It’s that time of year again, everyone. The leaves are falling, the weather is getting cooler, and gamers are getting tired of putting up with the lack of new titles. As we anxiously await new games to play, let us look to the past and see what was good and what was mediocre. Time for the Golden Joystick Awards.
For those who would like a history lesson, the Golden Joystick Awards were launched in 1982, and have become a well-known gaming award ceremony. It’s definitely not the Oscars, and that’s partly because of the laughable name of our awards show. We need a distinguished individual after which we can name our show, just so it sounds a bit more classy. Nobody wants to go to the Silver Film Reel show or the Platinum Pages show. I vote that we change the name to the Newells.
The ladies and gents over at the Golden Joystick have broken down gaming into categories, and selected nominees for each genre. Here are some of my favorites so far:
Best Action/Adventure
Assassin’s Creed: Revelations
Asura’s Wrath
Batman: Arkham City
Darksiders II
Dead Island
Prototype 2
Saints Row: The Third
Sleeping Dogs
Sonic Generations
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception
That list isn’t so bad, right? I really don’t get why people don’t take the video game industry seriously as a medium. I’m just going to take a quick look at Saint’s Row: The Third, “Giant dildos, porn stars, and mollusc launchers?” I’m going to stop right there and take back everything I just said.
Best RPG
Dark Souls
Diablo
Dragon’s Dogma
Final Fantasy XIII-2
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Mass Effect 3
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The Witcher 2
Xenoblade Chronicles
This one’s easy for me. Skyrim is the clear winner. Go ahead and argue with me if you want to, but I’m the Dragonborn, and I’m not afraid to Yol Toor Shul you into submission. Don’t mess with me bro.
Best Downloadable
Alan Wake’s American Nightmare
Botanicula
Closure
Deadlight
Dear Esther
Fez
I Am Alive
Journey
Legend of Grimrock
Lone Survivor
Minecraft
NFL Blitz
Pullblox
Renegade Ops
Sine Mora
Skullgirls
Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery
The Walking Dead
Trials Evolution
Trine 2
This category is great. There’s a lot of variety, very few names with colons in them (the favorite punctuation of every AAA studio), and quite a few good games. I don’t feel like I can choose amongst the titles. They’re like my children. I’m going to choose Journey anyway, because I never said I was a good parent. Unfortunately, it looks like the description for Skullgirls could use a little work: “Lady fighting is always more entertaining than watching two dudes duke it out, and the zany sex appeal oozing from every pore of this quality fighter makes it a compelling, ahem… proposition.” You might want to zip your pants up, Golden Joystick Awards; I can see your misogyny. You wouldn’t want to alienate half of the population of the planet for a few sexist jokes now, would you?
