It's hard to articulate properly but there should be a category for a 'page turner'. A game that locks you into the plot so that when you're not playing it, you spend your time wanting to go back to find out what happens next.
In a similar vein there is the “just-1-more turn” game. This covers your civ and total war games etc that you constantly get the feeling of just 1 more turn… and now it’s 3 in the morning
Obra Dinn for me, I took my laptop, in the car, still on, with the game paused to my daughter's piano lesson and played it while she was in there because I didn't want to wait to get back home.
I'd like a category for "best game that made me question my taste in games". Basically for games in a genre you'd otherwise dislike that managed to hook you anyway
Baldur's Gate 3, Final Fantasy 16 and 7 remakes, Dredge, and The Long Dark would've got nominations from me then. It's good to expand hobbies, see what else is out there as we get older, and personal taste adapts. Sometimes, you find out you were missing something great
It's even more mercurial than other, emotion-based nominations. Even for the rater, it's a one-and-done discrete experience. A game that greatly surprised the rater (basically the "breakout" category) may cover this anyway - usually one likes it against all odds or expectations, including genre ones.
To dredge up an old ZP term that claimed a spot in my video game vocabulary: Best "Water Cooler" game - that is: the game that has you swapping stories about it with your friends because the experience can vary so much from person to person. Whether it's because the games mix things up with randomness like roguelikes, or have a bunch of mechanical depth like MGSV, or offer a broad range of approaches and possible outcomes like XCOM, it's great when a game leaves you with stories that feel unique to you.
It can even be a multiplayer game like Barotrauma or Lethal Company, where the unique events come as a result of all players individually interacting with the mechanics
"This shouldn't work, yet it does." For games where each element picked apart seems counter-productive to each and yet the final mix ends up working very well.
Nice one. I didn't play one like that this year, but last year I probably would've given it to Neon White. I didn't expect card-based shooting and platforming to work well, but it was a great game.
I feel like there's a complementary "I can't believe nobody did this sooner" award for genre mashups that are obvious in retrospect, but the only game I can think of off-hand that qualifies is Mindustry, which takes the kind of tower defense game where you get to redirect the creeps with your building placement, and then replaces the cash you get for killing creeps with kind of an idle resourse gathering system. Mine up resources from the map and build conveyors to take it back to your base to have the resourses to build guns and walls. And the guns need ammo routed to them. And half the building materials need to be manufactured in processing buildings that need raw resources routed to them and the manufactured resourse routed away. And a lot of buildings need power, which needs generators that need coal dug up and routed to them. And liquids require a totally different type of conveyor. And on some maps you just have to survive X waves of creeps and a boss, but on others you have to build construction centers to build your own creeps to destory the enemy base. It's _weirdly_ absorbing, and despite how the two genres produce a whole greater than the sum of it's parts I've never seen anything else like it.
I'd add "best games that it would be hard to recommend to friends (and not for that reason, get your head out of the gutter)" a category that would cover those games that are great, but either too niche or specific-taste-minded to recommend to a friend. In a similar vein, a "best wtf am I playing" would work for those that are so fundamentally weird that they make you question what you are doing, but not in a negative way (an example of a game that would fit this category would be Ratshaker).
"Most Breathtaking," might be an interesting category, for a game that really made you just go "wow," either due to visual spectacle or due to fantastic story writing
The last time a game did that for me now that I think about is really surprising cus its Horizon: Zero Dawn Frozen Wilds DLC, the game which the internet hivemind has told me is the middest of the mid. It might be because I have a weakness for snow levels and this was one of the first times playing a game where I could nearly feel the cold yet was still beautiful enough for me to go deeper and explore it, especially the area with the geysers.
At this point, we've kind-of hit the upper limit of what graphics can do in this regard, so the award would have to focus on style of the visual, or something breaktaking that isn't the games HD graphics.
This is genuinely my favorite and I think the most useful award show I've ever seen! The topics and conclusions are all personal and it didn't inspire any knee-jerk "well I don't agree with THAT" because of that
I genuinely love what's presented in this video. This idea of comparing games based on feels has been mulling over in my mind for quite some time, as it treats games for what they really are: an art form. It makes me happy that someone finally brought this to spotlight, especially Yahtzee.
What if we looked at this backwards - think about the games you played this year that you would actually recommend, and then come up with the award that most describes why you should play the game.
