PixlBit

That's a lot of Doom ...

I know, right? It's the gift that keeps on giving!

So glad to see you guys back for a, more or less, normal episode. Ryan Higgins was a nice surprise. I've been behind on some of my normal podcasts so if he announced he was going to be on NWP I missed it. Definitely should have him on again down the road. 

I must have also missed the listener top 5 for 2017. Unless it was only advertised on Twitter, I have an account but it's almost never used. 

Julian, I'm really glad to see how much you loved Horizon. I think I was on here a few times shouting blasphemy about how it's better than Zelda and you should go through it. It might have made my #1 for the year. 

I was also waiting a few weeks to make sure you finished up Giant Bombs GOTY Deliberations. What did you think? I thought it was a great year.

-Definitely some tense moment with Alex and Jeff debating on Fire Pro Wrestling being eligible and also the Best World Category and if it is a bad category they should drop. I haven't been listening anywhere near as long as you have. Is there any animosity there?

Not seeing Doki Doki Literature Club mentioned anywhere was a bit shocking. Don't think it's a strong candidate for top 10 or anything but there's definitely a few categories where it at least deserved a mention.

-I was really hoping Dream Daddy wouldn't make it but that's just me thinking it's stupid, lol. The content doesn't bother me It just seems so dumb. Honestly, it could be great but it just doesn't seem like something I'd enjoy. I was hoping Dan could edge it out. 

-I laughed so hard when Abby for like the 50th time proclaimed how she thinks Cuphead deserves to be higher on the list and everyone just simultaneously were like, "Yeah, we know."

Yeah, since there was such along time between episodes I only put the call out on twitter.

Thoughts about the Giant Bomb deliberations. I have a lot of them.

I thought the world building debate was absurd, and I was genuinely shocked that they couldn't come to a consensus on what world building is, and equally shocked that, not only did Horizon not win the category, it wasn't even in the top 3. That game is like 80% world building, and is the main reason I love it so much.

No animosity between Alex and anyone else. Alex has his battles and will fight for them. Now, if Fire Pro was disqualified for not having been released at the time of recording, I think it's total bullshit that PUBG wasn't disqualified. They took it as fact that the game would actually release in 2017, and I think they all gave it a pass because they had pretty much already decided it was GOTY way before sitting down to record.

I was curious how Ben and Abby would mesh in that room. I like Abby a ton on the Beastcast, but lowkey can't stand anything Ben says or does. I felt like Ben never added anything of merit to any of the discussions. I was surprised at how ready to mix things up Abby was, but the longer the discussion went on, the more I decided that she must not be much of a reader. She seems to pull from the same limited vocabulary. Maybe I do that too, but at some point I was trying to see if I could count all the times she said "very" "cool", and "good". 

But my main take away was that this was the first time in a decade that I have not only disagreed with the GB top 10, but it actively made me angry. You can probably tell from my top 5 list that I wasn't pleased with their list, and as someone who really doesn't understand why people love Nier, I was shocked when JEFF GERSTMANN of all people tried to get it in as the top game. 

Yeah the whole World debate was crazy. I thought these things were more or less hammered out before a podcast records. At least to where a main host, Gerstman, can reiterate it's meaning to the rest of the cast when they ask. It was definitely entertaining to hear the actual debate but it should never have come to that. I honestly can't recall the Top 3, just that Zelda won and Horizon wasn't in it. I completely agree with you. Horizon was amazing in that subject. I was so enthralled into that universe. I wanted every piece of info I could find. The locations were interesting and the robosaurs peppered throughout the land was unlike any other game I've played. Should have been top 3 easy but I agree it should have won.

I didn't even think about that PUBG comment. It could easily have been pushed back a few weeks. They were lucky it wasn't. Think it'll be done differently this year. That said, I'm loving PUBG on Xbox despite its flaws. I can agree 100% with what they said about the tense battles. I don't see it being GOTY but it deserves a spot on the top 10 in my opinion. 

I'm still debating on Ben. I like him a bit more than I did initally but I could easily go without him. Abby has been fine on Beastcast (outside that Australian sister bit...) but I was getting tired of the Cuphead comment after the 5th time and I'm sure it was about double that. Also Dream Daddy wouldn't have made it without her so she loses a point or 3 lol. 

The top 10 also surprised me. PUBG was almost no where else in the awards so seeing it go 1 was strange. I fully anticipated Zelda winning or maybe Mario. Gerstman also caught me off guard with how hard he was fighting for Nier. He stated how he was walking into that day thinking it would win #1 and I was shocked. I am definitely a fan of Nier: Automata but I couldn't back it as #1. It just didn't seem like a game he would be championing.

Cuphead was great but I feel it was too high. Let's be real here, that game with any other generic skin over it is not even being mentioned here. Game play was perfectly fine but not ground breaking. The art is a HUGE factor and that's fine but shouldn't push it to a GOTY contender in my opinion.

Destiny 2 was a blast for the month or 2 I played it but like most I dropped it hard and can't see myself diving back in. I can't really comment on the last 4 but I'm so disappointed that Horizon got no love on this list. Especially when I see Dream Daddy on it. Horizon got snubbed because of its close proximity to Zelda. There's no other way I can fathom it being so unloved by the majority. I'm not saying everyone should be in love with it but it deserved more than what it got. 

2017 definitely blows away 1998. Both of my favorite games of that year (Ocarina of Time and Xenogears) got their latest sequels this year. Breath of the Wild is absolutely incredible.

I think for me I need to wait and see how history shakes out for this year. 1998 was not only a year of amazing sequels, but games that rewrote game design. I think I need to see what from 2017 gets taken forward, and which of these new games become something we're still talking about years from now. If Horizon only has one good game then it will fade into history, but we're still talking about Metal Gear Solid and Half Life today. 

One thing that 2017 has going for it is the Switch itself. It's an amazing little system and it's been one of Nintendo's biggest successes, especially given all of the skepticism that came from the failure of the Wii U. Breath of the Wild has a real shot at unseating Ocarina of Time as the best-selling Zelda of all time, and Super Mario Odyssey has been huge as well. I think that Breath of the Wild will prove to be a game-changer for the Zelda series and one that is talked about for a long time. In 1998, even as Ocarina of Time and MGS were battling it out at Christmastime, Sega was pulling the plug on the Saturn, and in doing it the way they did, they alienated a lot of support for the Dreamcast. :(

People underestimeate how monumental 1998 was. They aren't seeing things from a historical perspective. Part of that is they aren't accounting for PC gaming or are unaware of what was coming out on that side. Another part is that it's not just about games being "good". That's not enough. There was nothing in 2017 that wasn't already established in previous decades. 1998 was paradigm shifting. That is the reason it's been considered the great year for so long.

I’m curious, do you listen to the show, or are you just commenting on the title?

Commenting on various comments.

I don't understand how anyone can NOT like BotW. Sure, the dungeons aren't as good, but the focus is not on dungeons (play Twilight Princess if you want awesome dungeons); the focus is on the giant world in which you can explore. And that's where BotW shines brighter than any open world game before it. The world is huge, alive, and full of surprises. It brings new meaning to the term "exploration." Honestly, I think that alone makes it GotY. 

I think not having BotW as GOTY (or in the top 5 in my case) shouldn't suggest that someone doesn't like it. I have serious issues with the gameplay of that game, and I am not a Zelda fan in general. So the fact that BotW sucked me in for 60 hours (and some really long play sessions) speaks volumes for how much I like that game.