients ample time to appreciate the art behind each project, while also giving the winners the acclaim a 2nd special release and the longevity of staying in people’s memories
Are you under the impression that the folks voting are getting paid for this?
If it’s their job…..
Fair
I'm sure there are people out there who have 100% completed every game on that list... It seems to me like having people who actually played the games be the ones to judge them would be a better way to decide which game deserves the title.
Yes. But it’s game awards. They don’t make rational decisions most of the time
Then why are we caring that much?
Whenever something like this happens all communities that didn't win say it's rigged and worth nothing and all the communities that win say that it's so justified and important lol
Yeah, but the whole things capitalism shi to make money
Imagine if film judges were only allowed to watch the first 15 minutes of movies
They would still give good reviews to trash Hollywood movies
if thats true then silksong has no chance lmao. i adore early act 1, but it doesnt start being great until act 2
Where did you get this from? The jury is made up of a variety of games journalist publications, most of which have played or reviewed every major release of the year, and certainly the games that made it to the major categories of the game awards.
While not every publication finishes every title, they get way more than 5 hours, although to be fair to them, Silksong didn’t give out review codes, so I wouldn’t be surprised if many sites didn’t have time to finish it, which I think is fair.
dude I ended act 3 in like 55 hours the first run, I really enjoyed the journey
just enough time to beat 100%
it won best action/adventure
thank god geoff forgot to nominate e33 for that one lmao
(p.s. silksong got ROBBED on the indie, music and art direction ones. idc if the critics want to give e33 game of the year but cmon!)
not giving the music prize to the genius of larkin it's a warcrime
Honestly that might lower some reviewers’ scores, some of the most frustrating parts of the game are in act 3
and the most emotional story moments and the best bosses
Silksong's story isn't even as good as the first Hollow Knight though. Even other metroidvanias like Ender Lilies are stronger in that department.
Just wrong. Silksong's story and its approach to storytelling really puts it above most other games.
i mean game reviewers LOVE when games start temporarily sucking a tiny bit and getting frustrating for narrative reasons. just look at how much they loved death stranding, the last of us 2, or tears of the kingdom. also i dont think act 3 is THAT frustrating. i think the weight of what is happening pushes the player to try harder(at least it did with me), and the final boss was amazing, both narrative and gameplay wise. not to mention hornets best lines and characterization happen on act 3. i think at least the reviewers would think its good, but they probably stopped playing as soon as they reached the first ending, if they even reached it at all
Wait where does TotK start to suck for narrative reasons? I thought it was extremely easy to play throughout
I love act 3, but between Coral Tower, the Flea games, the abyss enemies everywhere, and Lost Lace herself, I definitely felt more frustrated playing through act 3 than I did in acts 1 and 2. Story-wise though I do agree it’s the strongest of the three.
I thought act 3 was the easiest act tbh. Maybe died 3 or 4 times outside of boss fights, and other than lost lace none of the bosses took me more than 10 or so tries. Even coral tower was like 3 tries to finish.
Ymmv, but honestly act 3 was the most fun for me. Flea games was fun, didn't even know I was getting pale oil, just did it for the fun of it. Then full melee, no spells, no tools, wanderer for lost lace-- was excellent.
Karmelita is one of the hardest bosses in the game, significantly more than Lost Lace IMO (who is just a rehash of previous fights plus the same void tricks we've seen for the whole act, especially with Lost Garmond).
IMO Karmelita was not particularly difficult. I had more trouble with Nyleth, Clover Dancers, and Watcher at the End. Pretty telegraphed, safe arena, good warmup period with the ants, no teleporting.
I found lost lace much more difficult.
Weird, I thought Nyleth was pretty pathetic, very simple attack pattern. Only issue was getting close enough to her to attack in phase two and if you're patient you can just wait for her to dash across the screen and pogo off her twice.
Clover Dancers was just a rehash of Clockwork Dancers except easier, kinda disappointing they didn't add more moves to mix things up IMO.
People are good at some things and bad at others and it varies from person to person. Idk why Clover Dancers felt so hard vs Karmelita, but it took me a lot of tries.