@@OuviiI think it's still important to speak on objective qualities, but more about how they affect the intended experience. If the fps is jank, but it doesnt impact the feels, then it doesn't matter as much as when it does.
@@Chessrook44 Still laughing that he made a "best AAA game" category for the start and then said "to be honest there's only one AAA game that came out this year that I liked"
That is practically the same as "game that made me feel challenged," at least for me. Nothing makes me feel accomplished more than finally beating a tough boss that I was stuck on for the last 2 hours.
Maybe some kind of overlap with some variation of “best completionist” award - where, unlike the perennial UBI-world losers of this category, it feels satisfying to actually find that one more thing on the list. This could be everything from Obra Dinn to Dredge to… idk, even Chants of Sennaar, and of course the more obvious pokemon-likes,. Something where it wasn't just a tiny chemical blip to fill in the list, because it's all just indicated on the map where to go, but a much stronger feeling of figuring out what the game is trying to make you fill in or figure out.
@@Gboy86ify Yes, i was thinking base builders and creative games. So Factorio, Minecraft, Townscaper... Feels weird to put them together like that, but they do evoke the same feeling sometimes.
Saints Row 2 does this for me. You start off with nothing and end up practically owning the entire city by the end of it. I know it's not a "creative" game per se but it still gives a feeling of satisfaction and completion once it's done. Far Cry 3/4 and onwards are kind of similar but to a lesser extent.
I'd like to propose "Best game that makes you say 'wait what you can do that?'", AKA Best Novel Mechanics, AKA the Baba is You award, for games that feature mechanics that are so far outside traditional offerings that figuring out how they work - and can be exploited - is the main part of the fun. Cryptmaster would probably be a fantastic fit for this one.
I really like how you used some prototypical examples of your proposed category once you reveal it - has definitely helped me better understand the particular "feels" you're aiming for.
“Games That Made Me Feel Creative”, AKA The Garry’s Mod Award Being an artist myself, I love building and customizing things in games, from character creation to base building to creating weird gadgets and vehicles. I can’t think of any that I’d call the best, but some of my favorites include Besiege, Garry’s Mod, Spore, Minecraft, and to a lesser extent Fallout 4, if only because basebuilding is a very minor part of the game and I needed to install a bunch of mods to really make it more fun. “Games That Kept Me Exploring”, AKA The Undertale Award I love games that award exploration and finding hidden secrets, whether it’s uncovering information that adds more context to the story/answers questions, finding alternate routes and interactions, or just discovering rare hidden items and easter eggs. Again, it’s hard for me to say which one’s the best, but some of my favorite examples are Undertale, Outer Wilds, Skyrim, Elden Ring, and The Stanley Parable.
I think this is actually a perfect way to do awards. Please start doing *this* every year I'm actually way more invested in, *all* the options you put out seeing them in their respective lights
@@AcrylicPixel Just keep working on Long Gone and push yourself to make it an ever better game! You're doing something right. EDIT: Are you part of that project? The message is the same. Keep trying to top yourself. I'm wicked proud of you, man.
“Best Game That Made Me Feel Like I Was Somewhere Else” and “Best Game That Made Me Feel Like I Was Someone Else” seem like important ones even if they overlap with some of these. “Best Game That Intrigued Me” “Most Satisfying Game to Complete and Set Aside” is another important one. And/or “Best Game That Was Just The Right Length”
Here's one that's definitely damning with faint praise. "Best game I expected more from" (or the Vampyr award) Specifically for the game with a strong core loop, an interesting mechanic, or a good way of tying those to narrative. The kind of game that deserves a remake more than a game that already got everything right because maybe this time that great idea will be executed on properly. Or hell, maybe someone will steal the idea and make something incredible with it.
That's just the "biggest disappointment" category. For me it was Tunic. People gushed about it a lot and sold the idea of a game full of hidden secrets. When I played it this year, oh, there were hidden secrets. But there was no mystery. Literally all of the base game is extremely familiar and a retread of decades old idea. There is no way someone goes past the fast travel panels and doesn't know they're fast travel unless if theyre new to video games. Meanwhile the hidden puzzles have only 3 major ideas. Instead of wondering "ooh this might be a part of a puzzle. Ineeded that other thing all along!" like I do with every game that actually succeeds with their puzzles, all Tunic gave me was Grand Cross puzzles. Every time, instead of having to think, I just approached with "uhh uhh... let me guess. A grand cross again. Sure. Yeah. Where is it. Ooh, you hid it in a characters animation this time, feeling daring are we? Oh and what the reward OF COURSE another fairy!" Even the music puzzle was just a grand cross, it was such a tremendous deflation of what could have been a good, long teased puzzle. No rhyme or reason for them to even exist in the first place. Completely consumed the games puzzles and left only 2 interesti g highlights. It's just bad.
