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2021 Game Developer Awards - Hades beats TLOU2

Loope

Member
Lmfao. Why wasting my time.

It's like talking to a brick.

Go do some research. Trying to argue about shit you know nothing about

Ice Cube Reaction GIF
 

ZywyPL

Banned
This is legitimately one of the worst takes I've ever seen. How can you possibly think this?

Because gameplay is what matters the most in video games. If you want just the plot there are movies for that, but gameplay is what separates games from movies and is the most crucial part. We have stuff like Fortnite, Minecraft, Rocket League, R6, PUBG, COD Warzone, LoL etc., all the sport games, all the mobile games, all the web browser games, and so on, without any story and narrative at all, just pure gameplay, because just like 01011001 01011001 said, games do not need any story at all.

Just look back at how everything started with Pong, Tetris, Space Invaders, Pack-Man, Mario etc. Sure, the games had evolve greatly since then, and some games try to be more ambitious with their storytelling than the others, because why not, the possibilities are all there, even more so than in movies given everything is virtual and it's only you own imagination what's the limiting factor, but still, even to this very day, the plot isn't necessary at ll to make a great, fun game, while at the same time, even the best plot and storytelling don't matter that much if the gameplay isn't good/fun in the first place and people drop the game even halfway through it.
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
Because gameplay is what matters the most in video games. If you want just the plot there are movies for that, but gameplay is what separates games from movies and is the most crucial part. We have stuff like Fortnite, Minecraft, Rocket League, R6, PUBG, COD Warzone, LoL etc., all the sport games, all the mobile games, all the web browser games, and so on, without any story and narrative at all, just pure gameplay, because just like 01011001 01011001 said, games do not need any story at all.

Just look back at how everything started with Pong, Tetris, Space Invaders, Pack-Man, Mario etc. Sure, the games had evolve greatly since then, and some games try to be more ambitious with their storytelling than the others, because why not, the possibilities are all there, even more so than in movies given everything is virtual and it's only you own imagination what's the limiting factor, but still, even to this very day, the plot isn't necessary at ll to make a great, fun game, while at the same time, even the best plot and storytelling don't matter that much if the gameplay isn't good/fun in the first place and people drop the game even halfway through it.

No one said its necessary to make a video game, 01011001 01011001 said it wasn't important and that's is completely false.

Games like NBA 2K and Madden are sports games and they don't require a story. Some people like to play games for its competitive nature.

If you look at the list of the best games of all time, the vast majority of them have stories, and without the story, they wouldn't be nearly as popular as they are today. You're not going to find many developers creating successful action, RPG, adventure and FPS games today without an actual story. Casual video game players now want a story being attached to a fighting game.
 

Bryank75

Banned
Audience Award & Best Visual Art for Ghost of Tsushima...... had such a great time with that game. Love it, well deserved.
 

Hugare

Member
I enjoyed Hades. Was the best rogue like that I've ever played until playing Returnal.

But not GOTY material tho, imo.

Returnal is better in every way. Not even close.

To me TLOU was GOTY, with GOT as 2nd place.
 
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nerdface

Banned
I think young gamers and fanboys get confused, because as an interactive story, TLOU has tremendous production value. If you don’t know better, it’s easy to confuse that with interesting game mechanics.

TLOU2 is brilliant in presentation, and completely vapid in interaction. This series doesn’t know what it is, and tries to take on aspects of lots of other critically acclaimed titles. It fails at each one… horror, stealth, cover, shooter, but maybe together…just maybe…

The idea that these two games are somehow being compared, just goes to show this is a business like any other. I’m not a big michael bay fan, yet watching tlou2 win an award is like transformers winning an oscar.

Props to Hades… I think I’ve finished it only 53 times. Let’s talk when you’ve played tlou2 that many times. Could you imagine? Fucking kill me. 🤪
 
GDC was delayed this year due to covid. These awards are typically handed out in early March.

  • Best Audio: Hades (Supergiant Games)
  • Best Debut: Phasmophobia (Kinetic Games)
  • Best Design: Hades (Supergiant Games)
  • Best Mobile Game: Genshin Impact (miHoYo)
  • Innovation Award: Dreams (Media Molecule / Sony Interactive Entertainment)
  • Best Narrative: The Last of Us Part II (Naughty Dog / Sony Interactive Entertainment)
  • Best Technology: Microsoft Flight Simulator (Asobo Studio / Xbox Game Studios)
  • Best Visual Art: Ghost of Tsushima (Sucker Punch Productions / Sony Interactive Entertainment)
  • Best VR/AR Game: Half-Life: Alyx (Valve)
  • Audience Award: Ghost of Tsushima (Sucker Punch Productions / Sony Interactive Entertainment)
  • Game of the Year: Hades (Supergiant Games)
  • Pioneer Award: Tom Fulp (creator of Newgrounds)
  • Lifetime Achievement Award: Laralyn McWilliams (28 year industry veteran, creative director of MMO Free Realms)
Curious to see the industry pick Hades over TLOU2 (D.I.C.E awards also chose Hades). Critics and fans picked TLOU2 almost unanimously.