Most people stopped at the 1st ending. If anything it would make for a more representative review
But that’s not the point. They don’t play the whole game
Yeah, I think this is true for any lengthy game tbf. Like I don’t think most reviewers were finishing an 80-hour playthrough of Tears of the Kingdom before writing their reviews.
You don't really need to, you can get a sense of a game well enough after 10 hours. If a game takes longer than that to get good, well, maybe they should have polished up the first section more or cut some padding.
Silksong at hour 10 isn't fundamentally different from Silksong at hour 100.
I have to agree, no one hates a game, then suddenly likes it in the last couple of hours. Obviously 10 hours might not be enough depending on the game, and professional critics should be expected to finish the games.
But idea that you have to actually finish it to have an opinion on it is silly.
I don't agree, as long as the professional reviewer is clear about how long they played it's still valuable for them to present their opinion same as anyone else.
The trick is finding reviewers whose tastes match your own. If a reviewer I generally agree with was so frustrated or bored they didn't even finish the thing then that review is still valuable to me, arguably moreso than if they stuck it out.
Sure, but that's a different topic altogether.
Sadly we live in a world where "muh machine objectivism" is more important to critics than actually desceibing their experiences to a certain audience
That's as much a fault of audiences as critics. Some will scream blue murder if you dare mention anything other than gameplay (e.g. dodgy politics or accessibility issues), pretending that a game's politics aren't also a part of the experience.
"Objectivity" is a sledgehammer people use against any kind of critique they don't like and some fans can be vicious (I'll never forget the time when Cyberpunk 2077 supporters were so angry one reviewer pointed out certain scenes could trigger epilepsy that they sent her videos designed to trigger an epileptic seizure).
Didn't Sekiro win the GOTY ?
yea but its a fromsoft game. at that point theyre forced by gunpoint to play it to completion
I have completed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and am currently playing ACT 3 Silk Song and I do feel like E33 edges it so far.
Great year of gaming.
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I agree with you silksong felt like a harder hollow knight.
Because it's a sequel? Silksong surpasses the OG in every single way.
Only in gameplay, the first game has way better lore and story.
It's not like anyone here understands the lore of HK games without lore videos, and tbf the lore of Hollow Knight is basically a 1 for 1 copy of Dark Souls.
Another person in here was trying to convince me silk song has better story than e33.
I personally think hollow Knight and silksong has really good lore hidden in the world, but not great of story and storytelling
A lot of Dark Souls games have lots of lore (interesting backstory) but no story, as in nothing interesting happens in the here and now.
Hollow Knight is actually better than Dark Souls at delivering its story IMO as some key scenes (e.g. the void visit, Hornet conversations and flashbacks) aren't missable so you're more likely to get the key points.
There's also more happening in the present what with the advancing infection raising the stakes, something that Bloodborne was also good at in fairness with the town changing as the night went on.
Makes sense but it didn't need to be as difficult.
It did. It would've been more boring otherwise.
Goalpost moving like a champ
Goalpost moving like a champ
Imagine if they played and made it to the Arena in Hunter’s March! ….proceeds to throw controller 🤣
they unlocked act 33
Unlocking Act 3 is probably my least favorite part 😂
Probs gonna get downvoted but as someone who finished the game and loved it, getting to Act 3 was quite the slog. So many hidden rooms and passages as well as the busywork of finding all those fleas. Definitely felt like padding. Wouldnt blame them for not doing it
I finished act 2 and was like wtf, that's it? Then explored and ended up in a rough area and ultimately said, you know what, I'm good.
Maybe I'll come back some day. I don't even know what you have to do to unlock act 3 but it seems like I would just have to read a guide and follow a map rather than explore and figure it out on my own. I'm an idiot so probably it's all spelled out very clearly somewhere idk
Being honest, its perfectly fine to just read up online how to do it. Act 3 is very good but I wouldnt have known how to do it without looking up some stuff. I got two kids so dont have time to just wander around and hope I figure it out.
If you feel you’re done thats ok too though. No reason to push yourself if youre not having fun
Genuinely... why?
