Awards by the DDNet Team
It’s that time of year again, where we look back at the year that was, and pick our top three games across a host of categories! As with years past we’ll reveal one award winner per day, and this year we’ve got a massive 17 different awards to share out. It was a difficult process to choose the winners this year! While 2019 might not have had quite as many spectacularly big blockbuster releases as years past, the quality of games that were released with far less fanfare than they deserves is truly incredible.
It’s hard not to get excited about the latest big blockbusters. The marketing behind the game creates the hype, and the investment in visuals, voice acting, soundtracks and the rest make sure that we know that we’re getting a premium product from the first screenshots that we see. And, of course, these are the games that come from the big studios and recognised names.
Often blockbusters lack the depth and artistic integrity that the indie games do, but this year we’ve been a bit spoiled, with game creators being able to throw everything – all the production work and teams of developers – behind personal, artsy projects of their own. The result has been one of the most exciting and interesting years for blockbuster that we’ve seen yet.
BRONZE
The Outer Worlds (Read our review here)
Some call it a spiritual successor to Fallout New Vegas. We personally saw some Mass Effect heritage in there, but however you cut it, The Outer Worlds well exceeded anyone’s expectations going in. Not only is this game truly gorgeous, and one of the rare blockbusters to be willing to eschew the grim “realism” that so dominates the space, but it’s also a game with a sharp, biting sense of humour, and its target? Individualism and capitalism themselves. Ayn Rand will be rolling in her grave over this game and… well, good. Rand deserves to be spinning for all eternity.
This is a personal anecdote from Editor-in-Chief Matt here. Many years ago I read Mark Z. Danielewski’s horror masterpiece, House of Leaves, and for the longest time I had no idea that this book was actually popular. Turns out that “popular” is an understatement. House of Leaves is a phenomenon of modern horror, but it was also written in such a way that I just assumed that it could never be turned into a film or video game. Its complexities don’t lend itself to visual media. So leave it to the folks at Remedy to prove it can be done. Control is blatantly inspired by House of Leaves, and does a magnificent job of capturing that enthralling sense of sinister surrealism that made the book such a page turner.
GOLD
Death Stranding (Read our review here)
Kojima went and did it. The guy behind the Metal Gear Solid series broke free of Konami and every inhibition he ever had. The result? A “walking simulator” that is simultaneously a deep deconstruction of American nationalism, a social critique on the superficiality of technology-driven relationships, and the most pristine example of absurdist philosophical theory that we’ve seen in video games yet. Death Stranding is the video game answer to Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, it’s a genuine masterpiece, and it was only possible because Kojima is one of the very few true auteurs that can command big budgets to realise his vision. Bravo to Sony for actually backing this one – something so completely uncompromising is always a massive financial risk.
Stay tuned for the next award tomorrow!
– DDNet Team