Alternatively: "Best game that did it better", when someone takes the blueprint of an OK-ish game and manages to build a new, vastly superior game from those ideas. (I'm thinking of _Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom_ but obv this is very subjective.)
Games that makes me want to travel When I arrived at Lurelin Village in Breath of the Wild, I desperately wanted to live in that beach. Then I googled how expensive a trip to Taiti is, then I gave up
botw has a lot of options for this list. The feeling of the long, long, LONG road between towns, the awe of finally facing off against the divine beasts, the discipline to hold off on the epic soundtrack until you throw the doors open to the castle and ganon's, zelda's, and link's themes all intertwine with the march of long dead soldiers in what feels like a final ending to the entire Zelda series...
People are forgetting the signature Yathzee negativity, so I'd like to propose a few for the stinkers: "Game i most never want to touch again" "Game with protagonist i would be happiest to hear died" "Game that made me the angriest" "Game that produced the most eye rolls"
"Games that made me most feel like a hero" comes to mind for the second to last category; at the end of the day, a good adventure is one where you feel you are the hero, no?
Question is "a Game that makes the player feel like a hero" (like say Persona 5) different from "A Game that makes the player feel like a badass" (like new Doom or if you want RE7)
@@dubstepbee6892 Personal example; I just finished Wolfenstein: The New Colossus, and the game did make me feel like a badass, but it sure didn't make me feel like a hero.
Games that you thought about long after they were over. Something like Bastion or Hollow Knight, where you get so invested in its characters and setting that the vibe follows you around for weeks.
These sorts of awards are what I like about the NerdCubed awards. There's one (or two) "game of the year" awards to capture their favorite but the rest have some sort of weird qualifier like "best conveyor belts" or "best hair" and it's mostly used as an excuse to highlight a variety of games.
I think Indiana Jones and the Great Circle would be "Best Movie Game". Not for being a game based in a movie, but best game that makes you feel like you are playing it inside a movie. The whole game is built to push you organically by way of the gameplay to take the role of Indy, not a game with a Indiana Jones wallpaper.
How about the: "Really makes you feel like…" …award. Essentially rewarding when a game manages to adapt the specific fantasy previously shown in a different medium.
Two primary 'Divisions' of awards. First side is feelings/emotion, like the ones you listed. Second side is the 'goal based' awards, things like "Grand Adventure" games, where you are put on quest/mission which makes you feel like you are playing out an epic story, like that of Odysseus. Or "Competitive Mini-games" so stuff like Mario Party or Jackbox Party Pack.
Loved the video. I think the problem with the concept is how different games can be that invoke a similar feeling, a.k.a. still the apples to oranges problem. For example, my "Best Game that Made Me Feel Powerful" was Factorio Space Age, which left me wanting to yell, "Look upon my factories ye mighty and despair," but is that comparable to Doom?
I love the idea of having a category for feeling like you're on a great journey or another one that made you contemplate life and the human condition (aka Xenoblade 3)
Let's try a few, 'Best Game for Strengthening Family Bonds' 'The Game Most Difficult To Stop Playing' 'The Game That scratched my Creative Itch' 'The Game that Made me Want to Develop A Game' 'The Game That Best Encapsulated a Feeling of Flight'
That said, I do miss some of the really old school game of the year categories that Yahtzee would come up with way back in the day like the 'Razor Blade Filled Vagina Award'
I genuinely like this more than other game of the year type awards. It feels like I can use it to jump off and find something I'd actually like to try.
I've heard it referred to as the 'uncanny peek.' A person who is either fully naked or fully clothed is in a natural state, and expected; so seeing them at any point between those two natural states is inherently rare, and therefore thrilling.
I propose "Best game that gave me a sense of discovery" award. This includes games that reward the player's curiosity to give a genuine sense of exploration. The exploration can be of a physical space (i.e. most good open-world games), but it can also be of a mechanical space, encouraging the player to experiment with the game's mechanics to find out just how they work (i.e. Cultist Simulator).
