TotalBiscuit's Arbitrary Video Game Awards - 2014

♪ Intro music ♪

For over five thousands years,

video games have been at the heart
of our society and way of life.

Empires rose and fell...
Cultures waxed and waned...

Flavors of Mountain Dew released...
then retired.

Video games are literally the most important
thing in the known universe

but until now there has been no show grand enough...

No award monumental enough...
to truly honor them.

Until now...
Ladies and gentlemen,

it is my esteemed privilege
to present to you:

The first Arbitrary Video Game Awards.

♪ Intense orchestral music ♪

Dear Lord... imagine if anything
took itself that seriously.

Now, The Arbitrary Video Game Awards
ladies and gentlemen. Simple as that:

I pick stuff in categories.

There's no panel of judges,
there are no prizes to be won.

I would simply like to highlight some
pretty cool stuff that happened this year.

And occasionally some companies & products
that really REALLY messed up.

The categories are purely arbitrary!
The nominations are purely arbitrary!

And of course, the winners
are purely arbitrary.

BUT I will at least make some effort to explain
the choices and to celebrate the winner.

That's about as much as I can promise you
here at The Arbitrary Awards.

There is no physical trophy but we do have
a wonderful trophy of the imagination...

Which can off course absolutely anything
your heart desires...

As long as that desire is entirely ineffable
and not in any way costly to me...

Perhaps you'd like to know what categories
we have here at The Arbitrary Awards.

We have every category you can imagine

as long as those categories happen to be
the ones on the list.

We have:
- Best Soundtrack

- Best Thing To Come Out Of Crowdfunding

- Most Interesting Gaming YouTube Channel
That Isn't Mine

-Stop Pre-Ordering Videogames Award for
Biggest Launch Disaster

- Most Impressive Aesthetic
- Best Expansion & DLC Content

- Best Mobile Game

- The Game I Turned My Consoles On
For The Most This Year

- The Game That Most Surpassed
My Expectations

- The Sharpened Pitchfork Award For
Dodgiest Games Company Of The Year

And of course:

- The Game That Mosts Needs To See
The Light Of GabeN for the PC port

Let us begin, shall we, with nominations
for Best Soundtrack.

♪ Intense orchestral music ♪

The nominations for Best Soundtrack are:
- Shovel Knight

This thoroughly 8-bit inspired soundtrack
is brought to you by Jake Kaufman.

The fellow behind:
Shantae and the Pirate's Curse;

Double Dragon Neon; Mighty Switch Force! ;
Red Faction: Guerrilla;

and many many more games besides.

Despite it's deliberately limited fidelity,

the Shovel Knight sountrack is both imaginative
and extremely fun to listen to.

Reminiscent of 2D platforming
classics of old,

the Shovel Knight soundtrack is packed
with classic tune after classic tune.

All of them driving you towards
your destination

demanding that you strike the earth and do battle
for shovelry on this one fateful night.

Transistor by Darren Korb.

This is a composer that hasn't worked
on too many games.

BUT he did create one of my favorite
soundtracks over the last few years.

That is of course of the game Bastion
also produced by Supergiant,

the studio behind Transistor.

While Bastions soundtrack
was absolutely phenomenal.

The addition of many vocal tracks
by Ashley Barrett

as well as hauntingly beautiful
humming parts make

the Transistor soundtrack truly something
unique and very very special in 2014.

Crypt of the NecroDancer,

the name Danny Baranowsky
aka Danny B.

should be very familiar to you
if you happen to like either

Binding of Isaac or
Super Meat Boy.

Perhaps the two soundtracks
he is best known for

although he has collaborated on a number
of different projects besides.

Crypt of the NecroDancer needed a good
soundtrack to be a decent game.

It is of course a rhythm based roguelike.
And thankfully Danny B. provides

the pumping soundtrack to one of
the more unusual titles this year.

A game which as far as I'm concerned
is partially responsible for

online embarrassment and
almost breaking my ankles.

Persona Q,
the soundtrack to this game

is composed by Atsushi Kitajoh
and Toshiki Konishi.

A melding of previous Persona titles by
two very experienced composers.

Both are responsible for work on
various Persona games

as well as Devil Survivor as well
as the game Catherine.

