Tag Archive: Witcher 3


Fallout 4 reigns supreme at 19th annual D.I.C.E. Awards

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment
February 25, 2016

GOTY-Todd_Howard_andFallout4team640

Fallout 4 surprised many when it took home Game of the Year at the 19th annual D.I.C.E. Awards last night in Las Vegas.

The win was Fallout 4‘s third of the night out of the eight categories it was nominated in, tying it for the most total hardware of the evening with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Ori and the Blind Forest, and Rocket League. It also marks the second year in a row that a game that also won Best RPG/MMO took home the big prize of the night after Dragon Age Inquisition pulled off the same feat last year.

Surprisingly, the game with the most nominations—Rise of the Tomb Raider with nine—only picked up one win, which was for Outstanding Achievement in Character for Lara Croft.

Aside from the 22 awards given out in specific categories, the D.I.C.E. Awards also recognized Visual Basic with the second ever Technical Impact Award, Hideo Kojima was inducted into the show’s Hall of Fame, and Satoru Iwata was posthumously given the Lifetime Achievement award.

For all of the nominees in each category, you can check out the list below. Winners have been bolded.

Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition
Batman: Arkham Knight
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture
Ori and the Blind Forest
Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design
Destiny: The Taken King
Ori and the Blind Forest
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Star Wars Battlefront
The Order: 1886

Outstanding Achievement in Story
Fallout 4
Her Story
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Tales from the Borderlands
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Outstanding Technical Achievement
Just Cause 3
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Star Wars Battlefront
The Order: 1886
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Outstanding Achievement in Character
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate — Evie Frye
Her Story — Hannah Smith
Life is Strange — Maxine Caulfield
Rise of the Tomb Raider — Lara Croft
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Geralt of Rivia

D.I.C.E. Sprite Award
Galak-Z
Her Story
Kerbal Space Program
Rocket League
Undertale

Outstanding Achievement in Online Gaming
Destiny: The Taken King
Halo 5: Guardians
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft
Rocket League
Splatoon

Mobile Game of the Year
DomiNations
Fallout Shelter
Lara Croft GO
PAC-MAN 256
The Room Three

Role-Playing/Massively Multiplayer Game of the Year
Bloodborne
Fallout 4
Pillars of Eternity
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Undertale

Sports Game of the Year
FIFA 16
Madden NFL 16
MLB 16 The Show
NBA 2K16
Rocket League

Racing Game of the Year
Forza Motorsport 6
Need for Speed
Project CARS

Fighting Game of the Year
Dead or Alive 5 Last Round
Mortal Kombat X
Rising Thunder

Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year
Cities Skylines
Fallout Shelter
Grey Goo
Heroes of the Storm
Kerbal Space Program

Family Game of the Year
Guitar Hero Live
LEGO Dimensions
Rock Band 4
Super Mario Maker
Tearaway Unfolded

Handheld Game of the Year
Earth Defense Force 2: Invaders from Planet Space
Helldivers
Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon
Yo-Kai Watch

Adventure Game of the Year
Batman: Arkham Knight
Life is Strange
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Ori and the Blind Forest
Rise of the Tomb Raider

Action Game of the Year
Destiny: The Taken King
Helldivers
Just Cause 3
Splatoon
Star Wars Battlefront

Outstanding Achievement in Animation
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate
Batman: Arkham Knight
Ori and the Blind Forest
Rise of the Tomb Raider
The Order: 1886

Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction
Lara Croft GO
Ori and the Blind Forest
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Star Wars Battlefront
The Order: 1886

Outstanding Achievement in Game Design
Fallout 4
Her Story
Lara Croft GO
Massive Chalice
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction
Fallout 4
Life is Strange
Rise of the Tomb Raider
The Witcher: Wild Hunt
Undertale

Game of the Year
Bloodborne
Fallout 4
Ori and the Blind Forest
Rise of the Tomb Raider
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

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2016 D.I.C.E. Award nominees announced; Rise of the Tomb Raider leads

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment
February 5, 2016

DICEStage640

The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences have announced the nominations for their 19th annual D.I.C.E. Awards.

