Working Title 01.03.11: The Third Annual Working Title Awards Nominations
Posted by Jordan Williams on 01.03.2011
From Red Dead Redemption and God of War to Call of Duty: Black Ops, Dead Rising 2, and more, 411's Jordan Williams has his nominations for the best games of 2010! Check out the full article to cast your votes and decide the winner!
Welcome back to the #1 Column to be sort of happy that the year is over, WORKING TITLE. What a motherfucker year we have had? By 'we' I mean ME.
ME.
ME.
FUCKING ME.
I don't usually like to use this as my personal blog but just outside of video games I have been in two movies, enrolled in a wrasslin' school, got in-ring training with FCW (Although I am no longer there anymore, insurance is a bitch), and I got to got arrested...THREE TIMES. It's like I live in Liberty City or some shit. Someone should make a video game about my life. Why? Because I'm worth it.
Now that I am through fellating myself, it's time for that wonderful end of year tradition that I call the WORKING TITLE AWARDS. While I am sure the site (and pretty much every other site) on the internet has their own End of Year awards, for the last three years I have been doing my own with the column with a little bit of a twist.
I don't do any of that "Best Console Game" bullshit and any of that. The nominations are odd, the choices are chosen by a very drunken me and YOU get input. This week are the nominations for the awards and next year (Ha, get it?) you get the winners.
Or losers.
Depends on the category.
ONWARD WITH THE WORKIES.
Working Title Halftime Awards 2010
Ah the Workies. The little gaming awards no one outside of the three people excluding myself care about. For those of you new to how this works I'll lay out the rules for ya.
The ballot was created by myself and a bottle of Jack.
All games had to be released by the time this article goes into review to be eligible. This is why I waited until the last week of the year to do it. Anything worthwhile would've been out by now.
As you know in July I also do the Halftime Awards which gives props to all of the best things out so far. Any game that came out before then is eligible, but the winners get an automatic nomination.
The awards are chosen by a panel of myself...with input by YOU, THE FAITHFUL 411MANIA.COM READER
Simply leave your suggestions in the comments and BOOYAH. I have final say to veto bullshit, but seriously, the winners are up to you. In the (likely) event that we don't get a lot of votes the decision falls onto me. You don't vote? Don't bitch about who wins.
So now that we got that out of the way let's start with the old stand-by award...
The Kratos Award for Manliness
MANGASM! Originally started as the King Leonidas Award of Manliness, this award was meant to give respect to the best male character. Now this might just mean he is a big badass, or a ladies man, or sometimes he doesn't even have to be human. The fact is that this man is a badass that will ruin your shit and emasculate you in the process. At Halftime Kratos took the mantle away from last year's winner of Batman. Could Kratos be the first ever man to hold an award for the whole year or will some other people on this list have a problem with him?
Gabriel Belmont (Castlevania: Lords of Shadow)
While Castlevania: LoS might not have been the most well received games of the year, they still did one thing pretty damn good...and that was Gabriel Belmont. We all know who the Belmont's are, they are people who kick a lot of vampire and other monster ass and they do a great damn job of it. Unfortunately, the last few Castlevania games have been getting away from THE MANLY with bitch ass bishounen characters like Soma and Alucard who don't even FUCKING USE WHIPS. FUCK THAT NOISE. G-Belly has a whip, a cross-a-rang, holy water, daggers, a sword AND a giant titty dragon demon at his bidding. THAT is manly.
Grunt (Mass Effect 2)
Grunt doesn't care about this war. Grunt doesn't care about these awards. Grunt just wants to shoot people in the face then laugh about it. But of course if we took Grunt at face value that is all we would see but there actually IS more to Grunt. He is a warrior who doesn't know WHY he is fighting; he just knows he has to fight because that is what he was created to do. So if you think about it, technically Grunt was created for the SOLE purpose to be manly.
John Marston (Red Dead Redemption)
What fits in more with a giant alien frog and a vampire hunter? A mothefucking cowboy. But the beauty of this that the badass part of John isn't the fact that he's a cowboy. It's the fact that the beauty behind him is that he isn't the same jerkass asshole that Rockstar loves to make all of its protagonists. This doesn't mean that he happens to be a saint or anything...he will still fuck your shit up with a revolver if you come at him a little beefy. But a true man sticks to his convictions and does what has to be done even if he doesn't like it. That pretty much sums up Mr. Marston in a nutshell right there.