I played release week and found the act 3 trigger fairly naturally. If you're just thorough and do as much as you can you kinda just stumble into it?
The fleas aren't even a roadblock when the game tells you exactly where they are after a certain point.
Finding all the maps to complete Shakra's quest is a roadblock. I thoroughly explored but missed Bilewater and even after completing every wish and helping every settlement I couldn't figure out what I missed and had to use a guide.
It's bad design that they didn't let you either miss a few things or have better signposting to what's outstanding.
How do you even miss bilewater
Easy. Exhaust organ is natural to get to but I’d think most people are there simply to get up the shaft. The second entrance from sinners road could theoretically be missed when clearing that area. It’s a an up/down platform if area where the entrance is and I can understand missing it
You can literally see gaps and undiscovered holes, hallways and roads on your map. Did you never open your map?
Hidden walls don't show on maps, and the hole above is also in a secret room you have to reach from an invisible wall outside the conclave IIRC.
It's still all discoverable via the typical map scrubbing one would do if they've played a game in this genre before, even just Silksong's direct predecessor. Bombing walls in Metroid...
This type of content is designed for players like that, and for players who end up enjoying exploring the game's world so much that they become that type of player who scrubs the map. It's an intentional funnel to reward people for being curious.
Because you were probably already planning to 100% it anyway. I finished act 2 without even getting the double jump so there was a lot of content that was easy to miss.
Bilewater, the ducts, the slab, the mist, Verdania, Karak, mount fay, and memorium, were not necessary to the plot. The fleas specifically felt like padding because how are you supposed to know how many you need to get. And you didnt even have to go to the area where the flea map person was.
Unless you were planning to 100% and scour the map anyway then you most likely werent gonna spend the extra 10ish hours to trigger act 3.
You don't really need to know how many flees exactly? Just collecting flees naturally will do until you eventually hit the required number. Heck, I moved the flees to fleatopia before I even bought the maps from Vog and before I knew it was even a requirement.
But yeah i do really have a completionist mindset when I play these games lol. I feel like that's the fun of the exploration for me I kept my eye out for every nook and cranny the first time I played and triggered act 3 naturally as well. It wasn't a particularly long playthrough too, I finished act 3 and beat the whole game 100% in like 52 hours.
I honestly don't know how people play something like a metroidvania without wanting to explore every nook and cranny. To me, discovering a new map, item or boss is just more of the game I get to enjoy that I'm already enjoying.
You can explore thoroughly and still miss stuff you realise?
Well-hidden optional content is fine if it's actually optional (e.g. the hive in Hollow Knight), not if it's mandatory for a huge chunk of the story. Hollow Knight didn't hide its content for the true ending this well.
If you're not as invested in the game then why do you care which ending you got? This argument only strengthens the justification for designing it the way it was because it rewards people who just want to play the game more and get as much enjoyment out of it as possible without arbitrarily demanding it be done by x amount of hours playtime.
You can only call it padding if you insist on only counting gameplay that's not directly plot relevant toward that, but that's not how this genre works. It's a video game about exploring a world and finding secrets. If you need a plot hook to justify digging around for treasure like a kid in a sandbox then, respectfully, what on earth are you doing here?
Finding all those secrets you listed as "not necessary" is the core experience of the game and the genre. If I just want plot then I honestly wouldn't know what kind of media to consume. There's so much more to enjoy than plot in just about anything.
I was invested in the game and finishing act 3. Just because I didnt like certain elements of the experience doesnt mean i didnt enjoy myself.
For me, the flea search was not fun. Making the flea search practically mandatory to unlock act 3 was not fun for me. If other people enjoy that then thats cool but the combat and cool boss fights were the most important part of the game to me.
If anything it was a pacing problem. I would have preferred a longer act 2 and making it mandatory to visit some of the optional places so that the game didnt come to a screeching halt after I beat GMS for me to search for more fleas.
What do you even get out of a metroidvania if you don't intend to 100% it
Most of the good content honestly. Collecting every energy tank and missile upgrade in Metroid isn't actually as fun as gathering upgrades and finding new areas and bosses so.