Fifty-three different games have received a D.I.C.E. Award nomination this year across 22 different categories. Leading the way is Rise of the Tomb Raider with nine nominations, including one for Game of the Year. The other Game of the Year nominees are The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Bloodborne, Fallout 4, and Ori and the Blind Forest. Voting across all categories begins tomorrow and is peer-voted on.

You can check out the entire list of nominees and awards here.

Besides the game nominations, the D.I.C.E. Awards also announced their individual awards. The Lifetime Achievement Award will be given to former Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata. Mr. Iwata sadly passed away last year after complications from a tumor.

Hideo Kojima, creator of the Metal Gear series, will also be honored this year with an induction into the D.I.C.E. Hall of Fame. We’re pretty sure Konami won’t be able to stop him from receiving this award.

The winners will be announced on Thursday, February 18th, at the annual awards show being held this year at The Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas after the conclusion of the annual D.I.C.E. Summit. The show is being hosted for the second year in a row by comedian Pete Holmes. Stay tuned for more information about the D.I.C.E. Awards as we get closer to the big day.

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EGM’s Best of 2015: Ray Carsillo’s Editor Awards

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Header-Ray

Introduction

By the numbers, 2015 was a down year for games overall. However, it finished ridiculously strong, with one of the more jam-packed holiday seasons I’ve seen in a long time—keeping all of us here on the EGM crew insanely busy. As my list hopefully proves, quantity did not necessarily affect quality, though, and there were still some great games that came this year that I felt would come to define 2015.

Ray’s Top Five Games for 2015

Assassin's creed syndicate giant clock

#05: Assassin’s Creed Syndicate

Publisher: Ubisoft
 Developer: Ubisoft Quebec
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC

Ray’s Take

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate didn’t exactly have a high bar to surpass considering the lackluster entry in the franchise that was Unity. Still, not only did Syndicate provide a more coherent story, but it injected much needed life and wonder back into the series. Whether it was scaling the beautifully-rendered Victorian Era London, laughing at the banter back and forth between main characters Jacob and Evie Frye, or surprises like the fully fleshed-out World War I scenario that followed Jacob’s granddaughter, Syndicate was the return to form Assassin’s Creed so desperately needed. If they had included a few more old-school puzzles or a modern day scenario that allowed us to step outside the simulation, this might have been even higher on my list.

Tales from the Borderlands Episode 2 (1)

#04: Tales from the Borderlands

Publisher: Telltale Games
 Developer: Telltale Games
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC, OS X, PS3, Xbox 360, iOS, Android

Ray’s Take

When you first think of Borderlands, story doesn’t exactly fall on its list of strengths. While subsequent games in the series have added a little more to the lore of Pandora, there were plenty of unexplored opportunities that were perfect for Telltale to come in and exploit. Plus, this doubled as a chance for Telltale to really stretch their comedic muscles for the first time since the days of Sam & Max (or maybe their foray into Homestar Runner). The result was what I believe to be Telltale’s best effort yet. Serving up a rollercoaster of emotions, Tales from the Borderlands gives the most life to any characters that universe offers, while also making your decisions have some real weight come the game’s finale. Now, we just need to figure out where that cliffhanger ending will lead.

Fallout 4 power armor header

#03: Fallout 4

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
 Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC

Ray’s Take

At this point, it’d be more surprising if Bethesda made a bad game. Fallout 4 once again creates a beautiful, dynamic world out of the smoking crater of an apocalyptic disaster. No interaction in the world happens the same way twice, and the new gun crafting and S.P.E.C.I.A.L. skills system extends an already deep pedigree of customization. Despite this, I can’t get past the sense that Fallout 4 is more like Fallout 3.5. The largest new attraction the game brings—the ability to create and link settlements—honestly bored me. Managing people and resources became a chore, and was quickly relegated to “afterthought” status even just 20 hours into my near-100 hour playthrough. Still, there are few experiences more complete, or as satisfying, as Bethesda’s latest adventure in the wasteland.