From game of the year tracker:
  • The Last of Us Part II- 305
    • Media Outlets: 197 | Readers' Choice: 108
  • Ghost of Tsushima - 65
    • Media Outlets: 54 | Readers' Choice: 11
  • Hades - 64
    • Media Outlets: 60 | Readers' Choice: 4
I wonder if Naughty Dog will look at this reception from their peers and make some changes. They did win Best Narrative so clearly the devs dont think the story was the problem.

P.S Great to see Flight Sim win best tech. Easily the most technically advanced game ever made. I have no idea why gaf is so dismissive of this game's tech features.

Source: https://www.ign.com/articles/hades-game-of-the-year-2021-game-developers-choice-awards
TLOU2 won 300+ GOTY Awards, Hades has 65...I don't see any reason for them to change anything. Those big shows have just been getting weird the past couple years. Remember 2019 when a bunch of them gave Untitled Goose Game GOTY over Sekiro, RE2, Death Stranding, etc? Yeah exactly. They have a thing now about pushing indie games even when they don't deserve it. Hard to take them seriously.
 

Loope

Member
TLOU2 won 300+ GOTY Awards, Hades has 65...I don't see any reason for them to change anything. Those big shows have just been getting weird the past couple years. Remember 2019 when a bunch of them gave Untitled Goose Game GOTY over Sekiro, RE2, Death Stranding, etc? Yeah exactly. They have a thing now about pushing indie games even when they don't deserve it. Hard to take them seriously.
Are you saying that all the indie games getting awards is because of some sort of edgy idea? If someone (god forbid) doesn't enjoy these big blockbuster games, they're wrong? Do you like every book by Dan Brown, every movie by Michael Bay for example?
 

Tripolygon

Banned
I don't even know why people try to make silly arguments about TLOU writing. You might not like the story but it is well crafted and the industry as a whole recognizes that, even Microsoft own internal review of the game states that.

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Ellery

Member
Last of us 2 has the best core gameplay of any third person game out there

look at this


The difference is absolutely incredible

Gears 5 looks like a low budget Xbox 360 game in comparison now

Yup absolutely true.

After finishing a Naughty Dog game I have to acclimatize to the lower standard of the rest of the industry and it usually takes a few years for me to respect other games again. Same happened at the end of the PS3 when TLOU came out and same happened at the end of the PS4 cycle again.
 

Tripolygon

Banned
Last of us 2 has the best core gameplay of any third person game out there

look at this


The difference is absolutely incredible

Gears 5 looks like a low budget Xbox 360 game in comparison now
Thats why I always laugh at Naughtydog doesn't know how to make good gameplay comments. The excuse usually being they focus too much or story and narrative. In reality they do both well and TLOU Part 2 raised the bar. Gears was a pioneer of third person shooters and it still is a very fun gameplay but it is very different from a game like Uncharted and TLOU.
 
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EruditeHobo

Member
Because gameplay is what matters the most in video games.

I don't disagree, but he literally said 99% of games. You listed a dozen.

There are hundreds of video games very focused on story/narrative. Massively so. So while gameplay is the overwhelming number one priority when it comes to judging a video game, for a vast swath of the industry narrative/story/character aren't that far behind. Because those are the kinds of games they're making... they are hugely reliant on their story and their characters.

Thats why I always laugh at Naughtydog doesn't know how to make good gameplay comments.

It's a laughable comment, indicative of an agenda or some ax to grind more than anything else as far as I can tell. It almost always says more about the person saying it than it does ND games.

And I'm not saying everyone has to love ND games, far from it in fact. Not all games or game genres are for everyone, and I personally dislike a lot of very "good" or well-made games. They just don't speak to me. But to misunderstand what ND does well, to miss the mark by that much, ostensibly as someone who claims to know something about video games... it's puzzling.
 
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EruditeHobo

Member
The idea that these two games are somehow being compared, just goes to show this is a business like any other. I’m not a big michael bay fan, yet watching tlou2 win an award is like transformers winning an oscar.

Nah... this is a poor analogy.
Average Bay Transformers RT: 29%
TLOU2 metacritic: 93%

It's kinda more like watching Return of the King or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or something win an Oscar. Those too are quite mainstream "AAA" stories which remain very controversial to some people. And if we were in a room with a bunch of those people, they'd have a lot of impassioned opinions in a debate about the quality of those films. But that too would just be another example of the vocal minority.