You genuinely stumbled into finding the putrefied ducts? Or found vog to get the flea markers? I’m about 50 hours in and still on act 2 and never would have started clearing everything needed to get to 3 soon without a bit of online lookup.
I actually did get those two but missed Bilewater, people play differently which is why making so much content mandatory and having no signposting of what's still missing is a problem.
I also found Bilewater dead last.
Yep I found all of that on my own. Act 2 was by far the biggest game time pad for me but I finished my true ending in around 35 hours.
I have a LOT of Metroidvania/platformer experience though, most relevant of all being 112% completion of the original Hollow Knight, so a lot of this was targeted firmly at a player like me. Despite that, I'm confident even if my playtime got as high as yours i wouldn't have tapped out but that's likely due to me having a different view on looking things up. I outright refuse to do it for anything involving core progression. I did end up using a spoiler map to help wrap up the last 3% of my 100% completion.
Yeah definitely fine to do it, I just struggle when I have to completely rely on it. Pause, scour map or search incredibly long walkthrough for very specific detail and basically find what I think im looking for them go there in the game and it's not what I need.
Really, after finishing act 2 and realizing that act 3 is like a surprise mystery I was intrigued but ended up in the putrified ducts for the first time and said maybe not lol
The only hint you need is to do the wishes on the wish board in every town.
It's not though, Shakra's wish doesn't appear unless you discover all areas, some of which are easily missed. The game needs better signposting here and with the path to Nyleth in Act 3.
You can always see on the map if you haven't fully explored somewhere. Rooms will not be filled in entirely if there is more to explore. The new act 3 ability also incentivizes you to revisit old zones with high places you couldn't reach before. Besides, the wishes will take you to most of the places you might've missed otherwise. One of them takes you to Sinner's Road and all you need to do is explore it to discover Bilewater.
That's not true of breakable walls, I explored everywhere and filled out my map and still missed Bilewater since every path in involved breakable or illusory walls and thus weren't highlighted by a telltale incomplete branch on a map.
There's a very clear visual cue when exploring Sinner's Road. The corpse sitting on a ledge with a very cracked wall is a dead giveaway.
And if you miss that the first time? Because you're distracted by the giant door to the Exhaust Organ. Nothing is going to take you back to that location or hint at it so is the player supposed to scour the entire map with no signposting.
You'd lose nothing from having some sort of fortune teller character telling you where to go next in exchange for rosaries. The game already helps you find the last few missing fleas once you find most of them and they should absolutely do the same for well-hidden stuff that's needed for the main plot.
You don’t need to look up a guide for Act 3 at all, all you need to do is keep playing the game and eventually it’ll find you.
I found everything in Act 2 apart from Bilewater. Was I supposed to scour the edges of the entire map looking for breakable walls and a hidden area I didn't even know existed?
If they're going to be this stringent they need better signposting, lack of that is bad design.
Let's be real; the judges quit at Savage Beastfly
Yeah, it’s the game critics who are holding Silksong back! That must be why its average score is a (checks notes) … 91.
Game awards is not that important. It might be neat to bag awards, but Team Cherry know their audience. I played E33 and I am now in act3 for HKS. Love both experiences. Meanwhile, I bought KCD2 Royal edition and will hop on after beating HK. Just play and enjoy your time.
Well tbh the only reason i even knew act 3 existed was because i got spoiled by this sub. The game doesnt even hint at you having to do specific sidequests to actually unlock the finale.
Ah yes, the classic "if you don't like it it's because you suck at it".
Is act 3 really that much of an improvement? That would be insane
Nah, Act 3 is actually the weakest part of the game gameplay-wise since it's just bosses and one new area (two if you include a hidden optional one). It's a fraction of the size of the others since the map is already fully unlocked meaning the sense of exploration is gone and all you have left is combat.
There's some interesting narrative stuff in Act 3, but even at its strongest Silksong isn't as strong narrative as the first game IMO.