How about Best Game That Made You Feel Creative? Like whether it’s organizing an entire town in something like Littlewood or feeling good about a piece you made in Passpartout, just something where a mechanic involved flexing your creative muscles in a way that you enjoyed
Oh I like this one, although It covers quite a few genres. We have the city(/theme park) builders, the "level editor"-games (Little big planet / Mario Maker), the "no-gameplay"-sandboxes (townscaper / Tiny glade), and life-sim games (the sims / animal crossing).
6:10 Yahtzee is such an innocent. You keep your shoes on in case you hear keys jingling at the door. That way you can get out of there before her husband walks in
This immediately works so much better - genres are for marketing, not consumers! I was made aware of this in a recent Hank Green skeet, and it's a pudding I now consider proveful.
I've always been a fan of multiplayer games, so it would be good to see some representation outside of industry circlejerks - How about categories for: "Multiplayer game that brought together/tore apart a friendship" (This would be your Liar's Bars, It Takes Twos and PUBGs). And "Multiplayer game that had me quinthruple guessing my opponent" For the games that sucked you into that competitive state and didn't let you leave till you'd got one over the other player.
This is so much better than regular categories! I really hope this will will format will continue for next year! And hopefully be recognized by others. As for categories - I would propose something like "Sun's coming up already?" for games that make you completely lose track of time. Rouguelikes, MMOs, Factorio and other digital crack cocaine.
Fun as so many of those games are, I feel like we shouldn't encourage games that so easily form bad habits. Or, well, we shouldn't encourage them specifically for their ability to do that, anyway. Praise Factorio for its legendarily smooth design, not because it fucks up your sleep.
I like these categories because I avoid horror games for the stress they induce, and I like power fantasy games to help me cope with my powerlessness in society. Make these again next year Yahtzee!
I think a good category would be "Best game that transports you to another world"....that "world" could literally be a different world, or just another time, but it's basically an immersion award for world-building.
This is actually a really nice way of categorizing games, and giving recognition to good work. I hope you do this again a year from now, maybe with more categories.
@@awgmax I think in general porn games need more critical analysis from a non-judgmental approach since, for every Adastra and Hardcoded, there is thousands of Harem Hotels or Five Nights at Fuzzboobs (these are all real games.)
I think the best game that made you surprised is an important category - either through a really great plot twist, or just showing you new ideas and mechanics.
I think there’s a lot you can fill out based on feeling such as Best teamwork/comradery Best community support but you also need more factual ones such as Best innovation Best controls
This kind of award system needs 2 broad categories of awards, artistry and craftsmanship. While the emotions a game invokes are absolutely important games require a great deal of technical mastery and these awards don’t give any accolades to fields like sound design, accessibility, animation, acting and so on.
I agree, yahtzee likes spec ops the line cos of the story (artistry) but i think he dislikes the gameplay (which is fair, i dont love it either). Also in his Ghost of a Tail review he said that the story saves it when the game play is just fetch quests
You can kinda do the NerdCubed way of "making up catagories for each game you want to give a shoutout for" with the extra bonus of having your audience try to guess what that catagory even means
Maybe have some mini-awards for "Best Moment" of a certain feeling? Just to shout out the games that hit you with a strong spike of emotion somewhere. Like Best Moment of Awe (noticing Farosh for the first time in Breath of the Wild), Best Moment of Creeping Dread ("I thought Milla's nightmares would keep coming after me, but they only showed up in the mind of... an arsonist... Ohhhhh." in Psychonauts), or Best Moment of Silliness (Larry in Pokemon Scarlet/Violet).
"Satisfaction" is the kind of feeling you get from mechanics done right in a video game. One such scenario is every time I land a perfect hit with a giant hammer swing in Monster Hunter. The feedback, the recoil, and the camera panning out just make it oh sooo good to look at. That doesn't need to come from action games, it can come from pleasing inventory management, flights through space or sky, transition screens from one area to another, etcetera.
Love the concept! A category I would suggest would be "most interesting" game, for a game that sparked your curiosity or do a double-take without having to fit into one of the other categories. "Baba is you" would be a contender there in my list, because it for certain didn't make me feel clever, but the concept itself was something original.
This is the game journalism I need. Based of "FEELING" not trying to stuff it in some stuffy gameplay/story genre because all that does is leaving two sides of the pendulum feeling dissatisfied. This kind of stuff gives awards off the overall driving focus of a game and what makes it shine. Reasons why as a gamer you'd WANT to play it. This is the creative freedom that I'm happy we get to see under Second Wind.