Because whether talking about those 2 movies or TLOU2, whether or not any individual person or group enjoyed them or appreciates them we are at a point where the consensus is what it is -- they all made money, they all were critically acclaimed, and the majority of people are very pleased with the exchange & happy these stories exist.
 
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nerdface

Banned
Nah... this is a poor analogy.
Average Bay Transformers RT: 29%
TLOU2 metacritic: 93%

It's kinda more like watching Return of the King or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or something win an Oscar. Those too are quite mainstream "AAA" stories which remain very controversial to some people. And if we were in a room with a bunch of those people, they'd have a lot of impassioned opinions in a debate about the quality of those films. But that too would just be another example of the vocal minority.

Because whether talking about those 2 movies or TLOU2, whether or not any individual person or group enjoyed them or appreciates them we are at a point where the consensus is what it is -- they all made money, they all were critically acclaimed, and the majority of people are very pleased with the exchange & happy these stories exist.

I’ve never seen naughty dog compared to Tolkien before, so I’m kind of at a loss here.

How about we find some common ground and call story a moot point. Ultimately, we are talking about a •game• of the year award, not story of the year.
 

Fredrik

Member
Thank you for this. I'm glad to shut u up.
Let's go
[Media]

[Media]

Every dumb argument you have I have counter for you. You know why?
Because I played the game. I know what I'm talking about. You know shit

I haven’t played the game but going by Uncharted I’m guessing that you don’t actually control the melee combat but are just mashing a button and the game choose the attacks for you based on trigger points around you?

Unfortunately I haven’t played Hades either but I think I understand what 01011001 01011001 is talking about. When a game is gameplay focused you have exact and distinct control over all your actions. Like Demon’s Souls for example. You know exactly how fast your attack will be and how far you’ll reach when you attack. Or to go deeper, Hollow Knight, every attack and dodge is reproducable on a pixel level which makes boss fights intense like in few other games, it’s 100% gameplay focused.

As a rule, when a game is animated extremely well it usually don’t control well. Goes way back to Prince of Persia, Another World, Flashback on the Amiga. The snappiness just isn’t there. And this has continued through the gaming history up til Red Dead Redemption 2, and maybe TLOUp2 but like I said I haven’t played it so it’s just assumptions from looking at your videos.

Well-animated games looks so good though! It’s like interactive movies! And the games can obviously have other qualities that outweigh the less distinct controls. RDR2 is one of my favorite games of all time, controls like shit but I love the living and breathing world, it’s probably the most well-crafted world ever in gaming.
 
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arvfab

Banned
I’ve never seen naughty dog compared to Tolkien before, so I’m kind of at a loss here.

How about we find some common ground and call story a moot point. Ultimately, we are talking about a •game• of the year award, not story of the year.

How about no?

Story is an important, for some the most important, part of a game. Or should we also remove audio? I mean, you can play a game without sound, right?
 

EruditeHobo

Member
I’ve never seen naughty dog compared to Tolkien before, so I’m kind of at a loss here.

A Tolkien adaptation is not "Tolkien"...

But regardless of that, they are directly, perfectly comparable! They are exactly alike in terms of critical consensus, which is one of the only ways I compared them -- they both have an identical score for their respective industry's chief critical aggregator, 93%.

How about we find some common ground and call story a moot point. Ultimately, we are talking about a •game• of the year award, not story of the year.

And games are completely separate from stories! Oh wait, no they aren't.
We're specifically talking about a group that gives a narrative of the year award in gaming. So...
 
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EruditeHobo

Member
Like Demon’s Souls for example. You know exactly how fast your attack will be and how far you’ll reach when you attack. Or to go deeper, Hollow Knight, every attack and dodge is reproducable on a pixel level which makes boss fights intense like in few other games, it’s 100% gameplay focused.

I love Hollow Knight, It's one of the best games I've played in years, IMO. But saying that (and Demon's Souls) is "100% gameplay focused" is objectively incorrect. Really, really obviously so. So both you and the other 99% guy are falling into the same trap, you are both being far too sloppy in your terminology. To the point that you're just obviously wrong.
 
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nerdface

Banned
If you ask me, Hades story is better by default just for staying out of the way so I can actually play.

I don’t blame you for preferring the story of TLOU2 to gameplay though.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Hades wins GOTY from developers who actually play videogames, TLOU2 gets awards from games journalists who don't play games.

Eh, lots of the people voting at GDC probably don't play a ton of games to completion either. But Hades had allowed for short gameplay sessions and a constant sense of progression and balanced amazingly well. It's basically made for busy game devs.

Fantastic game in general, too.
 