Those who have played the
previous Persona titles

are going to find a lot to like here
as the soundtracks of both Persona 3 & 4

are well represented with various
interesting fusion and mashups.

The Persona series is well known
for it's music.

So much so in fact that a dancing game
based on Persona 4 is in development.

Persona Q does not disappoint
in the music department.

Wolfenstein: The New Order,
this is a nominee for two reasons.

One, due to the excellent work of
Mick Gordon,

the composer behind games such as
the new Killer Instinct, Shootmania

and Need For Speed: The Run.

The in-game soundtrack for this
particular title is absolutely fantastic

and punctuates the high action.

However what's perhaps even more
interesting is the inclusion of

various alternate history versions
of classic songs.

Collaborations of various artists
were able to put together records

by the fictional Neumond Recording
Company which you can find

as collectables throughout the game.

Perhaps the most well known was used
in a advertising campaign for the title:

a German version of
House Of The Rising Sun.

This is the part where I'm supposed to
arbitrarily say "And the winner is" isn't it...

I'm not really going to do that because
I'd like to talk a little bit more

about my choices before I decide
to pick the winner.

It's a really hard category to choose
between because each one of these

soundtracks has their own
individual merit.

Some of them are just plain fun
like Crypt of the NecroDancer.

Others are very haunting
such as Transistor.

There is a great amount of variety there.

And that's just in the five soundtracks
that I've shortlisted.

There have been plenty of games
that came out this year

with phenomenal music and I'm glad
to see that composers are getting

greater recognition these days with
improved sales of official soundtracks

available via various digital distribution
platforms as well as plenty of

good intention sharing by gamers through
Twitch streams as well as YouTube videos.

I certainly hope that we continue in 2015
to move towards a place where

game music is truly considered to be
worthwhile in it's own right

and standalone as something
worthy of purchase.

I think that we have certainly reached
that point and I want it to continue to grow.

That said, we are going to
have to pick a winner.

And the winner of Best Soundtrack of 2014 is
...................

Darren Korb's Transistor

I remember the haunting outro-song
from Bastion and then I remember

that Transistor contains several tracks
of that level of quality,

things that are absolutely beautiful
yet flawn and sad.

But there's a great variety within
Darren Korb's soundtrack.

From perhaps the well known track
'The Spine' which frankly

could have been a top 40 hit
in it's own right

to the much needed light hearted
break of 'Coasting'.

This soundtrack really does have it all.
It's ementily listenable;

Masterfully put together; and with
the additions of the vocals

of Ashley Barrett
an absolutely beautiful experience.

The Transistor soundtrack is, at least
in my view, the best soundtrack of 2014.

♪ Intense orchestral music ♪

Best Thing To Come Out Of Crowdfunding

The nominations for the Best Thing
To Come Out Of Crowdfunding are as follows:

Xenonauts by Goldhawk Interactive

which raised $ 154,715 of
it's original $50,000 goal.

The creation of Xenonauts began
years ago when it appeared

that there was no chance of a modern
revival of the 'XCOM: Enemy Unknown'-series.

In the development time that it took
to bring Xenonauts to life.

We in fact had the release of not only
XCOM: Enemy Unkown by Firaxis,

a reimagining of the original title with
a modern twist but also an expansion:

XCOM: Enemy Within.

Undaunted however Goldhawk Interactive
continued to work on Xenonauts

thanks to a large influx of crowdfunding
and eventually completed the title

which is a very faithful reproduction
of the original.

Those looking for a more strategic
and in-depth experience

as opposed to the more modernised
'XCOM: Enemy Unkown'

will certainly find it here.

Shovel Knight by Yacht Club.

It raised $311,502
with an original $70,000 goal.

Shovel Knight makes yet another
well-deserved entry

into the nominees list
for a very good reason.

Yes, it has a great soundtrack but it also
has absolutely exceptional gameplay.

It's a platformer on the level of the very best,
both 8 and 16-bit platformers of yesteryear.

This is an example of a game that perhaps
would have had difficulty being developed

were it not for Kickstarter.
And yet, 8-bit platformers are two a penny

on that particular service;
what made Shovel Knights so special?

Well, it's excellent presentation and
fantastic characterisation

probably helped it a great deal.

It had it's own personality coming
right out of the gate.

And it made a promise, to be faithful
to it's 8-bit ancestors.