Game that took your mental space. Games that when you aren't playing it still have you thinking about them. Planning what to do next, going online to see others thoughts, replaying past actions in your head
This could actually work for several genres, such as roguelikes, deckbuilders, and RPGs with a good amount of customisation, skill synergies, ability combos, etc.
I am 2:43 in, and I think I love this, and I would love to see you do some retrospective on past years for that, although you'd have to just look at lists and think real hard. I'm glad you put game references too. I also appreciate the specific ones you've picked as well as I get it, even if I haven't played all of them.
Your Traversal Pick reminds me of when you'd talk about Spiderman 2 back in the day and later infamous / prototype debate and you talked about moving around the city. Like would arkham city get the award for it's year? Did you ever play dying light? That was pretty good for it. I think you are right, there are a lot... mario sunshine might even work, there are some that get very satisfying as moment options unlock. Hell even Minecraft might qualify. I would love to see a retrospective going through the last 20 years. You wouldn't even have to do it per year, you could just pick the top ten you remember for each of your like 8 categories.
So the first thing I want to say is I love and appreciate Yahtzee getting this idea off the ground. I would honestly LOVE to see this as part of the Start of the Year tradition on Fully Ramblomatic, completing the trilogy between Best/Worst/Blandest and Games You Didn’t Get Around To. Could also help a bit with the January drought period. Secondly…yeah, there was some good “horn” in 2024, particularly in the sci-fi genre? Between Captain Firehawk, Eden Survivors, and Subverse coming out of early access, I’m relatively good on zero gravity horn right now…what? We’re all adults!
I really appreciated this as a follow up to the annual top fives. The turnabout on Nine Sols was a lovely balance. I had also watched the video on Still Wakes the Deep right after playing it myself and, though the review was fair, was a little sad Yahtzee hadn't enjoyed it more. This was a good call back and I'm glad to hear it sounds like he found the characters as engaging as I had.
The category I'd add would be "Pioneer of new mechanic", an award for a game which introduced something never done before in gaming or at least unique enough. I admit "True Originalilty" doesn't exist anymore because of "Simpsons Did It" but there is still so much potential in new ideas never discovered.
In a similar way there should maybe be a category for the games that were the first to use a new mechanic to its full potential after others clumsily introduce it and experiment with it.
Solid list, thank you for mentioning Balatro. The movement and horn categories sound real fun for sure. Onw suggestion feels it's kind of hard to really justify or reason, but I'd recommend award for "Game that sucked you in." Not necessarily in the Balatro sense of "Just one more round", but more of really getting nervous if you'll get the right cards, or when you really sink into the atmosphere of the game and feel enchanted or paranoid or such. Maybe just go with "Games that enchanted you" category, just need to think on it.
Are you troubled that it might coincide with what gets you off… and that you then won’t be able to erase the mental image of Yahtzee getting off, whenever you’re next getting off?
Good idea! And I mean good ideas specifically for the various categories as well. And looking at all the ideas people have in the comments for even more categories I can see why most people don't try to do it this way. But it's useful in the sense that it only really points to one subjectively rated aspect of each game.
Just do your top 5 based on the senses: Best looking, best feeling, best sounding, best tasting, best smelling, and best at keeping you perfectly aware of exactly where your hands are (even when your eyes are closed).
I think there should be a category for "house of cards" games where you struggle to perfect something, and find it extraordinarily satisfying when you get it right.
It's hard to articulate properly but there should be a category for a 'page turner'. A game that locks you into the plot so that when you're not playing it, you spend your time wanting to go back to find out what happens next.
In a similar vein there is the “just-1-more turn” game. This covers your civ and total war games etc that you constantly get the feeling of just 1 more turn… and now it’s 3 in the morning
Ghost Trick is a good example. If you stop playing at the end of a chapter, you'll definitively be anxious the entire day until you play again
Obra Dinn for me, I took my laptop, in the car, still on, with the game paused to my daughter's piano lesson and played it while she was in there because I didn't want to wait to get back home.
I'd suggest the category name "button masher", as a medium-based translation, but that already has connotations 😅😋
@@ricniclas Well spoke.