Oo hard disagree about the narrative. HK had great lore establishing a universe but the narrative was pretty bare bones. Go to the grave of this once important bug and loot it
If you want to be reductive Silksong's story is "go kill this bad guy, wait seal them first and make them stop struggling so they don't pull the kingdom down with them". Basically nothing significant happens in the first two acts.
The knight's story as a discarded vessel who still fought its way out of the void and found a new way to fulfil its purpose is a way stronger journey of self-discovery than Hornet's "maybe I should be nicer" arc in Silksong. You have to find out the vessels' original purpose then find an alternative, claiming throne and void as your own before challenging a god.
There's basically no mystery in Silksong, Hornet just sets out to kill a bad guy and does it. Mother Silk and the Citadel are exactly as evil as they immediately appear to be, there's no tragedy to the citadel's downfall the way there was Hallownest, its king and knights.
I disagree. The citadel is evil but its pilgrims are good and bad and Hornet acting as a knight errant for these poor people is honestly very interesting. It’s all very Arthurian.
Hollow Knight is way more arthurian since we have a lost paradise, an avalon that's fallen. A place with literal knights who all died or became faded memories of what they once were.
I like Hornet but her eventually deciding to be nicer makes for a functional character arc but not a super interesting one IMO. We already broadly know who she is and what she's about and there's nothing as dramatic as the discovery of the horrors that went into the Knight's creation or the tragedy of what happened to the original Hollow Knight.
Silksong is just too much of a rehash. Silk is a weaker, less impressive Radiance, Lace is a less mysterious or compelling rival compared to Hornet. Hornet becoming more heroic is nice but not nearly as interesting as the knight learning his history and eventually going against his programming.
Yeah like a huge portion of content is locked behind act 3, It includes new bosses two new ancestral arts, 1 new silk skill, a new ending, a new area, lots of added stuff to the narrative, It basically is like a third of the games content. It's a bit sad that it's so hard to find tbh.
Act 3 is ridiculously small compared to Acts 1 and 2. It's basically just one new area (maybe two if you include the optional Verdenia) and a set of combat gauntlets. It's virtually a boss rush. I'd argue it's the weakest part of the game since exploration is way less of a focus.
Fair enough, its just the bosses in act 3 were personally my favorites and the content was of high quality, act 1 was alright, act 2 was really fun and act 3 had me hooked entirely.
The pacing of Act 3 is weird. You're basically compelled to do all the things you'd normally do at the end of a metroidvania (tracking down the last few hidden areas, fleas and upgrades) just to unlock the third act, meaning it feels like the game is already basically over with nothing left to show you.
You're just commuting around completing linear sidequests with none of the joy of exploration or discovery the previous acts had.
In Hollow Knight finding the optional dream battles and gathering enough dream essence to unlock the final areas and boss felt self-directed and as if you were uncovering something , but here you're just going where you're told and filling out another checklist (after the previous one at the end of Act 2) just to see a brief true ending.
Yeah I agree, finding out i had to save atleast 20 - 22 fleas really annoyed me, in the original hollow knight you can get every ending without rescuing a single grub, do you miss out on important items and upgrades? Yes but atleast it doesn't lock key progression points for endings. Also I agree most of act 3 was just going from quests in a very linear manner, i guess it would be better if they removed the marker telling you where to go and just gave you a hint or something. The abyss is nice though, wish it had more but its fine, hollow knight's abyss still takes the cake for me but silksong's is good aswell.
The best part about act 3 for me was the bosses, the old hearts were all quite good especially Karmelita which was not only the second hardest boss for me but also one of the most fun. Khann is a bit boring but the arenas before him make up for it in difficulty, nyleth is just meh, seth honestly had a more engaging fight, nyleth allowed for lots of experimentation for playstyles though.
Finally, I feel like the fact they locked lost verdania behind a small side quest is weird to me, the area itself is so incredibly good and the boss while a bit easy was fun and enjoyable but the area is genuinely so hidden like there isn't even a marker for it in act 3 if you get the green prince in the cave which is a bit off.