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#02: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
 Developer: CD Projekt RED
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC

Ray’s Take

I never played the first two Witcher games, and in the end, that kept it from being my personal game of the year. You see, my number one pick last year was Dragon Age Inquisition—and I felt you could jump into that adventure not having played the previous two games and gotten the same amount of enjoyment out of it. My caring about Witcher 3’s characters and world took a hit because of my unfamiliarity. That said, CD Projekt Red crafted an absolutely spectacular adventure, and an even more epic world for it to take place in. Geralt of Rivia is one of the most perfect examples of an anti-hero I’ve ever met in games, and the people he interacts with portray an incredible amount of depth. The most telling thing about Witcher 3’s world, though, may be how much time I spent in it: 212 hours on my first playthrough.

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#01: Ori and the Blind Forest

Publisher: Microsoft Studios
 Developer: Moon Studios
Platforms: Xbox One

Ray’s Take

There are no games this year that grabbed my attention from beginning to end quite like Ori and the Blind Forest. The first thing that catches your eye is the hand-painted art style, but once you begin rolling around Ori’s dying world, you soon realize how tight handling the game is. In fact, it’s easily the best playing metroidvania we’ve seen in years. The heart of the game—its story—builds on this, with a heart-wrenching tale that pulls you through the beautifully diverse world Ori must explore in order to restore the natural balance of things. Combine all this with a steadily increasing degree of difficulty all the way until the climactic finish, and I can only wish more games were as polished as Ori and the Blind Forest.

Ray’s Off-Topic Awards for 2015

The 5th Annual “The Colors, Duke! The Colors” Award for Most Colorful Game, brought to you by Popsicle (not really)
Kirby and the Rainbow Curse
kirby
This has become a tradition for me during the EGM end of the year awards, and we’ve gone too long to stop now. There were some strong candidates this year, and while the aforementioned Ori and the Blind Forest could’ve easily taken it, I wanted to show some other great looking games some love—and lo and behold, Nintendo had quite a few of them. I’ve got to tip my hat to the good folks at HAL Laboratory, whose beautiful looking Claymation in Kirby and the Rainbow Curse impressed me just a slightly bit more than Good-Feel’s work with yarn in Yoshi’s Woolly World. Congrats Kirby on looking as bright and as wonderful as ever.
The “Fashionably Late” Award
Kalimba

kalimba02

I really shouldn’t be giving a game an award for 2015 when it came out in 2014, but let me explain. Although we here at EGM wait as long as possible before doing our Game of the Year voting to insure we give as many games as possible the chance the qualify, there are still occasionally titles that miss deadline. Rarely, however, are they as fun as Kalimba, which released on December 17, 2014. Available on Xbox One and later for PC, Kalimba is an addictive, fun little puzzle platformer that only gets better when playing co-op with a friend. Although we did end up reviewing it for EGM post-holiday break, it was ineligible for last year’s voting. So here is your well-deserved spot in the limelight, Kalimba.

The “Somehow Made Me Fall In Love with a Genre” Award
Super Mario Maker
supermariomaker
I hate world creation games. When I drop $60 on a game, I’m doing so for the express purpose of playing someone else’s creation—not so I can spend time making my own. Minecraft, LittleBigPlanet, Project Spark? Throw them all in the trash as far as I’m concerned. Then came Super Mario Maker. Leave it to Nintendo to turn my pre-conceived notions on their head and throw them in the trash instead. Maybe it’s the nostalgia or familiarity that Mario Maker brings to the table, but there is something about it that has me testing out other people’s levels and building my own on a far too regular basis. And, with a steady stream of updates that only expands our potential toolset, there may be no single greater reason to own a Wii U than this.

EGMNOW’s Best of 2015 Awards Schedule

http://www.egmnow.com/wp-content/themes/egmnowv3/christmas_links2015.php

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