I'd like a category for "best game that made me question my taste in games". Basically for games in a genre you'd otherwise dislike that managed to hook you anyway
Baldur's Gate 3, Final Fantasy 16 and 7 remakes, Dredge, and The Long Dark would've got nominations from me then. It's good to expand hobbies, see what else is out there as we get older, and personal taste adapts. Sometimes, you find out you were missing something great
It's even more mercurial than other, emotion-based nominations. Even for the rater, it's a one-and-done discrete experience. A game that greatly surprised the rater (basically the "breakout" category) may cover this anyway - usually one likes it against all odds or expectations, including genre ones.
Neon White! I never thought that I would enjoy fast-paced first-person platforming and shooting so much. This game is fun!
So the "Persona 5 award." Almost any other anime RPG/scholl life sim would make me want to eat a shotgun.
Sonic X Shadow Generations got this one from me.
"Yahtzee finally explores his feelings"
We are on the endgame now.
And notice he has returned to the apathy of small children
"Angry, horny and not angry nor horny". That was quick
.... and talks about porn. We're in the deep end now lads.
[DougRatmanWhimpering.wav]
Shit don’t say that. Yahtzee’s weekly swearing is what’s keeping me somewhat sane still.
To dredge up an old ZP term that claimed a spot in my video game vocabulary: Best "Water Cooler" game - that is: the game that has you swapping stories about it with your friends because the experience can vary so much from person to person. Whether it's because the games mix things up with randomness like roguelikes, or have a bunch of mechanical depth like MGSV, or offer a broad range of approaches and possible outcomes like XCOM, it's great when a game leaves you with stories that feel unique to you.
It can even be a multiplayer game like Barotrauma or Lethal Company, where the unique events come as a result of all players individually interacting with the mechanics
"This shouldn't work, yet it does." For games where each element picked apart seems counter-productive to each and yet the final mix ends up working very well.
Nice one. I didn't play one like that this year, but last year I probably would've given it to Neon White. I didn't expect card-based shooting and platforming to work well, but it was a great game.
I guess you can call this category "The Perfect Mix"
@@stuffyevil That sounds like "the best mix of things we know work well, but with super tight integration and mechanics" to me.
I do think it might be a limiting category but at the same time we have games like balatro and crypt of the necrodancer as contenders
I feel like there's a complementary "I can't believe nobody did this sooner" award for genre mashups that are obvious in retrospect, but the only game I can think of off-hand that qualifies is Mindustry, which takes the kind of tower defense game where you get to redirect the creeps with your building placement, and then replaces the cash you get for killing creeps with kind of an idle resourse gathering system.
Mine up resources from the map and build conveyors to take it back to your base to have the resourses to build guns and walls. And the guns need ammo routed to them. And half the building materials need to be manufactured in processing buildings that need raw resources routed to them and the manufactured resourse routed away. And a lot of buildings need power, which needs generators that need coal dug up and routed to them. And liquids require a totally different type of conveyor. And on some maps you just have to survive X waves of creeps and a boss, but on others you have to build construction centers to build your own creeps to destory the enemy base.
It's _weirdly_ absorbing, and despite how the two genres produce a whole greater than the sum of it's parts I've never seen anything else like it.
I'd add "best games that it would be hard to recommend to friends (and not for that reason, get your head out of the gutter)" a category that would cover those games that are great, but either too niche or specific-taste-minded to recommend to a friend. In a similar vein, a "best wtf am I playing" would work for those that are so fundamentally weird that they make you question what you are doing, but not in a negative way (an example of a game that would fit this category would be Ratshaker).
The "how the hell do i convince my friends to play this" award
Among my friend group these are often called "schizo games"
Oh now THIS is a good category
@@Noname72105 Ah yes, the Finnish game industry
Fear and Hunger is a game I would put in this category. A great work of art but would probably be hard to stomach for a lot of people
"Most Breathtaking," might be an interesting category, for a game that really made you just go "wow," either due to visual spectacle or due to fantastic story writing
Think "Best Artistic Direction" covers that
The last time a game did that for me now that I think about is really surprising cus its Horizon: Zero Dawn Frozen Wilds DLC, the game which the internet hivemind has told me is the middest of the mid.
It might be because I have a weakness for snow levels and this was one of the first times playing a game where I could nearly feel the cold yet was still beautiful enough for me to go deeper and explore it, especially the area with the geysers.
this also would qualify any game that has Keeanu Reeves in it, so Sonic X Shadow Generations' DLC would clinch this
At this point, we've kind-of hit the upper limit of what graphics can do in this regard, so the award would have to focus on style of the visual, or something breaktaking that isn't the games HD graphics.