Chuck Greene (Dead Rising 2)
If this award was for Father of the Year, I pretty much would give to Chuck Greene hands down. Not only is Chuck a badass in his own right (look what he can do with a fucking roll of duct tape) but he does all of this for the sole purpose of making sure his daughter doesn't become a fucking zombie. To say this again he WILLINGLY saves people, kills zombies, rides a tricycle, kills rednecks, puts on a stage show, gets naked, plays poker, drive a motorcycle with chainsaws on it, kills hippies, eats horrible food, fights AND TAMES a tiger, dresses up like Ser Arthur, colors his hair, FIGHTS AND TAMES A FUCKING TIGER, and makes smoothies. All for the good of his daughter and to stop a terrorist plot. All while two lesbian incest-loving twin sisters make jokes about his dick. Father of the Fucking Year.
Limbo Kid (Limbo)
Grunt wins this because of a technicality, but Limbo Kid is the officially the youngest anything to be nominated for the Manly Award. But don't let his young age fool you...he has seen some serious shit in his day. I mean for fucks sake he is in a world while every other child is either dead or trying to kill him and--HOLY FUCKING SHIT LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT SPIDER.
Yeah. Limbo Kid is manly just for the fact that he EXISTS. He can't be more than 8 or 9 years old and he is dealing with some HEAVY ass shit. Do we know why he is doing? Nope. Do you care why? Nope. You just know that if you were in a similar situation you wouldn't be able to deal with it nearly as well as did. Pussy.
Kratos (God of War III) ***HALFTIME WINNER***
All hail the current champion and God of War, Kratos. Earlier this year he went up against powerful foes like Garrus Vakarian and George Woodman and pretty much won a landslide. I think this time holding on to his crown will be a bit harder given the roster hanging around this time. But someone who has taken out pretty much every God we know might be able to pull off the feat of becoming the first ever Two Time Manly Award winner.
The Dormroom Dominator Award
You know? I really want to change the name of this award. Something about it being the Dormroom Dominator doesn't make much sense since most Dormrooms doesn't even have ground enough internets to play games by themselves...let alone with others. But be it as it may, the Double D Award is for the game with the best multiplayer. This genre has been pretty much dominated by shooters and fighters in the past, but there is one lone yellow bastard who is looking to take the throne for himself and all of his old school brethren. The bad part is that everyone else on the list either wants to stab him or shoot him.
Halo: Reach
This whole damn category is just a litany of foregone conclusions, but it's something that has to be done. People LOVE shooting things. People who love shooting things LOVE Halo. People who LOVE Halo LOVE Halo: Reach. The game that pretty much defined multiplayer console shooters came back this year with new upgrades to the tried and true format and MOTHERFUCKING JETPACKS, but is the futuristic shooter with the ending everyone knows still good enough to stay on top?
Call of Duty: Black Ops
...Or is the new hotness in town about to shoot the Spartans down? Call of Duty is a force that unstoppable when it comes to online shooting and multiplayer. All of the people who are online and playing plus the giant install base PLUS all of the people who will pretty much buy anything with the name Call of Duty on it cannot be silenced when it comes to dominating the dormrooms. This just might be two in a row for the Call of Duty franchise.
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
If you had asked ANYONE out there if Assassin's Creed would've been able to pump out a game that had decent, if not great, multiplayer they would've laughed in your face and probably questioned your mental capabilities or sexual preference. Now that the game has come out everyone in the world is riding it's dick harder that the internet does whenever CM Punk hits the commentary booth (ding). But this isn't just a matter of people loving the franchise so much that they are willing to put up with the multiplayer...but people actually LOVE the multiplayer. You play Assassin's Creed online...with other people. It's kill or be killed. Sneak or be snuck up on. This isn't the lone wolf run and gun shooter every other game is. You have to think...or well...not over think. Acting like the stupid NPCs will take you a long way.