Yeah, I did Lost Verdenia after the final boss and it would have made Act 3 feel a lot less bare bones. No clue why they hid that as much as they did.
I agree, I think having Act 3 locked behind so many prerequisites lessened its impact a lot. Even Lost Verdania being an entirely new area was a little disappointing because there were no items or skills to find in it.
judges? It's public vote? We are the judges.
I don’t know about everyone else, but Silksong was a very hard and frustrating game to me for a long time, then one day it clicked and I thought I get it and I’ve realized it is one of the most incredible games I have ever played.
That was Hollow Knight for me. Silksong was really enjoyable because I had some experience from the first game.
When moistcritical said he beat silksong, he also clearly didn’t get to act 3.
He did get act 3. Check again.
He didn’t get it when he first announced he finished the game. He didn’t even complete most of the quests. You can’t get to act 3 without the quests
I'll look it up then!
You don't need to, Act 3 isn't fundamentally different from or better than the rest of the game. Finishing Act 2 is plenty to get a sense of what the game is about.
I 100% the game with 90+ hours of play. I felt Act 2 made the game very short. The ending scene from Act 3 added depth to the lore brought the entire franchise together. It was my favorite ending.
Very short? The average metroidvania is like 12- 15hrs long dawg
I tried to play those short ones, didn't like them because i almost fell asleep when I played them. Blasphemous 1 and 2 are my next games.
Hey, so did the votes even do anything or was it just to build hype?
Like surely the votes must have affected something… maybe the judges opinion or something?
Honestly E33 is still hard asf too but deserved more than skong
I don't know how the Judges were selected. What a slop
Act 3 was fucking awful, I don't think it'd have helped Silksongs case if they had.
The main thing that annoys me is that expedition 33 was on indie game of the year. It had a big team gigantic budget and was backed by kepler. How was this an indie game?
It wasn’t (an indie game I mean)
It legit won it bro
No… it wasn’t an indie game, I mean
Ahh ok sorry for the confusion
Act 3 is the weakest part of the game. You've done all the fun exploration stuff, all you get is some abortive enemy gauntlets and bosses. It's virtually a boss rush with how little new non-combat content it brings.
The laziest, dumbest kind of post.
Just broadcasting to the world that you’re so insecure in your opinion that you feel the need to discredit others when they don’t agree with you.
Why is there a spoiler
I'll be honest act 2 is better than act 3
LOL, the cope is strong with this one.
Couldn't possibly be because other games are better in some categories?
I loved Silksong, but EX33 fully deserved all the praises. Art direction I could have seen going either direction but that was the only category I figured there was a chance it doesn’t go EX33 and went to Silksong, but even that’s hard because Hollow Knight already exists. The rest seemed like no brainer EX33 would sweep.
I be surprised if they even beat the last judge
Whatever helps you sleep at night, pal.
They prolly didn't even make it past Hunter's march lmao
As soon as i found out the game awards are player based i knew it was bs (never really paid attention before) just from the game reviews alone i doubt any of them have actually beat a game and fully experienced what it all has to offer
ngl i don't think silksong was good i 102%d hollow knight (still missing a bit for that extra 10%) but silksong was boring and i never got past act 1
maybe because Act 1 of SS is harder already than late game og HK minus the DLC? And you need to get good to be able to proceed to Act 2?
nah that shit is NOT harder than the traitor lord
my main issue is that exploring in silksong just doesn't feel as fun somehow im not sure what it is but og hk and metroid dread feel better to explore
i guess we look at it differently. the liveliness, the dynamic and fast movement of Hornet compared to Ghost is miles better for me. add the floaters and the parkour and the claw line and it's just so much better than just the basic double jump and dash of Ghost. though I prefer the upgraded skills of Ghost over Hornet, but it comes with their difference in what they are anyway.
I agree
Hollow Knight: Wow I wonder what new things I will discover in this new path or behind this wall!
Silksong: Wow I wonder what new enemies will kill me in this new path or behind this wall!
Biggest mistake in a great game such as Silksong imo is how many things you can buy from the shops instead of searching for.
Not that many players did either
I am a judge and finished act 3