Disclaimer: Let’s kick this off by saying Twinfinite has our own awards that we give out every year. We never get mad about what any other entity picks as their winners because it’s A: Their opinion and they’re entitled to it and B: We can just go ahead and name our own winner, which we do, and leave it at that!
Unless of course it’s Serral somehow not even getting nominated for the best esports player of 2018, but that’s a whole other story.
Still, The Game Awards is such a successful, well-run, and entertaining event that it’s fun to do a little backseat judging and debating around the water cooler the next day.
So let’s get judgy shall we?
Best Ongoing Support – Winner: Fortnite
What Should Have Won: Final Fantasy XIV
Despite what the haters will tell you, there’s no shame in picking Fortnite to win this award. Fortnite is one of the most well-supported games in the industry right now; and as well it should be considering it brings in truckloads of money for Epic Games.
That said, if there was a year to not give the award to Fortnite, it would be the year that Final Fantasy XIV added on a full-on S-Tier JRPG story into their already loaded MMORPG via the incredible Shadowbringers expansion.
Seriously, one of the best Final Fantasy stories of all-time now exists within Final Fantasy XIV. Shadowbringers is that good.
This is all on top of the regular content updates that the game receives on a regular basis that consistently improve all areas of the game, including crafting, hardcore, casual, solo, roleplaying and more.
You could pick Final Fantasy XIV every year since A Realm Reborn if we’re being real. But if I had to pick one year for it definitely win, it would have been 2019.
Best Art Direction – Winner: Control
What Should Have Won: Gris
Art is probably the most subjective thing that exists. One person’s trash is another’s treasure, as they say.
Not one of the nominees for Best Art Direction at The Game Awards 2019 is trash, in fact, they are all gorgeous games.
While it was definitely worthy of a nom’, I was genuinely surprised that Control took home the award. I would have personally ranked it close to last on the list of nominees that The Game Awards had this year for this category.
Control is beautiful but its environments are quite repetitive. The red glow over floating bodies aesthetic is striking, but you see it over and over throughout the game. Same goes for the blocky world of The Board, and the various offices and departments around the FBC.
Out of the nominees The Game Awards went into the show with, we would have gone with Gris, which is one of the most beautiful games released this generation full-stop. I’m not even sure if Control is in my top five just for 2019.
Best Mobile Game – Winner: Call of Duty: Mobile
What Should Have Won: Sayonara Wild Hearts
Call of Duty Mobile is a great mobile FPS game. No one is disputing that. It’s very popular and well-made.
However, there are lots of fun, popular FPS games on phones these days. They kind of feel like a dime a dozen, and no matter what you do, a phone FPS will never feel as good as playing on PC or consoles. It’s something you just live with because you don’t have your PC/console/handheld with you.
What there isn’t a lot of, in general not even just on mobile, are games like Sayonara Wild Hearts.
Sayonara Wild Hearts leverages the mobile platform in a way that is rare; your phone is the best place to play this one.
The touchscreen controls are tight, the game visually pops on the small screen, the music is catchy and fun and features experiences that left our reviewer, Greysun Morales, feeling like this:
“It’s a hard game to talk about without sounding like someone who just woke up from a hazy fever dream full of women in masks riding motorcycles and fighting with big anime swords.”
Best Sports or Racing Game – Winner: Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
What Should Have Won: MLB The Show 19
Of all the awards that we here at Twinfinite were totally off-step with, it will be the Best Sports Game award that stands out.
Not only did MLB The Show 19 not win Best Sports Game, as it did for us, our people over at San Diego Studio didn’t even get a nomination!
Instead, Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled won last night, which is… fine, it’s a great racer, but you can easily make the argument that it’s not even the best racing game this year, and it’s a remake of an older game, if that means anything to you when deciding which 2019 game is the best.
MLB The Show 19 is probably the best baseball game of this generation. Sure, San Diego Studio has no real competition other than themselves as far as America’s Pastime is concerned, but that might make it tougher to stay motivated.
Without competition, there’s no one to keep San Diego Studios sharp and on their toes. They have to outdo themselves each and every year.
And this year, towards the end of a console generation no less, they went all out and improved almost every area of MLB The Show 19 in a meaningful way.
That’s it for our picks for snubs. What games did you feel got overlooked this year? Let us know in the comments below.
If you missed The Game Awards 2019, you can check out everything that was announced, and the full list of winners right here.
Published: Dec 13, 2019 12:10 pm