Battlefield Bad Company 2
Yes, this game was nominated earlier in the year...and yes it's nominated again. Why? Because it's a fucking great. Vietnam isn't even factoring into the equation here. Standalone BC2 is a great multiplayer game that actually rewards and ENCOURAGES you to play as a team. There is none of this bullshit where you run off by yourself and take down 8 guys at once only to get beaned from a mile away with a sniper rifle. You try that in BC2 and unless the other team sucks you will be Swiss cheesed. So you need a squad to back you up, you need to use those squad mechanics great...basically you need to be a FUCKING BRO. And who lives in dorm rooms? BROS.
Super Street Fighter IV ***HALFTIME WINNER***
But all of the bullets in the world cannot defeat a good hadoken. Earlier this year Super Street Fighter IV came out and kicked the shit out of every other multiplayer game. SFIV pretty much is responsible for what many are calling the fighting game rebirth and rightfully so. Who would've thought that we would be talking about a STREET FIGHTER game seriously? Let alone a next gen Street Fighter game. It's still played online all of the time and the player base is actually growing. Fucking bizzaro world. But can it stave off all of these angry 13 year olds with guns or is Street Fighters reign on top in jeopardy?
Not a Bang, but a Whimper Award
But the all can't be winners here...there are of course some games that flat out do not live up the expectations set fourth by the hype or the media. None of the games on this list are terrible by any means, but for some reason they just did not meet the requirements that the gaming community needs to pop a giant e-boner. Were they rushed? Were they just lucky to be good the first time? Who knows for real, but we do know that these games didn't do NEARLY as well as they should have either critically or commercially.
Fable III
How much did this game not live up to the expectations? I did a whole fucking column about it, that's how much. We know that we can't trust anything that comes out of Molyneux mouth when it comes to the Fable franchise but this time he actually did the smart thing and shut the fuck up when he was doing the usual hype machine for the game and what ending up happening is that he fixed everything that didn't need to be fixed and ending up breaking everything else. A lame uninteresting story on top of a flat out STUPID design choice for the interface stacked on a heaping huge pile of bugs and problems that just makes the feel...well...blah is a good word for it.
Epic Mickey
"Epic" is right up there with "That's what she said!" in the terms I want to banish from the face of the Earth in 2011, but right here in 2010 it seems like Epic Mickey is determined to bring down the meaning of that word all by itself. This game got the super hype treatment which mostly lead to it's downfall. You had the Warren S. and Disney teaming up to give that they promised to be a dark Disney game that would go down in the record books as "Epic". Instead what we got as a game with bad controls, a worse camera, and in the end felt like what it really was meant to be. A great game on the wrong console.
Medal of Honor
EA really likes money. They like money so much that they are willing to dust off the old Medal of Honor franchise to get some of that dough that Call of Duty was raking in. Unfortunately for them they forgot the main ingredient for the Modern Warfare Pie. A good foundation. They got DICE (Bad Company 2) to do the legwork for the multiplayer game but all it did was just point out all of the holes that the game had. The weapons felt unbalanced, the maps were small and boring, and even in a genre where the single player game doesn't really matter at least they could act like they TRIED but instead it just felt like someone trying to copy the Modern Warfare format and turning out just that...a lackluster copy of Modern Warfare.
Force Unleashed 2
Now I don't remember the first Force Unleashed game exactly turning heads. It was a decent action-adventure Star Wars game and the first one we have had in a long time, but it was just a pretty middle of the road decent game from what I remember. But for some reason Force Unleashed 2 is getting just a ton of hate from all corners of the internet. This is one of the few games on the list that I haven't actually played so I can't necessarily harp on the bad points or defend the good points. This is just one of those situations where everyone else OBVIOUSLY sees something wrong here so I felt it needed to be included.
BioShock 2 ***HALFTIME "WINNER"***
And even after a full year it BioShock 2 still strikes me as the one game that should NOT be here. Not because it's really a good game that everyone just enjoys ragging on. I mean it should not be here because it SHOULD NOT EXIST. The game didn't need a sequel. Period. The story was over, it was wrapped up...it was OVER. Anything that followed it up was destined to be panned and that exactly what happened. But did it under-exceed so much that it deserves to be a two time winner? That's up to you.
The Die in a Fire Award
Everyone hates shit. This is the internet, so this is nothing new. So instead of bitching as you for hating things this time we will AWARD you for hating things! The Die in a Fire award is for the shit we just want to GO THE FUCK AWAY. It can be a character, a game, a news story...ANYONE. We want it dunked in kerosene and lit on fire while naked Persian hookers dance around the flames while blowing vuvuzelas. There is no better way to say it than that.