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Fredrik

Member
I love Hollow Knight, It's one of the best games I've played in years, IMO. But saying that (and Demon's Souls) is "100% gameplay focused" is objectively incorrect. Really, really obviously so.
Okay fine 99% then. Is that okay? 😋
The story in Hollow Knight is there, but after getting an ending after many frustrating hours I look back at it and truly appreciate and remember the gameplay, the story however is forgettable filler content and thinner than a random Steven Seagal movie.
Haven’t finished Demon’s Souls yet (playing it as we speak!) but so far I can’t say the story is much to talk about.
 
First of all, congrats to the developer.

The reason why this registers at all on my radar is because I don't like rogue games. I think they actively waste my time. It further baffles me how a (relatively) small game with comparatively small production value can beat a product that is so insanely well made on so many different levels. It didn't make me think twice when people awarded God of War and Red Dead Redemption 2, even if I preferred God of War, but then you have someone give Tetris game of the year. What can you even say about that game other than, it's a good version of a great game? I loved it, and I'll probably be playing it 25 years from now, but it's not remarkable in the same way those other two games are.

But, hey. It's a game, and people have fun with it. Maybe some people don't like the way TloU2 plays. Objectivity means so little when it comes to awarding a piece of art.
 
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Topher

Gold Member
Because gameplay is what matters the most in video games. If you want just the plot there are movies for that, but gameplay is what separates games from movies and is the most crucial part. We have stuff like Fortnite, Minecraft, Rocket League, R6, PUBG, COD Warzone, LoL etc., all the sport games, all the mobile games, all the web browser games, and so on, without any story and narrative at all, just pure gameplay, because just like 01011001 01011001 said, games do not need any story at all.

Just look back at how everything started with Pong, Tetris, Space Invaders, Pack-Man, Mario etc. Sure, the games had evolve greatly since then, and some games try to be more ambitious with their storytelling than the others, because why not, the possibilities are all there, even more so than in movies given everything is virtual and it's only you own imagination what's the limiting factor, but still, even to this very day, the plot isn't necessary at ll to make a great, fun game, while at the same time, even the best plot and storytelling don't matter that much if the gameplay isn't good/fun in the first place and people drop the game even halfway through it.

Depends on the game and the gamer. Look at Watch Dogs Legion. The game has no main character and no real story. The game play is typical Watch Dogs. I enjoyed the first two Watch Dogs, but I didn't bother to finish Legion because the lack of story took away my motivation. The story is what propels many people, like myself, to keep playing. So in that respect the story matters just as much as gameplay. The games that truly excel in my mind are the ones that and superb at both. The fact that games like Rocket League exist without a story does not mean other games "do not need any story at all". Rocket League and games like TLOU 2, Ori and the Will of Wisps, Mass Effect and countless other games depend on its story for the game to be entertaining.
 
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SLB1904

Banned
I haven’t played the game but going by Uncharted I’m guessing that you don’t actually control the melee combat but are just mashing a button and the game choose the attacks for you based on trigger points around you?
no there is a dodge button.
it plays like dark souls. dodge attack rolll dive forwards backward.

lets put simple
not one single game out there plays like the last of us 2.
the gameplay is that good.
also the ai is amazing there is that as well







i hope these put this nonsense to rest
 
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nerdface

Banned
Oh, I gotta say…fuck yeah for winning the audio award. Sound very much isn’t a cockblock to the game, but absolutely essential.

This thread has me playing some Hades runs, and the music is so stupid good! Lament of Orpheus? The Unseen Ones? It’s like devil went down to georgia, except instead of banjos and violins, it’s electric guitars like satan intended.

god. tier.

ND can eat their fucking hearts out 😂
 
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Codes 208

Member
Not surprised, once the hype died it shouldve been clear that hades was the better game, though im still team GoT for 2020 (even if i am salty about them paywalling next gen features)

also kudos to phasmophobia getting an award for best debut!
 
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MrS

Banned
Lotta the people ITT likely haven't played Hades. You'll get your chance when it comes to PS5 next month. Surely it would be wise to reserve judgment until then?
 

Warablo

Member
I wouldn't say TLOU II Narrative was it's strong suit. The gameplay and world is amazing though.

Hades, Ghost of Tsushima, and TLOU II all great games.
 
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nerdface

Banned
Wait, you can fight Charon? Got him 2/3 of the way down, but I’ve been lazy relying on athena’s reflect. Shit doesn’t work on his attacks so you have to go around waves of his purple fire somehow.

I need to kill him now. 🤬
 
To me TLOU was GOTY, with GOT as 2nd place.
It wasn't just you. TLOU2 was GOTY from most places and voted by players as GOTY over 100 times. Ghost was second overall. Certain outlets just like to push the little indie games as GOTY now. Untilted Goose Game last year and now Hades this year. It's no coincidence.
 
ND can eat their fucking hearts out 😂
TLOU2 is going to be known as the most awarded game of all time for probably a good while if not forever. I don't see any other game winning 300+ GOTY awards anytime soon. Pretty sure ND has nothing to be sad about LOL
 
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