Still works for pr0n too…
This video is 100% a soft intro to Yahtzee starting to review porn games on FR and I'm 100% here for it
They’re always plastered onto the trending tab or popular up-cumming list on steam nowadays. Somebody’s gotta review em, right?
Felt like he'd been holding onto that shoes thing for a while.
Tbh, a FR for a porn game would be absolutely hilarious!
they shouldn't even fucking be on Steam in the first place
I would love to watch him review it. If for no other reason, than to see him skirt around UA-cam's censorship.
This is genuinely my favorite and I think the most useful award show I've ever seen! The topics and conclusions are all personal and it didn't inspire any knee-jerk "well I don't agree with THAT" because of that
You really need a 'games that made me smile' award; Sparking joy should be appreciated more. Astrobot is my winner in that category.
It was Little Kitty, Big City for me.
A.k.a. the Marie Kondo Award
I genuinely love what's presented in this video.
This idea of comparing games based on feels has been mulling over in my mind for quite some time, as it treats games for what they really are: an art form.
It makes me happy that someone finally brought this to spotlight, especially Yahtzee.
What if we looked at this backwards - think about the games you played this year that you would actually recommend, and then come up with the award that most describes why you should play the game.
That's the NerdCubed method.
Yeah, this taps into the best way to even listen to reviews: for the reviewer's tastes, and not necessarily an objective judgement of the game.
@@OuviiI think it's still important to speak on objective qualities, but more about how they affect the intended experience. If the fps is jank, but it doesnt impact the feels, then it doesn't matter as much as when it does.
Ironically, this is what Yahtzee used to do at the very beginning, check out the 2008 ZP awards. Let us come full circle.
@@Chessrook44 Still laughing that he made a "best AAA game" category for the start and then said "to be honest there's only one AAA game that came out this year that I liked"
You gotta add "Game that made me feel accomplished". The one that makes you create something and makes you at least a little proud looking back at it.
That is practically the same as "game that made me feel challenged," at least for me. Nothing makes me feel accomplished more than finally beating a tough boss that I was stuck on for the last 2 hours.
Maybe some kind of overlap with some variation of “best completionist” award - where, unlike the perennial UBI-world losers of this category, it feels satisfying to actually find that one more thing on the list. This could be everything from Obra Dinn to Dredge to… idk, even Chants of Sennaar, and of course the more obvious pokemon-likes,. Something where it wasn't just a tiny chemical blip to fill in the list, because it's all just indicated on the map where to go, but a much stronger feeling of figuring out what the game is trying to make you fill in or figure out.
Like base builders and such?
@@Gboy86ify Yes, i was thinking base builders and creative games. So Factorio, Minecraft, Townscaper... Feels weird to put them together like that, but they do evoke the same feeling sometimes.
Saints Row 2 does this for me. You start off with nothing and end up practically owning the entire city by the end of it. I know it's not a "creative" game per se but it still gives a feeling of satisfaction and completion once it's done. Far Cry 3/4 and onwards are kind of similar but to a lesser extent.
I'd like to propose "Best game that makes you say 'wait what you can do that?'", AKA Best Novel Mechanics, AKA the Baba is You award, for games that feature mechanics that are so far outside traditional offerings that figuring out how they work - and can be exploited - is the main part of the fun. Cryptmaster would probably be a fantastic fit for this one.
I really like how you used some prototypical examples of your proposed category once you reveal it - has definitely helped me better understand the particular "feels" you're aiming for.
“Games That Made Me Feel Creative”, AKA The Garry’s Mod Award
Being an artist myself, I love building and customizing things in games, from character creation to base building to creating weird gadgets and vehicles. I can’t think of any that I’d call the best, but some of my favorites include Besiege, Garry’s Mod, Spore, Minecraft, and to a lesser extent Fallout 4, if only because basebuilding is a very minor part of the game and I needed to install a bunch of mods to really make it more fun.
“Games That Kept Me Exploring”, AKA The Undertale Award
I love games that award exploration and finding hidden secrets, whether it’s uncovering information that adds more context to the story/answers questions, finding alternate routes and interactions, or just discovering rare hidden items and easter eggs. Again, it’s hard for me to say which one’s the best, but some of my favorite examples are Undertale, Outer Wilds, Skyrim, Elden Ring, and The Stanley Parable.
I'm not sure exactly what to call it, but something like "Game that made you feel like a kid again" is what I thought of. Maybe "Childlike wonder"?