On Shelves Now, Patch it Later
I could just post a picture of Fallout: New Vegas right here and leave it at that but this is MUCH more than that. It seems like almost every major release this year has shipped either with some sort of MAJOR bug or some exploit that needs to be patched out. How do we know it needs to be patched out? Because the Developers tell us on DAY ONE that the shit needs to be patched. On the surface that might seem like great customer service or something, but what it really means is that these games are getting fucking rushed out of the gate in order to hit a deadline...and that game is usually fucking broken to all shit and they patch it out. This practice REALLY needs to die because the same industry that always presses us to "BUY NEW, NOT USED" and "PREORDER AND GET THIS" but what is the incentive of buying a new game if it's nearly unplayable at launch?
Bush Wookiees (Recons) - Bad Company 2
I understand the need for a sniper, I really do. But you motherfuckers in Bad Company who do NOTHING at all to help the team? FUCK YOU. You know who you are. You are the shitstains in gillysuits who sit at the BACK of the map and do nothing but snipe and call in Mortar Strikes. Do you set a fucking M-Comm or capture a flag? No. Do you throw single motion mine? How about at least camping in a strategic location so that when I spawn on you I can get right back in the action instead of having to run 5 miles only to get sniped by...ANOTHER FUCKING BUSH WOOKIEE. FUCK YOU GUYS. KILL TO DEATH RATION DOSEN'T FUCKING MATTER IF WE DON'T WIN THE GODDAMN MATCH.
Second Generation Motion Controls (Move/Kinect)
While I personally have no problems with Kinect and Move, a lot of the hardcore gamers out there see the second generation of motion control as the death knell for hardcore games everywhere. They fear that these motion controls will now be shoehorned into their games and they will be dragged kicking and screaming into the motion control bandwagon. So they think it needs to die.
Mexico (Red Dead Redemption)
Mexico was fucking boring. Seriously. It was one of the lowest points of the game for me. After building the game up this much and building up the fact that Marston is NOT some fetch boy and has a reason to be impartial and stay out of stuff....he goes and becomes the ULTIMATE errand boy in a conflict that does not concern him AT ALL. How somehow manages to show up looking for a single man and gets tossed into the middle of a civil war...it's not NEARLY as fun as it sounds.
Activision vs. Infinity Ward Drama ***HALFTIME WINNER***
...It won early in the year. There really isn't much else to say that hasn't been said repeatedly. Some nasty shit went down. We were tired of hearing about it. I'm tired of typing about it.
Maybe you all are tired of voting for it, too.
Bayonetta Baddest Bitch Award for Womanhood
Behind every badass guy there is a badass woman. Women have been nominated for the Award of Manliness before, but year after year they never win. So this year I decided to give them their own category and it's been working insanely well for them this year. Just like with the Manly Award the winner gets to have their name added to the award for all to see! So who wrestles the award away from Bayonetta? PLEASE someone wrestle the award from Bayonetta!
Lightning (Final Fantasy XIII)
Say what you want about FFXIII, but Lightning is a badass bitch. Final Fantasy XIII had a lot of characters, not many of them being homeruns like they were supposed to be but Final Fantasy always seems to make decent, if not great female protagonists and Lightning is up there. She might just be Cloud with a vagina (assuming Cloud himself didn't have one to begin with) but a good badass bitch is still a good badass bitch.
Liara (Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker)
Who would've thought that the bookish teenager (by age comparison) would turn into the cold badass mastermind she has become? From being a simple scientist that was uncomfortable around men and women to hunting down one of the most feared information brokers in the UNIVERSE and doing it all while throwing people off buildings and still coming off as the lost little girl she was in the first game.
Samus Aran (Metroid: Other M)
The first. The true. The Original. Well...after playing Other M some people might think that all of the badass Samus has amassed during the years is erased by a few bad cutscenes but THEY ARE WRONG. Samus is still a badass bounty hunter bitch who just loves to blow up planets and save the galaxy. The powersuit might make her a unstoppable, but the woman inside is what makes her badass.
