this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2024
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[–] [email protected] 82 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

Starfield wins Most Innovative Gameplay. If that doesn't prove game awards are a joke, nothing will.

EDIT Also Hi-Fi Rush didn't get Best Soundtrack. The music is part of the gameplay. If you time your attacks to the beat. You will do more damage.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I haven't played Starfield myself, but from my understanding the gameplay is: Skyrim in space. Which to me, is "Most recycled gameplay"

[–] [email protected] 32 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Essentially. That category must have been a troll by the steam community.

Even today Skyrim is a better game than Starfield. It's the same formula Bethesda have been doing for 20 years now but they somehow managed to make the world feel more artificial and lifeless. And So. Many. Loading screens. 😔

Nothing against the core Bethesda formula - I still enjoy the whole "explore, run into shit, and spend the next 30 hours on side quests" - but they really need to focus on making a more rich and engaging experience.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yea thats the first thing I thought. I've seen some funny ass tags on bad games that made no sense, just a bit of trolling.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

This. Check out the "Psychological horror" tag for some excellent examples of trolltagging.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

It's innovative in that they looked at the resource scanning in ME3, settlements in FO4, and romance in practically any game that has romance, and they said, "let's put all of that in this game, but kind of pointless and more annoying to do." I actually enjoyed a lot of the game but I'm pretty sure people voting were either bots or trolls.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

These awards are community-voted, so I imagine, Starfield was either a very funny joke or a bot army...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Remember that Stray (the game where you can meow and jump) won most innovative gameplay last year. The Steam Awards is purely a popularity contest, people just vote for the game they played for the badge.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

They need to take the incentives away and just let people who care about the categories vote

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Yeah that's Onion levels of satire. That's like the one award it would, if anything get the opposite off.

[–] [email protected] 68 points 10 months ago

Starfield getting Most Innovative Gameplay is hilarious.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago (1 children)

These.... A lot of these are kinda sus

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah. It's weird, almost all of these have some level of controversy. Starfield. Hogwarts Legacy and Rowling's transphobia controversies. There were attempted boycotts of Atomic Heart by Ukraine sympathizers for a variety of alleged reasons. Some lifelong fans of The Last of Us were reneging of the franchise after learning that its creator Neil Druckmann was inspired by Israel-Palestina to create TLOU and recently posted an Israel flag in his Instagram. There was controversy about Dave the Diver being considered an indie game by most casual people (and being nominated as such for awards) and further discussion about what's an indie. SIFU was criticized by journalists for negative portrayal of a foreign culture and briefly became a bit of a darling for online right-wingers that hate video game journalists. Even Baldur's Gate 3 was milked a bit as a darling by people that generally dislike current video game devs and accuse them of being lazy. I also even saw someone using solo-developed Lethal Company as a bludgeon against other developers. Only ones I don't remember seeing controversies about are Labyrinthine and Red Dead Redemption 2.

It almost feels like the classic coordinated troll-voting campaign by 4chan or whatever but those tend to have a right-wing bend and I don't know if they would've voted for Atomic Heart (I don't know if the would have voted BG3 either but I assume that one's kinda unstoppable). It's kind of weird because a couple years ago when Trump was praising Russia right-wing gamers might have voted for the Russia game to piss off liberals. But with the current wars there's a lot of right-wingers supporting Ukraine and Israel. So I don't know.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I mean, that sounds like a whole can of worms I don't wanna open. But I just meant the games definitely don't live up to their nominations, almost seems like some behind the scenes dealings going on

[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Hogwarts Legacy is the Best Game for Steam Deck? Really? I should think a game like that would run better on a console like PS5 or XBox.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Some of these category winners are starting to make less and less sense each year. Red Dead 2 for Labor of Love? wtf?

I voted for Risk of Rain Returns for best on Steam Deck. Been playing it on the ROG Ally and it's a damn near perfect handheld game.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Look at the Steam news section for rdr2. They pushed out a few minor updates with timed bonuses for online play over the past year.
That's it.
Pretty sure Deep Rock or No Mans Sky has had more and more impactful updates

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Nah, I didn't play Hogwarts but the deck can run Armored Core buttery smooth

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago

Innovative?

Checks definition in dictionary

wat?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

Well, it's just a popularity contest anyway, not actually true to the categories.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

These things make me realize how out of touch my tastes are - I haven’t played any of these and there is only one I am interested in playing.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago (1 children)

As long as it isn't starfield then you probably aren't out of touch.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Haha it’s Dave the Diver. I’m just not interested in any of the other games.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

It's excellent and hilarious. I lost it at the lyrics(?) of the knockoff anime song. The actual gameplay is quite enjoyable. I still have to go back and do that free dlc update.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

The Dredge DLC is quite fun! If you are into endgame stuff, it can feel like awhile to get to the DLC (it only happens on certain weather days) but otherwise has been great!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Good news! The Hot Pepper Tuna song (which I presume is the song you're talking about) is an actual song that you can add to your playlists on Spotify, show the artist some love: https://open.spotify.com/track/1pIxy8MomCoeK4Y1u1nUHL?si=93dafddf06c14803

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Not that one but I already subjected my coworkers to it on my work playlist and they were confused at my tastes in music. I meant the song the gun guy's cutscenes. It's just a jumble of words really common in anime openings but not in any coherent order.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

well, it did start a whole new p0rn fad, so...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I’m not too upset about that. The game looks great visually and graphically.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Who are the fucking idiots that voted rdr2 for labor of love I cannot get over it

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Red dead redemption 2 is undeserving of its award.

Deep Rock Galactic is the real labor of love