17
votes
Steam Awards finalists
Previous discussion here
Nominees for Game of the Year:
- “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds”
- “Monster Hunter: World”
- “Kingdom Come: Deliverance”
- “Hitman 2”
- “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey”
Nominees for VR Game of the Year:
- “VRChat”
- “Beat Saber”
- “Fallout 4 VR”
- “Superhot VR”
Nominees for Labor of Love:
- “Dota 2”
- “Grand Theft Auto V”
- “No Man’s Sky”
- “Path of Exile”
- “Stardew Valley”
Nominees for Best Environment:
- “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt”
- “Subnautica”
- “Shadow of the Tomb Raider”
- “Far Cry 5”
- “Dark Souls III”
Nominees for Better with Friends:
- “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive”
- “Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege”
- “Payday 2”
- “Dead by Daylight”
- “Overcooked! 2”
Nominees for Best Alternate History:
- “Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus”
- “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey”
- “Hearts of Iron IV”
- “Sid Meier’s Civilization VI”
- “Fallout 4”
Nominees for Most Fun with a Machine:
- “Euro Truck Simulator 2”
- “Rocket League”
- “NieR: Automata”
- “Factorio”
- “Space Engineers”
Nominees for Best Developer:
- CD Projekt Red
- Ubisoft
- Bethesda
- Rockstar Games
- Digital Extremes Ltd.
- Square Enix
- Capcom
- Paradox Interactive
- Bandai Namco Entertainment
- Klei
PUBG being nominated for game of the year is a joke. I legitimately don't know how anyone could say it was the best game this year. Ridiculous.
I wish Stellaris got nominated for labor of love. The work Paradox has done since release is incredible. It's like a completely different game.
I agree and I played a lot of Pubg when it came out... disappointing developer.
My thoughts in order.
GOTY: Sad that Celeste did not make the cut (it did in the VG Awards 2018). AC:Odyssey is the game that deserves it most from the remainder, and I would argue it does stand up to Celeste really well. Maybe I am just biased against AAA in these contests though…
VR GOTY: Beat Saber was my vote and I still believe is what will win. What an incredible game that is.
Labor of Love: I voted for Two Point Hospital, but admittedly all the nominated games deserve it as well (and are better fit for the category). My new vote will go to Stardew Valley (and maybe it should have gone there in the first place).
Best Environment: I had voted for AC: Odyssey there and I'm surprised it's not in there. Maybe it's rigged against multiple nominations and it already showed up in GOTY so they didn't want it there twice. My new vote will go to Subnautica which wholeheartedly deserves the title.
For Better with Friends I voted Duck Game. My new vote will go towards Overcooked 2. I don't have enough friends. >.>
Best Alternate History: I voted for Civilization VI and will do so again. I feel I don't have to justify this.
Most Fun With a Machine: I voted for Factorio and will do so again. I hope you all will as well, what a fantastic game!
Best Developer: I voted for Digital Extremes, but I think this time around I will vote for Klei who's been pumping out content for Don't Starve and more, consistently high quality. I definitely don't think Bethesda deserves it this time around but these things have a way of showing up. Seeing the finalists, I think CDPR will win, and I'll be okay with that.
Mine in response.
GOTY - I'm glad Kingdom Come got on there (it was my pick too), though I doubt it will win simply because the competition is so stiff. And yeah, I am actually surprised Celeste wasn't on there too.
VR GOTY - Yeah, I can definitely see Beat Saber running away with this one, and justifiably so.
Labour of Love - Really disappointed that Rimworld isn't on there (or anywhere in the awards). :( But Stardew is absolutely worthy as well and gets my new vote too, even though I didn't really enjoy the game.
p.s. I have never even heard of Two Point Hospital but that looks like a blast from my past (obviously intentionally so) and now I really want to play it!
Best Environment - I voted for Monster Hunter: World, but I can't believe I totally forgot about Witcher 3 and Subnautica (which are both more deserving, in retrospect). I also can't believe AC: Odyssey is on there for GOTY but not Best Environment. WTF? Even though I haven't played it yet, from what I have seen it has by far the most gorgeous environment of all.