And it succeeded in doing just that
and created a compelling experience.

It proved that some design philosophy
are indeed timeless.

And thanks to crowdfunding this
wonderful game which feels out of place,

out of time and yet completely relevant
in 2014 is now available for purchase.

Tex Murphy the Tesla Effect
by Big Finish Games,

this raised just over it's $450,000 goal
with $598,104.

This game was not the biggest
Kickstarter success,

it wasn't even the biggest critical success.
It is overshadowed by many other titles.

But it's on this list for one reason.
This game had absolutely no chance

of being made without Kickstarter
and crowdfunding

because it's effectively a dead genre.

This is an FMB game, those kinds of titles
are simply not made anymore.

Back in the day when CD-ROMs were
first becoming relevant to gaming.

They were generally packed full of
full motion video.

That's what was filling the disc.
This allowed for significant advances

in cutscenes, but it also created entirely new
genres that were reliant on full motion video.

This more often than not created a
somewhat B-movie experience

and Tex Murphy embraced that.
It always had a very quirky sense

of humor and the Tesla Effect
brings that sense of humor back

with slightly more modern technology.
Only slightly.

And it stands as a unique testament
to a dead genre in 2014.

And yet, I think it is exactly what
fans of that genre were looking for.

The thing about Kickstarter is,
you don't have to sell

hundreds of thousands or millions
of copies to be successful.

You're making a unique product for a
niche audience that is willing to pay

for it and that's exactly what Tex Murphy
The Tesla Effect succeeds in being.

The Banner Saga by Stoic.

This raised a massive $723,886
with an initial goal of just $100,000.

This is a great success story because
it created a beautiful title using

roto-scope style animation. Again,
something we generally don't see anymore.

A technique of a bygone age.

The Banner Saga's development is
the story of former AAA's, coming together

to make a small personal project
that they really cared about.

Kickstarter enabled them to do just that.
In it's own right,

it's a fantastic tactical RPG with some
Oregan Trail and a little bit of Telltale games

thrown in there for good measure.

It was rightfully criticised for it's somewhat
abrupt ending, but the journey was so enjoyable

that the destination became
something of an afterthought.

The success of The Banner Saga has allowed them
to continue it with The Banner Saga 2,

having been recently announced
at Geoff Keighley's Game Awards.

Wasteland 2 by inXile.

Raising a staggering 2.93 million dollars
with an initial lofty goal of $ 900,000.

Of all projects that I've listed,
this was no doubt the most ambitious.

A full-length classic CRPG,

by folks that have brought you many in the past
but perhaps with much larger studios

and in a somewhat different time
where things just cost less money.

Regardless, the sequel to the 80s game
Wasteland, which many people don't remember

but was, in fact, the inspiration to Fallout.
It was lofty project, to say the least.

With something that large and complex,
it could have easily gone wrong

in a myriad of different ways.
However, the game was delivered

to the satisfaction of many.

And it is one of the many titles in 2014 that really
brings back the classic style of CRPG.

Before we talk about the winner of this category,
I'd like to talk about the category itself once again.

Kickstarter seems to be going
in an unfortunate direction.

It's becoming harder and harder for games
to get the funding.

We're seeing more and more high-profile failures
which, unfortunately, seem to be spurred on

by some of the failures from the last few years.
Games that were funded and yet,

never actually came out or came out in a
much much poorer state

than what was promised in the first place.

It does really seem like
the crowdfunding bubble has burst.

It's unlikely that we'll ever see a success
as large as something like Tides of Numenera

or of course the titanic Star Citizen ever again.

And that's something of a shame.
Because amongst those high-profile failures

and disapointments, we DO have titles
that, were it not for Kickstarter,

probably would've never seen the light of day.
Especially the winner of this category,

The largest game in it:
Wasteland 2.

Every game in this category
and many more besides

deserve recognition and accolade
simply for being able to

come out of the turbulent world of
crowdfunding where even some of the most

experienced developpers have managed
to squander said funding,

and in doing so have shaken the trust of
their backers and the market in general

But Wasteland 2 developped a game of the
scale that they promised.

It was certainly delayed, there's no
doubt about that, but it delivered

exactly what I, as a fairly major backer
of this game wanted.