Sarah Kerrigan (Starcraft II)
After a long long wait we finally see Sarah Kerrigan on the list. She might go down as not only one of the most badass bitches in video game history but also one of the best VILLIANS in video game history and her role in Starcraft II cements that. She has all of the great tropes of a villian on top of being a great female character in general. Left for dead by the people she trusted she is now seeking revenge on them by literally going from the bottom of the barrel to the top of the mountain. And admit it, if you didn't fear that her vagina was full of spikes you'd TOTALLY hit it.
Bayonetta (Bayonetta) ***HALFTIME WINNER***
You know what? I'm not even going to sugarcoat it. I fucking HATE Bayonetta. The game was okay, but the character? I can't fucking stand her. She serves NOTHING to the game besides to go "Hurrr look she's so naked and wacky". That's IT. But I am obviously in the minority here since she won the award at Halftime and the internet absolutely loves her and this game. So if you think she is the baddest bitch of the year...more power to you.
The Left Field Hit Award
Just like with the games that failed to impress, there are always games that suddenly come out of nowhere with no hype or reason and end up actually being a lot better than they have any right to be. These games either had no real media exposure or were generally ignored until they showed up and kicked you in the fucking teeth for ever doubting them. Well, except for one game. That one game ended up making everyone go "D'awww".
Game Dev Story (iPhone)
Game Dev Story is a game that didn't get too much exposure, but the internet community ate it the fuck up. The premise was simple...you ran a game company. That's it. But somehow it hit the right sense of simulation mixed with luck and number sense that made it a horribly addictive an unintentionally hilarious game. For 15 years now my company (Working Title Games) has topped the charts with it's Shooter RPG called "Hobo Wars".
Pac-Man Championship Edition DX
Seriously. There is nothing I can say about this game that can't be summed up right there. It's Pac-Man...but BETTER.
Transformers: War for Cybertron
Did anyone really think that as Transformers game would be good? Given the overwhelmingly bad response of both the movie and the movie related games and the Transformers license NEVER having a good game, many thought this game was destined to fail. People were actually taken by surprise when it turned out to be a pretty competent shooter. It wasn't perfect, but it was way better than it had any right to be being a Transformers game made for a next gen console when every other game has been horrible. They had the voice acting, the transforming, and the shooting...and you actually were playing something that was CANON. And we aren't even talking about the absolutely crazy multiplayer. I am so happy this game is getting a sequel.
Kirby's Epic Yarn
D'awwwwww. Kirby is so goddamn CUTE. I don't care who the fuck you are, if your heart didn't melt a bit at E3 when we saw the trailer for this game then you are not a fucking human. But of course like with most Nintendo products these days we thought we were getting all style and not enough substance and what we ended up getting was a pretty damn creative Kirby game that actually went hand in hand with the visuals for a cute fun adventure that reminded us that "Rated M" and "Great Game" are not synonymous.
Just Cause 2 - ***HALFTIME WINNER***
The love for this game has definitely fallen off a bit from the love it was getting early in the year but that doesn't change the fact that after the mediocre snore-fest that was Just Cause 1 that Just Cause 2 was going to be as much fun as it was. It wasn't a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination and the voice acting WAS all types of horrible (But as I have heard from MANY South East Asian people, actually pretty damned accurate) but the game had some charm. And a grappling hook.
Crowning Achievement in Awesome
In the Halftime Awards I rolled out two new awards for the Holy Shit Moment of the Year and the Crowning Achievement in Awesome. This time around I decided to just roll them all into one segment to avoid confusion. So what was the one moment that had you going? It was either awesome...or scary...or scary-awesome.
Note: Due to the fact that these are pretty much self explanitory, there will be no blurb. Nothing I can say about any of these moments will sell you on them unless you played through them. I suppose I could link to a whole bunch of YouTube videos...but...this Working Title. I'm not exactly known for being un-lazy.
