Support NeoGAF

[MetatronM]

I like what Geoff has here. Definitely on the right track. The content was there for this show. Just packed with stuff.

It's the execution that's the problem. Too many awards shunted off to the side or barely even mentioned in passing (it's called THE GAME AWARDS, after all). Too much empty shilling taking center stage at times. But most of all, really shoddy and unprofessional production. Throughout the entire show. From sound to teleprompters to camera to direction and everything in between, this was a technical gong show. That needs to be cleaned up for next year.

 

[RexNovis]

The Icon Award was so well deserved and frankly touching. So incredibly well done. The Game Awards as a whole were tastefully done and impressive this year. Keighley deserves all the credit he can get for it. Job damn well done and a very heartfelt congratulations to Ken and Roberta Williams!

 

[Living Proof]

Have only played console-versions of Zelda games so when I started playing ALBW, I felt restricted in my movements and how to defeat the bosses in the game. Can't wait to get back to playing Zelda on the console and seeing things in 1st person perspective again!

"1st person Zelda"

Now that would have raised some eyebrows

 

[Flunkie]

lol at the hate for the dragon age win.

The game had me obsessed with it for 80 hours, and was a return to form for Bioware's DA team after Dragon Age II. If your game didn't win that's a shame but don't downplay how this game was a shining beacon amongst a craptacular year of gaming.

110% this

 

[renegade_dewitt]

Decent first show and much better than the mess that was last years award show. Second half was a definite improvement over the first half.
Bodes well for the future.

Definitely will be one of the more memorable of Geoff's productions to date - especially the Sierra bit and how fans were profusely thanking Ken and Roberta as well as the end where Imagine Dragons went up to Koji and thanked him personally. Great moments!

Overall, the show felt more authentic and human unlike last year's marketing-hyped debacle.

I also agree, the future looks bright for Geoff. Good job!

 

[emb]

This was amazing! Bits of it anyway. I loved seeing Kondo on stage, I loved seeing Ken and Roberta getting honored. I loved the speech from the Shovel Knight dev. Here and there, it really did feel like celebration rather than advertising.

As far as news/advertising, Nintendo had some interesting bits of reveals, along with NMS and Bloodborne. I think there were other nice trailers or moments I'm forgetting too. And it probably would have been that much better if PSX didn't end up scheduled the day after. I didn't really disagree with many of the awards either, or if I did then not very strongly.

I think this event has a strong future with this format (provided it didn't ruin Geoff financially). We need a #thanksGeoff hashtag or topic or something. Great work with this.

Though it probably could have stood lasting 2 hours rather than 3.

 

[Unstable]

Show took way too long, but still this is leagues better than any other VGAs. It felt like it had some semblance of heart and they cared about games and not just selling them. Overall it was more good than bad. In some places it was even great and heartwarming.

Good job Geoff.

 

[Monocle]

seriously got some shadow of the colossus flashback with that zelda bit.

Me too. I hope that carries over to the full game.

 

[Nightengale]

Didn't they tease Uncharted halfway through the show ? Did I miss it ?

Sony's presence in TGAs :

"Here's some poorly cut trailers. Tomorrow we're showing Uncharted 4 which we will not show here! Come to the real deal tomorrow!"

 

[thecouncil]

I think that with that Zelda "demo", we may have just witnessed the end of Nintendo. It was that bad. That was their big game and no way in hell is that going to save the system. It's over, guys. Biggest disappointment of the generation, by far.

 

[pinkurocket]

Yeah, how dare people judge things that they see. /s

People have been complaining about Zelda being hand-holding and too linear, aged and uninspired. You have to take in the legacy of the series to judge this kind of footage. They didn't show anything special, but they gave us a glimpse of where they are taking this game and that is exciting because it's a Zelda game.

 

[Pattycakes]

One thing they should really include is voice over when the designers/developers are walking up to the stage. Such as "Accepting the award this evening is so-so and so-so this is the 3rd time game X has won award Y.

 

[Athleon]

3 hours of fat that can be condensed into 1 hour of awesome.

Well to be fair that describes almost every award show in the history of award shows.

 

[Vire]

First half was close to a trainwreck, but No Mans Sky, 65daysofstatic, Kings Quest, and the Imagine Dragons performance was surprisingly great...

Still, a ton of room for improvement.

 

[Devilgunman]

Sierra section was very solid. Nicely done. New King's Quest looks awesome as well.

 

[zlatko]

This is what I had hoped these awards would be like for years...and we finally got it.

Geoff you are a hero for this. Great job.

 

[-MD-]

I honestly just want a 10 minute reel of video game footage and 15 second snippets of awards being handed out, then everybody goes home.

That'd be a 10/10 awards show.

 

[Qvoth]

didn't watch the whole thing, but i'd say 7 or 8/10

 

[Uhyve]

I hope they do this again next year, while it wasn't perfect, I think it was definitely the correct format for a video game award show. Way better than any other effort so far, it's a shame that there were no amazing reveals, but then, it is an award show...

Though honestly, I was expecting Nintendo's big reveal to be more Splatoon, so I'm pretty happy with the Zelda footage, even if it was weird cam footage.

