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IndieDB 2015 Indie of the Year Awards!


Posted on December 30, 2015 by Tamsin Heineman

IndieDB has just released the list of their top ten independent studio games of 2015 and the winners are just plain outstanding.

  • First Place – Space Engineers – Keen Software House – Early Access Oct 22, 2013
    This years winner is a personal favorite. Space Engineers is a procedurally generated voxel based space and building and exploration sandbox with both survival and creative modes as well as online play via hosted servers. In this game you build ships, stations and anything else you can imagine with their elaborate building system and wide variety of highly customizable blocks.
    Everything from programming blocks, gyros, thrusters, rotors, pistons, remote control, armor, and  just about anything else you can imagine make the possibilities endless.  Did I mention mods? This game has full access to the Steam Workshop and custom fanmade content.
    Almost forgot to mention their newest edition, PLANETS! A lot of new features have been added along with them. Also of mention is their weekly updates. They’re always tweaking and adding things and making the game overall more enjoyable for everyone. There’s really too much for me to go over in just this short blurb, so pick it up and check it out!

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2nd Annual Game Awards Report


Posted on December 4, 2015 by Fionna Schweit

Last night was the second annual Game Awards, with a full line up of presenters, world game premiers, and musical acts.  Most people probably came for the world premieres, of which there were several.  Included were: Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, Shaq-Fu: A Legend Reborn, a Telltale Games Batman title, Far Cry Primal, Psychonauts 2, Quantum Break, Rock Band VR, Shadow Complex Remastered, Rocket League‘s Xbox One release, Star Citizen, and The Walking Dead: Michonne.

This is of course also an awards show so here is a list of winners and some of my reactions from the event:

GAME OF THE YEAR: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (CD Projekt Red/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment) – The polish studio behind The Witcher 3 really cleaned up this year, taking home several big awards. I guess I need to play it, since it was really off my radar since it’s a seriously large game that takes so much investment. Im not surprised this happened with the scale and scope, but it did have to beat out Fallout 4 and MGS:V

DEVELOPER OF THE YEAR: CD Projekt Red – Ok I was surprised at this, I haven’t had a chance to play The Witcher 3 yet, but I know it’s a huge beautiful game, but I thought with two huge games this year Nintendo was a for sure this one.

BEST INDEPENDENT GAME: Rocket League (Psyonix) – This one actually kind of disappointed me, the other choices were Axion Verge, Her Story, Ori and the Blind forest and Undertale. All of which I think have better story since well Rocket League doesn’t have a story. There are way too many indie games for this award to work, like did anyone consider Besiege, or Honey pop  (ok that’s a joke). The guys at Psyonix deserve this for sure but I think its hard to nail this category since it just has so many things.

BEST MOBILE/HANDHELD GAME: Lara Croft Go (Square Enix Montreal/Square Enix) – Ok this one was hands down going to Laura Croft go, no questions. If you haven’t checked it out do so. The only real competitor here was maybe the Vault game from Bethesda but the two are super different.

BEST NARRATIVE: Her Story (Sam Barlow) – Her story is not a game that I played, or even heard about at all before this awards show, I honestly disagree with this one it should have been Life is Strange, which I adored.

BEST ART DIRECTION: Ori and the Blind Forest (Moon Studios/Microsoft Studios) – Not surprised here, the bright color pallet and whimsical imagery win this one over the darker tones of most modern AAA games.

BEST SCORE/SOUNDTRACK: Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain (Ludvig Forssell, Justin Burnett, Daniel James/Kojima Productions) – Get what you pay for here, MGS:V was a great game, with amazing visuals, great sound, and a story that mostly did a good job, a well-deserved win here.

BEST PERFORMANCE: Viva Seifert (Her Story) – Other than the presenter confusing the game that won this award, I found myself again surprised that a game that was so under the radar cleaned up so well. I’m sure Viva’s performance was brilliant and this win means I need to check out Her Story for sure.

GAMES FOR CHANGE: Life is Strange (Dontnod Entertainment/Square Enix) – At least Life is Strange gets the nod here, I can’t help but think this is mostly because the main protagonist is a member of the LGBT community and thus the game focuses on some of those issues, but it’s nice to see the shout out.

BEST SHOOTER: Splatoon (Nintendo EAD Group No. 2/Nintendo) – I am so glad this won. Splatoon is one of the best games of this year, and I am really glad to see it receive recognition for what it is an amazing multiplayer shooter.

BEST ACTION/ADVENTURE GAME: Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain (Kojima Productions/Konami) – Glad to see that Metal Gears Open world playground gets this award. The game is amazing, and if you haven’t played it go do it, that’s all I can say.