The Car Chase (Mass Effect 2: Lair of The Shadow Broker)
Riding into Mexico (Red Dead Redemption)
Eating a Ghost Chain (Pac-Man Championship Edition DX)
Dying (Limbo)
Rain of Arrows (Assassins Creed: Brotherhood)
Best. Flashlight. Ever. (God of War 3) ***HALFTIME WINNER***
Workaholic's Choice Game of the Year
This is it. This is the big one. The giant one. The crazy one. The giant one. The massive one. The over long gag one. The MOTHERFUCKING GAME OF THE YEAR. This year was pretty goddamn fucking stacked and I mentioned earlier this year that this would probably be the only list to not change much at all in the end of the year...and I was right. Alan Wake ended up getting bumped off of the list and was replaced with two other games that I felt were just better when you compare them side by side. Plus we have a FIRST, a downloadable game is nominated for Working Title Game of the Year.
So what happens next is up to you.
Limbo
Personal feelings aside for Limbo, not even I can ignore the amount of critical praise this game has gotten. The mood, the setting, the (lack of) story telling has turned this into one of the main arguments in the Games = Art debate. To many it is being seen as not only one of the best games of the year but one of the best of the DECADE. And this is all for a downloadable CONSOLE game. DLC getting GOTY nods from EVERYONE? This genre didn't even EXIST 6 years ago and now it's one of the hottest genres FOR indy development and creativity. Limbo is the current figurehead of the movement.
God of War III
The first of our returning players from Halftime. God of War III was the ending (for now) of one of Sony's most iconic trilogies and probably one that resonates more with the current player base than any of the others on the list. It didn't change much in the three games but it didn't HAVE to. Kratos is a pissed off dude who was wronged and he was going to kill EVERYONE to make sure he gets revenge...and that is exactly what he did and the third and final outing wrapped it up and wonderful bloody fashion.
StarCraft II
No. This is not 1/3 of a fucking game. If you say that I will personally sit here and threaten to harm you without following through on those threats. Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty is a GREAT FUCKING GAME. The fact that they improved so much over Starcraft I in every fucking possible way from story to balancing and even the tiny shit like the interface shows that Blizzard hasn't become the one trick pony that everyone thinks they are after they have made a buttload of money with WoW. If anything they are a two trick pony now.
Red Dead Redemption
Red Dead Redemption was here earlier in the year, and if I didn't include it on the list you all would call for me to get fired right away. It might just be Grand Theft Auto with horses...but that is not a bad thing at all. The story, the characters, the gameplay...it all comes together in a great sexy sexy package. It's one of those games similar to the Halftime Winner where there isn't much else I can say about that hasn't already been said. Just like pretty much everyone else on this list. It's Game of the Year SOMEWHERE already. But they have to fight for best of the best.
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Mario is HANGING THE FUCK IN HERE. All of the rest of these Rated T and Rated M games with their blood and gore and higher meaning. FUCK THAT SHIT. The Granddaddy of ALL VIDYA is here to lay down his claim to Game of the Year, BITCHES. Mario reminds you that games don't have to be serious. They don't have to have this deeper meaning and social statuses and all of that other bullshit they just have to be FUN. Mario is FUN personified. Fun on the WII. The motherfucking WII. The console that I have talked more shit about in the last three years than probably anyone else on this site CONSTANTLY churns out GOTY nominees. In fact, out of everyone on this list Mario is the only one who HAS won Game of the Year before. Could he do it again with a sequel?
Mass Effect 2 ***HALFTIME WINNER***
Mass Effect 2 is going for the gold here. It came out the at the BEGINNING of the year and constantly stayed on the tip of everyone's tongue the entire year which is not only a feat for an RPG (fuck those in the face who say it isn't. A shitty inventory system does not make it an RPG) let alone an Xbox 360 console exclusive. It made good on the promise to make it YOUR story. It made good on the promise to give you better and expanded characters. It even made good on the promise let you fuck Tali and Garrus. This game won Halftime Game of the Year for a reason and to be flat out honest it looks like the favorite to make history and take the whole thing being the first ever Halftime Winner to take it in the End Game.
So there we have it. We kick off the New Year with a list of the best shit from the previous year.
Working Question
Obviously the WQ is that you SHOULD FUCKING VOTE FOR THE AWARDS. But beyond that…out of the big name games already named for 2011, which one do you think will see a significant delay.
History says that Elder Scrolls NEVER comes out on time. So I don't see Skyrim sticking to it's 11/11/11 date. Could be wrong, though.
VOTE YOU BITCHES.
Until next time, I'm Jordan Williams…and SEE YOU NEXT YEAR.