Full disclosure: I did put a thousand
dollars into this.

In fact, I backed several games on this
list but Wasteland 2 deliverded for me.

I've been slowly playing through it for
the last few month,

just dipping in every now and again, and
it's delivered great writing,

excellent depth; fun, meaningful,
contextual questing

in the style of old CRPGs.
It's story-driven and yet

a lot of it is really done through the
gameplay's narrative as opposed to

just throwing a bunch of words at you.

It has some systems which, frankly, have
no place in modern games

and yet somehow works, such as the ability
to type in random words into the interface

and occasionaly unlock new dialogue
options as a direct result of that.

It mends elements of old-school
interactive fiction

with a modern title that has a distinct
CRPG spin on it.

This really does feel like Fallout 4 if
Fallout were to go back to its roots.

It really did deliver exactly what I
wanted from the project.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm very very
happy that I backed it

and equally happy that I promoted it back
in the day even if, looking back at it,

that might not have been the best idea.

Thankfully, for my sake and for the sake
of my credibility, it was a success.

It was a critical hit and as far as I'm
concerned, it's the best thing that

came out of crowfunding in 2014.

♪ Intense orchestral music ♪

The nominations for the Most Interesting
Gaming Youtube Channel That Isn't Mine

are as follows:

Xbox Ahoy.

What started off as little more
than a Call of Duty weapons guide

has transformed into something really
interesting.

The channel runs a series called
"Iconic Arms"

which is a documentary-style presentation
about the representation in history

of various firearms in video games.

They also produced a very detailed
five parts history of computer graphics

as well as some absolutely intriguing
niche retrospective videos

such as Doomed: The Embers of Amiga FPS.

Captained by the sultry tones of a
British narrator,

Xbox Ahoy is one of those channels where
you should simply ignore the name

and look at the content.

Jim Sterling.

If there was an award for most handsome
man in video games,

Jim Sterling would surely be issuing.

However, due to my own personal
self-esteem problems,

that category is not present this year.

Jim Sterling has made a fairly remarkable
transition from traditional games media

to "the new media", whatever that means,
creating Youtube content based on

some bloody terrible video games and
recently tried transferring his successful

series "Jimquisition" from The Escapist
to a Patreon funded, ad-free model

over on his Youtube channel.

A good friend of mine and peer for quite
some time,

Jim Sterling has a somewhat inimitable
sense of humor.

Never before has the term "jizzy bears"
been uttered from the mouth of

a games reviewer, and I doubt we will ever
see its like again.

Super Bunnyhop.

Again, one of those fairly unfortunate
names, I suppose,

that doesn't necessarily represent the
content of the channel.

But Super Bunnyhop is, for the most part,
a games reviewer

with occasional editorial content that is
often fairly interesting.

His investigation into gaming beyond 60fps

was certainly good to show those that
don't really understand the difference.

He's got plenty of interesting interviews
on his channel

and I really enjoy his reviewing style:

it eloquently straddles the line between
the consumer bias style of review

and academic critique.

It doesn't go too far off either end.

I think it really helps that George
actually has the intelligence

and the academic background to create
journalistic content.

Plenty of people try it and most people
don't really succeed.

Thankfully, George does and as a result,
his channel remains relevant

and informative.

VaatiVidya.

I don't play Dark Souls, at least not on
a regular basis,

so if someone could explain to me exactly
why it is that I watch everything

Vaati puts out, I would be very
interested in hearing it.

No, I think I can identify it quite well:

it's a very unique channel.

It's something that combines creative
writing

with the lore of a very vague universe,

something that is not particularly well
explained

and is really very open to interpretation.

Thankfully, Vaati is very good
at interpretation.

I have no doubt that some of his stuff is
merely a flight of fancy

and isn't actually accurate, but that's
actually the point of Souls, isn't it ?

It doesn't necessarily have to be, a lot
of this stuff isn't canon,

it's a very confusing universe.

Vaati does an incredible good job of
explaining exactly what's going on

and crafting what's often a very sad
and forlorn story.

Regardless of whether or not I actually
play the game,

the universe of the Souls series is very
interesting to me.

Vaati does a peerless job of exemplifying
exactly why that is.

Matthew Matosis.

If you want a channel that does incredibly
in-depth critique,

often of fairly old titles