Better with Friends - This is probably the category with the most potential games that could justifiably win. Duck Game was a good pick too, same with Overcooked. I'm sad Rocket League (my pick) wasn't included though. :(
Best Alternate History - You don't have to justify Civ VI? bah! Civ is like playing with kid gloves on compared to Paradox games, which are the true kings of Alternate History! And Civ VI was far less sound a game than its predecessors IMO. But I honestly can't believe HOI4 got on there but not EU4, which is a far superior.
Most Fun With a Machine - Yeah, that category was made for Factorio to win. So it better! :P
Best Developer - I voted for Klei originally and will do so again. They are just the best, but like you said, CDPR will prob win and I will be okay with that too.
Two Point Hospital is a great game! If you liked Theme Hospital you'll love it, it adds a lot of depth to it and reminds me a lot of Factorio in that way (you're building pipelines and optimizing their throughput).
GOTY: I've really only played AC: Odyssey (through Project Stream), but honestly I didn't like it enough to call it GOTY. I'll probably vote for Hitman 2 based on the having played the last game and knowing they are similar.
VR GOTY: Beat Saber is awesome, probably the best VR game I've played. But if it weren't for mods adding normal songs it would be kind of boring. Definitely has my vote though. Now I kind of want to break out my Vive and play it.
Fallout 4 VR was kind of disappointing. It doesn't really match the immersive feeling of interacting with the world that games like Job Sim, Rick and Morty VR, I Expect You to Die, H3VR, etc have. In my opinion that's a must for VR games where interacting with the world is a major part of the game. I can only assume Skyrim VR (seems to be missing from the OP) is the same.
Labor of Love: I've only really played GTA V and Stardew Valley, and while GTA V's single player story feels like it had labor of love put into it when it was first developed, the fact that it was pretty much ignored in favor of online is a point against it. Stardew Valley on the other hand is definitely a labor of love, and by one guy, so that's my vote.
Best Environment: I've only played Far Cry 5, and while it has a good environment, it's nothing special. I'll probably just go with Witcher 3.
Better with Friends: Surprisingly, I've played the top 4, but all but CSGO were during Free Weekends. I'll probably go with CSGO since it definitely got funner when I started playing with a friend (who is much better than me).
My nomination was Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes and I think it's worth mentioning because I still regard it as one of my favorite games when I can get some people who are similarly interested to play with me. Unfortunately that's rare and social anxiety/autism doesn't help.
Best Alternate History: I'm torn between Wolfenstein II and Hearts of Iron IV. I've put a lot of hours into HOI4, and counting Kaiserreich as the "alternate history" in "best alternate history" makes it a good contender. But Wolfenstein (I'm counting New Order, Old Blood, and New Colossus together for this as it is one continuous story) tells a more concise story and has a lot of elements I like. I still haven't decided.
Most Fun with a Machine: I've played Euro Truck, Rocket League, and Factorio, but vehicles don't really feel like the scope of the award to me, either way Factorio is a lot more machine heavy.
Factorio would be another potential Better with Friends vote as I mostly played it with a friend and that made it pretty fun.
Best Developer: Maybe some people are thinking of this solely based on the quality of the games, but I'm taking into account things like consumer friendliness (of the publisher, which I'm lumping in with the devs) and community interaction. In those regards Ubisoft, Rockstar, and Bethesda are out.
Besides that I've really only played Paradox games, and while they might not be super consumer friendly, their community interaction on the forums is refreshing compared to other companies. Plus the Dev Diaries to keep us excited about new changes is nice. I'm sure if I played Don't Starve or CDPR games I'd be more inclined to vote for one of those though.
I wanted to nominate the dev of H3VR, because he puts a lot of work into the game that makes it really immersive and pretty fun despite just being a virtual gun range. And like with Paradox, Dev Diary style updates are great. Unfortunately it was limited to devs with the new developer pages only.
Hitman 2. Sweet. Wait. Is this another Hitman 2? Didn't know about that one. Sweeter.