BEST ROLE-PLAYING GAME: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (CD Projekt Red/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment) – Another win for the polish CD Projekt Red, since this was one of the only major RPGs to come out this year I wasn’t super surprised.

BEST FIGHTING GAME: Mortal Kombat X (NetherRealm Studios/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment) *Disclaimer I know nothing about fighting games* Iv played this game at the arcade, and it’s a pretty game, but its also the only AAA fighter released this year, so the win is a gimme.

BEST FAMILY GAME: Super Mario Maker (Nintendo EAD Group No. 4/Nintendo) – Seeing Nintendo getting the shout outs at a major game awards show still feels really odd to me, but this has been an amazing year for Nintendo,

BEST SPORTS/RACING GAME: Rocket League (Psyonix) – there are other sports racing games?

BEST MULTIPLAYER: Splatoon (Nintendo EAD Group No. 2/Nintendo) – This one I kinda disagree with, there were other great multiplayer games this year, and while Splatoon was the most original I don’t think it was the best and most polished. I really liked the idea of MGS:V winning this for Metal Gear online, but it didn’t happen.

MOST ANTICIPATED GAME: No Man’s Sky (Hello Games) – Can we stop giving the award to this game please? I get it ok, people want No Man’s sky, and have since they announced it like 4 years ago.

ESPORTS PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Kenny “KennyS” Schrub (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive/Team EnVyUs) – This was a surprise to me, and it was less surprising than the next win.
ESPORTS TEAM OF THE YEAR: Optic Gaming – woah, surprised here, expected this to be a League Team or at least DOTA2.
ESPORTS GAME OF THE YEAR: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (Valve) – this is a given since its getting its own League on cable TV. With the annoucment that we will be getting a show on TBS on Friday nights and with over a million dollars up for grabs, CS:GO is going to win this no problem.

TRENDING GAMER:  Greg Miller – who? Sorry but I have no idea who that is, honestly and I watch a lot of YouTube.  Props to greg for the win, guess I know who he is now.

BEST FAN CREATION: Portal Stories: Mel (Prism Studios) – this flew under the radar, but it was really an amazing fan creation, playing portal again really made me happy and honestly made me wish for another portal game.

And that’s about that. The awards are still run by Geoff Keighkey and this year the aestitic shifted from spikes MAN MAN MAN style of last year, over to a cyber-styling that I really enjoyed. Also of note was Hideo Kojimas absence, apparently due to a legal issue with his (fromer?) employer Konami. Geoff called out Konami on how they were treating their golden goose. This was graet to hear. There was also a major tribute (like 15 minutes) to Satoru Iwata who’s genius is one of the major reasons Nintendo exits as a game company today.

There was also a huge packed line up of game trailers, premiers and additional information about already out games, take a look at all the video content below the drop

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Will Wright honored at Britannia Awards


Posted on November 12, 2012 by Broken Joysticks

When it comes to video game developers that have found themselves a myriad of awards, names like Gabe Newell or Shigeru Miyamoto often come to mind. However, it is the man behind some of the more ingenious time sinks of all-time that takes the crown. Will Wright of Sim City and the Sims fame acquired himself the Albert R. Broccoli Award for Worldwide Contribution to Entertainment at the 25th Annual Britannia Awards, an awards show from the Los Angeles branch of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts or BAFTA for short. The reason why Wright was selected for the coveted award was for his involvement in producing games based around game design, as well as attracting a genre of game that would be welcomed into modern culture;  open-ended non-violent simulation games, much to the likes of the highly successful Sim City and The Sims franchises.

The Albert R. Broccoli Award is dedicated to (who else?) Albert R. Broccoli, the renowned film producer who to a kindling to Ian Fleming’s James Bond series of novels, who then went about an odyssey in bringing the beloved super spy to the silver screen, thus birthing Dr. No in 1962, and igniting a worldwide passion for Bond ever since. Broccoli went on to become the first Britannia Award winner when the awards originated over twenty years ago. The award was first unveiled in 2011, when John Lasseter from Pixar and Disney fame became the first award recipient, but the only difference is Wright is the first video game developer to win not only this award, but to be recognized at the Britannia Awards. Wright has won several awards in his past, including a pair of Lifetime Achievement Awards at the Games Developer Conference Awards in 2001 and PC Magazine in 2005, not to mention the many awards from his game catalog.

To put it in perspective, other Britannia Award winners included Trey Parker/Matt Stone, Daniel Craig, Quentin Tarantino, and Daniel Day-Lewis. It just seems natural to include Will Wright with the lot.


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