I'll give this a 7.7526/10

 

[Leafhopper]

Sony was kind of a dick and teased it being at their own show.

They spent the whole show promoting their conference.

 

[PooBone]

Well, Zelda just looks perfect. I guess I'm in for a Wii U next year.

 

[starmud]

enjoyed it, even if you thought worse of it... this is a great thing for the industry as a whole. taking it to a independent level by streaming speaks well to the future and the direction where things are going.

 

[MonkeyDLuffy]

All you Nintendo haters seem to not realize that they enjoy being mysterious. Name dropping Star Fox and not showing any of it is exactly their style. It (and Zelda) will be amazing when it's ready.

I have such a love/hate relationship with this board. I love how active it is and the laughs and the mostly positivity, but then you have all the douches who just have to complain about everything. If I was a game developer, I wouldn't go near this board because I'd know I wasn't getting real feedback, just split second reactions from kids trying to be funny by lampooning everything that ever happens.

 

[Thorakai]

I think that with that Zelda "demo", we may have just witnessed the end of Nintendo. It was that bad. That was their big game and no way in hell is that going to save the system. It's over, guys. Biggest disappointment of the generation, by far.

...what? Nothing was going to save the system. This was obvious ages ago.

 

[daveo42]

That King's Quest still looks awesome. Definite highlight of the night.

 

[Interface23]

People seem to want E3 out of these award shows, Geoff gives you a decent show with some new stuff and everyone is like "WHERE IS THE FALLOUT AND HALFLIFE AND ARGGHH."

 

[Mr. Patch]

Nintendo might shut shit DOWN in 2015.

 

[Lazyslob]

and yeah lol at people mad at dragon age for being goty. it was the only really great game in a year full of shallow ass AAA games.

 

[dab0ne]

I liked it.

 

[Sande]

That was actually pretty good.

They should have just given the "world premieres" less hype and less screen time since there wasn't much there. Also the technical difficulties, especially with sound, were quite unfortunate. Gave the show an amateurish feel and lots of awkward moments.

 

[Azure Dream]

I think Geoff put together a pretty good show for his first time solo. The two biggest problems I saw were that the sound crew were not on top of things, and that the awards were taking a major backseat to the commercials. Passing off "Developer of the Year" as a mumbled afterthought beside the audience was so bizarre.

 

[Karu]

"needs work" I hope that doesn't mean the announcment-segments, because... you can't just magically grab them out of your ass like that.


On the production side...granted, don't know much about it myself. Seemed good enough for my low standards, but probably room to improve.

 

[Ban Puncher]

You'll always be my 2014 GOTY, Bayonetta 2.

 

[KarmaCow]

I was better than last year but man the show felt sometimes like a giant ad in your face, i tried to excuse it later but man it got to me. Still cool tough

Eh, you had to expect that since it was funded out of pocket. He can't pay for everything himself, so I'll take a E3 conference feel. Other than the Hardline shilling, the other stuff felt way better than anything at previous VGAs anyway.

 

[renegade_dewitt]

"1st person Zelda"

Now that would have raised some eyebrows

Maybe I should've been clearer. I was thinking about those moments, like when you are shooting an arrow, or using the hookshot and you go automatically to 1st person mode to aim the weapon. This feature obviously isn't in ALBW, and being used to this, it was hard at first for me to correctly aim the bow and hookshot in the 3DS game....

 

[L4DANathan]

I actually really liked this show. It was properly respectful, not a disgusting farce like the VGA/X's that made gaming look like it was just for immature man-children.

• I think they avoided Miyamoto for the Icon award since he is still doing stuff, it was more to honor people who are done. Though both Miyamoto and Carmack need to get one eventually.
• There were quite a few technical issues they need to work on, but those aren't exactly uncommon, even at E3.
• Some of the plugs were annoying (I don't mean the ads), particularly that obvious Far Cry 4 plug near the beginning.
• The pacing wasn't as terrible as some people have said, they had a decent pattern going, but yeah, it could use some improvement.
• ALL of the awards should have been on-stage, I believe that's kinda the whole point of the show. -.-
• The live music pieces should have been better oriented, most of them could have easily been playing while a trailer or something was going on in the background, and it would have helped the show's flow.
• Probably should have made the award envelopes easier to open. Just saying.
• As much as I hate the ad breaks, it's kinda necessary for funding *sigh*.
• That was a hilariously off-handed Star Fox reveal.
• I'm a bit concerned about the lack of density in Zelda, but I have hope. ;_;

Overall, I think this was a GREAT base for the future, they just need to get some more funding with less strings, as there was some obnoxiously overt advertisements in the show itself. The Industry Icon Award piece actually had me tearing up a bit (at least the part before it turned into an ad), well done Mr. Keighley.

 

[-MD-]

and yeah lol at people mad at dragon age for being goty. it was the only really great game in a year full of shallow ass AAA games.

lol

 

[Draconian]

They spent half of the time not even touching the control stick as a horse sprinted through fields.

In true Nintendo fashion, we weren't allowed to have the game footage on the entire screen because... they think that's a good thing?

They mentioned Star Fox. They name-dropped it, promised it's going to be here before Zelda in 2015, yet refuse to show it. That's weird and uncomfortable.

