Benny

Turns out it is great. Though the Tencent Pictures logo did inspire instant revulsion. Another great watch now on Netflix is Dolemite Is My Name, which is great fun.

I was obviously joking again.

Send a review in to Rebuttals.

Look, I can't help it if not every developer has the funds like Rockstar to send me bri... I mean, let's not do another Gears of fun police bit.

My tongue was firmly in my cheek with that one. And Wiper is correct, it's aimed entirely at gaming entitlement "culture", not the extremely impressive dev work that has since been done on the game.

And finally, tomorrow it's best writing, visual and sound design.

Game of the Year that Didn't Come Out This Year Runners up: Astro Bot Rescue Mission, Titanfall 2, Detroit: Become Human (seriously?), Destiny 2, Forza Horizon 4 2nd. Assassin's Creed Odyssey Everyone's favourite Grecian STD-em-up is still going strong. It clearly takes a while to find all those copy pasted map symbols. Winner: Into The Breach A contender for one of the finest strategy games ever made, it remains to be seen how it will fare when up against the best of the decade...

Best Supported Game of the Year Runners up: Gran Turismo Sport, Forza Horizon 4, Sea of Thieves, Fortnite Winnner: No Man's Sky Didn't this win last year? Well, you certainly can't argue it hasn't come on in leaps and bounds since release. A real success story for the the power of gamer entitlement and proving you can get what you want if you whine loud enough.

Publisher or Developer of the Year Runners up: From Software, Respawn, Devolver Digital Joint 2nd: Annapurna Interactive Showing a willingness to take risks and embrace the quirky and the weird, Annapurna have released games like Sayonara Wild Hearts, Outer Wilds, Telling Lies and Wattam. All hailed as classics, all wonderful. Capcom Not content with just one incredible franchise reinvention with Resi 2, Devil May Cry 5 also signalled a bombastic return to form using the RE engine for yet more splendour. They've even started fixing Street Fighter 5. Winner: Nintendo Let's just pretend Mario Kart Tour doesn't exist for a moment... Nintendo have basically crushed it again. Luigi's Mansion 3, a new Pokemon game, a remake of Link's Awakening, before we get into publishing Astral Chain, Fire Emblem, Cadence of Hyrule... Releasing the genius of Tetris 99, and finally getting their act together and making SNES games with perfect emulation available painlessly. All hail our big N overlords.

Best Hardware 3rd. PlayStation 4 As Sony's juggernaut starts to wind down, there were still a few big titles this year like Death Stranding and evidence of their continued VR support with Blood & Truth. Next to the offerings of Game Pass however, the roadmap is starting to look a little thin... 2nd. PC Continuing to be the platform for some of the more daring, out there or experimental games around, particularly in the indie sphere. Games like Disco Elysium are particularly special and show PC will always have unique experiences along with the greatest library of playable games it's possible to have. 1st. Switch Nintendo win again. The sheer number of amazing games available to play on this thing is becoming as obscene as some of the asking prices. Now you can play Witcher 3 in the garden. Dark Souls on the bog. Doom at the beach. Slay the Spire in a business meeting. Divinity Original Sin 2 down the pub. Dragon Quest XI at school. Untitled Goose Game at a funeral. Ring Fit on the bus. Panty Party in your basement. It's the console that just keeps on giving and will probably win next year as well. Have you got a Switch yet? Why don't you have a Switch? Death to other videogames. Long live the new flesh.

Best Aggregate Score If you changed the final scores to reduce them proportionally by the most disappointing scores, this is the rankings you would get. (Very little difference in fact) Slay the Spire Tetris 99 Untitled Goose Game Resident Evil 2 Control Super Mario Maker 2 Outer Wilds Fire Emblem: Three Houses Sekiro Dragon Quest XI: S Baba Is You Luigi's Mansion 3 Gears 5 Cuphead (Switch) Sayonara Wild Hearts Astral Chain The Outer Worlds Katana Zero Days Gone Disco Elysium

Making Everyone Feel Old Award. 3. Sekiro It doesn’t get more divisive than this apparently, as From’s latest frustrates as many as it delights. The consensus among those that voted it this high seemed to be it was just because of the extreme difficulty. Most Friendly to Totalitarian States Award 2. Blizzard Or more specifically their response to Blitzchung and showing that their bottom line as a corporate entity is greed, only greed, as their initial response to someone making a statement on the Hong Kong protests was a complete ban from competitive events and even taking their prize money away. This annoyed their own employees enough even to make statements against it. Faced with an internet backlash, they even doubled down on the decision and tried to justify it, making a mockery of the supposed Blizzard creed of inclusiveness and respect above all else. It was a worrying enough action to get US senators involved to advise the company that punishing people for showing resistance to totalitarian regimes was not a great road to go down. A nakedly hypocritical and now actually politically dangerous company that deserves a full boycott. The Most Ironically Unlikely to Receive a Fanfare Award 1. Anthem Oh, where did it all go wrong with Anthem? In several ways in fact, and sometimes all at once. While the game had its supporters, sticking up for the game as it was moving from nadir to nadir seemed like the last desperate gasps of players crawling towards an oasis of quality multiplayer gaming just tantalisingly out of reach. Which turned out to be a mirage. Made of GaaS. Danster: “what a shame, such a great mechanic flying and jumping and fighting. But it didn't know what it wanted to be, and failed miserably at all the other aspects (as well as gamebreaking bugs, terrible menu decisions and awful loading times).This should have stuck as a single player story game and been a redefining moment from the Mass Effect devs.” idespair (appropriate name): “Nice graphics, and flying is fun. Pity they forgot to include a game.”

Biggest Disappointments of the Year 10. Life is Strange Season 2 I have never played Life is Strange, but it seems many people don’t have the same love for the follow up. Gambit: “Ugh. Hated the characters so much that by the end (I still have the final episode to play mind) I was actively making decisions that would make them more miserable. And to think Season 1 was my favourite game of that year.” 9. Mario Kart Tour Oh Nintendo. If you want a look through the looking glass into a world where Nintendo has dedicated itself to the games as service model and what would then happen to one of their most popular franchises if they did, look no further. Except it actually exists, and it’s horrifying. When Nintendo do GaaS they REALLY do GaaS Alex W.: "A well-executed but obvious and cynical answer to how you'd move the franchise to mobile. A stark contrast to the new trail Nintendo have been blazing with the Switch and a haunting reminder that there are some game design problems bigger than even Nintendo can solve." 8. Wargroove I had such high hopes for this, and it’s still arguably a good little strategy game, but when the entire conceit of the game is to ape such a well loved property as Advance Wars, you’d better be really fucking sharp about it. As it is, Wargroove is a fairly charming little game, but I rapidly found myself becoming a little bored with the underlying mechanics. However, it’s free on Game Pass, so I would still urge people to give it a chance in case it hits that sweet spot for them. mdn2: “Wargroove - it's good, but still somehow missed that vital Advance Wars ingredient that makes them a classic” BandgerFarmer: "It wasn't bad and the post-launch updates may have helped, but this was an Advance Wars clone that lacked the finesse of its inspiration." 7. My Friend Pedro Another free on Game Pass title - but is it worth a punt? In this case, maybe not. My expectations were quite high for it after the obvious Hotline Miami influences, but unfortunately within minutes it actually starts to become repetitive. The controls themselves should be immediate and responsive, but something about the lurching camera and the sluggish feel to the movement makes for something more akin to wading through treacle than balletic traversal. 6. Loot boxes/gambling/premiumskins etc Another year of this nonsense smeared all over triple A and not so triple A titles. Happily though, it does actually seem that indie titles (the best games) are mercifully free of them and they are starting to get enough of a backlash for the tide to hopefully start turning. But while there are people defending the practice, or buying games that feature them, we’ll still be getting this shit for a while to come. 5. Death Stranding This year’s most divisive game? Not quite, but many of you have been vocal about it: Stanshall: "I think I can understand what people like about this, in the same way that I understand that collaboration in a Minecraft server is probably enjoyable or that Stardew Valley multiplayer scratches a certain itch. It's just not for me. The story (of which I've only seen the first ten or fifteen hours) went from very intriguing to mind-numbing in how repetitive the themes and dialogue became. I fully accept that there will be some amazing stuff I've not even seen and it may well all pay off in a magnificent way but my experience and memory of the game mostly involves skipping Guillermo del Toro's inane verbal diarrhoea, janky vehicles getting stuck on rocks and being swamped by black goo all the way back down a hill. Technically, though, it's a masterpiece and I suspect I'll eventually see it through." Alex W: "'Indie' development hasn't reined in Hideo Kojima's worst excesses in the least, although the gentle rhythm of Death Stranding has at least diluted them." Thor: "Honestly, what the fuck? It's Yodel: The game. You're the world's greatest delivery guy, sometimes literally delivering pizza. Oh but wait, Mads Mikkelsen is in it, therefore it's amazing ... or something. Nope, it's shit. And the vehicle traversal, especially with the bike/trike/whatever is fucking horrendous. There are some great, wacky ideas from Kojima-san in the game, and I did get some enjoyment here and there. But coming from his brilliant MGS5, this is a stinker." 4. Gamers. Again. Let’s be clear here, we don’t mean ALL gamers. Wait, or maybe we do? After the dumpster fire of male fragility that led to gremlingate, the hobby still seems to attract the most sexist, racist, entitled, tasteless, chucklefuck corporate thralls to it to such a degree that it’s actively making gaming embarrassing to be associated with again. Well done, idiots.

Wow, Heaven's Vault looks really cool. I must investigate.