Pretty clear they're going to be saving the big stuff for their own presentations like they always do. It's hilarious that people are going to complain about this when we got freaking Cranky Kong and nothing else last year.

 

[DeFrank]

One more Shadow of Mordor trailer and I would of scooped my own eyeballs out with a spoon.

Other than that, a step in the right direction, Geoff.

 

[thecouncil]

Nintendo's 2015 is STACKED, as far as I can tell. All those games just can't come out in a single year. It's too much... too much...

 

[Hubb]

Didn't they tease Uncharted halfway through the show ? Did I miss it ?

They teased that more information about it was coming at PSX

 

[TheSlySoul]

Also realize there are a lot of overly harsh critics because people in other timezones are almost dead from lack of sleep. So yeah to them it might not have been so hot.

The problem is that 90 minutes was filler. There is zero reason why it had to be 3 hours.

 

[lt519]

People are pissy about the heartwarming segment because it already came after TWO HOURS of stuff. It was so poorly paced people were going to have a negative reaction to basically anything, opinions on that would have changed a lot if it was near the open.

There was more time spent on music being played over awards. Geoff once again pulled a hypeman with ALL THESE WORLD PREMIERES and so many of them were extremely small teasers for games that tell people nothing aside from they exist, and some aren't until 2016. The amount of genuine gameplay I've watched tonight is pathetically small for a celebration of videogames.

It's not your fault and it's not Geoff's fault that is what was shown. He unfortunately can't foot the bill for the entire thing. I'm glad he snuck in some decent stuff because guess how this was most likely funded (besides his own cash)? Publishers paying to have their games shown off; not to sit there and listen to a meaningless award that is going to fall into the bucket of "139 Best Game Awards" on a box cover. And sadly when the good stuff did come on people shat all over it and were all "next"

I dunno, I'm a bit defensive about it because I think he honestly tried and seeing his interviews he really wants this to mean something for gaming but I understand how hard it must be to put something on and actually have it thrive without stuffing it full of bullshit.

 

[Admiral Woofington]

I miss seeing your posts though

I completely understand. Once my semester is over I'm diving into Dragon Age and investing in the game so much. Played for only a few hours so far.

Eh to be fair as well Dax and Famicom were the major reason I was going there after a point. The community was great but once I reached level 29 I just lost interest man. Maybe I'll play again when the expansion is out. I mean I DID pay for it haha

 

[Zomba13]

Fixes for next year:
Fewer random musical segments. A nice opening, middle and ending are all you need. Make them related to videgames, either bands that are gamers performing music form games they are a fan of or actual VG music guys playing their stuff. The stuff with Kondo was great even the stuff at the end with Imagine Dragons. That stuff was nice. More of that.

More Awards on stage. You are THE Videogame Awards. Give them out on stage. Treat each one with respect. Introduction, read out the nominees, announce the winner, acceptance speech.

Less fucking WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Push them further back or don't mic them or whatever. Just less. Applause and cheers are nice, constant WOOOOO at stupid moments (yeah, WOOOO during the nice, soft Zelda music. Asshole)

Make Nintendo give you direct feed footage of their super hype ground-braking (for a zelda game) announcement. no shitty off screen footage.

OH, and don't give a mic to any EA exec or someone not recieveing an award. That PR mode for Battlefield: Current American Headline Simulator was painful.

 

[Sou Da]

I'm really happy with that, especially for a first try at this sort of format.

- Needs to be 30 minutes shorter.

- It was mostly classy apart from those buffoon comedians.

- Needs more awards. We can all agree that the speeches and stories and gratitude are the best, most meaningful part of the show. Take out a few music acts and a lot of ads.

- Reveals were somewhat underwhelming, but hopefully developers see this the show as a success and start integrating it into their marketing calendars with cool trailers and possibly genuine megatons.

- Where was Microsoft?

Doesn't need more awards. Needs awards to actually be presented on stage.

Why didn't the game that won soundtrack of the year get a live performance?

 

[Navy Bean]

First half was close to a trainwreck, but No Mans Sky, 65daysofstatic, Kings Quest, and the Imagine Dragons performance was surprisingly great...

Still, a ton of room for improvement.

Yeah, more personal stories, fewer glossy pr videos. But I thought it was a good first effort. And, know that the entire audience is basically hardcore so eliminate any of the cheese bits.

 

[Darksol]

Well, at the very least that helped me kill a few more of the hours I'd just be waiting for PSX.

Dug NMS. A couple decent announcements. Way too long.

 

[Burt]

It isn't going to go down in history for anything, but it was a good show. Especially so considering how much harder it must've been to put together without any corporate money or clout to throw around. I hope it paid off for Keighley, because I can't see it doing anything but getting better.

Want a better show next year? Get on Twitter or whatever and make a positive comment. I know it sounds cheesy, but the only way to show people that we prefer this over Mtn Doritos and celebrities-that-aren't-so-famous-as-to-pass-but-are-still-miffed-to-be-there is to, well... show them. Give the corporate number crunchers something to think about.

 

[Sectorseven]

Curious, what is it about the Zelda demo that is selling everyone?