A.k.a. the Mario Odyssey award.
Depends on what you grew up on though. Counter Strike could make some people feel kind a kid again for example
Edit: typo
this one would be a personal reviewer thing
for my dad childlike wonder is to play super mario bros 1 for me its super mario galaxy
The Plucky Squire this year!
Also called the Nintendo gimme award.
5:08 Glad my phone isn't the only one that turns into a space heater when it tries to run Balatro.
I've been playing Wildfrost and I was getting nervous about the heat so I stopped playing for a while. 😬📱🔥
I think this is actually a perfect way to do awards. Please start doing *this* every year I'm actually way more invested in, *all* the options you put out seeing them in their respective lights
Wow! This is the first award we have won for Ten Bells! We are truly thankful for this. Great idea for Game awards Ding Ding 🔔
You deserve all the awards.
@@zoltanstudios Thanks!! Considering Ten Bells isn't really known very much, this is wild. We have only shifted just under 6K copies so far.
@@AcrylicPixel Just keep working on Long Gone and push yourself to make it an ever better game! You're doing something right.
EDIT: Are you part of that project? The message is the same. Keep trying to top yourself. I'm wicked proud of you, man.
@@zoltanstudios will do!
You’re doing good work out there!
I have come here to support "Game the Most Gave Me the Horn" as a category.
The man gave me Syl so I feel I have to support him in this too.
“Best Game That Made Me Feel Like I Was Somewhere Else” and “Best Game That Made Me Feel Like I Was Someone Else” seem like important ones even if they overlap with some of these.
“Best Game That Intrigued Me”
“Most Satisfying Game to Complete and Set Aside” is another important one. And/or “Best Game That Was Just The Right Length”
“Explores his feelings” sounds like Yahtzee reminiscing experimenting in college
Here's one that's definitely damning with faint praise. "Best game I expected more from" (or the Vampyr award) Specifically for the game with a strong core loop, an interesting mechanic, or a good way of tying those to narrative. The kind of game that deserves a remake more than a game that already got everything right because maybe this time that great idea will be executed on properly. Or hell, maybe someone will steal the idea and make something incredible with it.
That's just the "biggest disappointment" category.
For me it was Tunic. People gushed about it a lot and sold the idea of a game full of hidden secrets. When I played it this year, oh, there were hidden secrets. But there was no mystery. Literally all of the base game is extremely familiar and a retread of decades old idea. There is no way someone goes past the fast travel panels and doesn't know they're fast travel unless if theyre new to video games.
Meanwhile the hidden puzzles have only 3 major ideas. Instead of wondering "ooh this might be a part of a puzzle. Ineeded that other thing all along!" like I do with every game that actually succeeds with their puzzles, all Tunic gave me was Grand Cross puzzles. Every time, instead of having to think, I just approached with "uhh uhh... let me guess. A grand cross again. Sure. Yeah. Where is it. Ooh, you hid it in a characters animation this time, feeling daring are we? Oh and what the reward OF COURSE another fairy!" Even the music puzzle was just a grand cross, it was such a tremendous deflation of what could have been a good, long teased puzzle. No rhyme or reason for them to even exist in the first place. Completely consumed the games puzzles and left only 2 interesti g highlights. It's just bad.
Alternatively: "Best game that did it better", when someone takes the blueprint of an OK-ish game and manages to build a new, vastly superior game from those ideas. (I'm thinking of _Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom_ but obv this is very subjective.)
Games that makes me want to travel
When I arrived at Lurelin Village in Breath of the Wild, I desperately wanted to live in that beach. Then I googled how expensive a trip to Taiti is, then I gave up
botw has a lot of options for this list. The feeling of the long, long, LONG road between towns, the awe of finally facing off against the divine beasts, the discipline to hold off on the epic soundtrack until you throw the doors open to the castle and ganon's, zelda's, and link's themes all intertwine with the march of long dead soldiers in what feels like a final ending to the entire Zelda series...
I'm just glad that Unicorn Overlord was mentioned in passing. JRPG Real Time Strategy is a highly unexplored and underrated subgenre.
Yeah it's painfully underrated for such a great game so it's great it getting a mention
Vanillaware games are always bangers
Was really interested in Unicorn Overlord, but I only have a pc so hopefully it'll get a pc release one day!
Gotta love how his Top 5 starts with, in his words, Astro-Bloody-Bot!
"Like comparing apples to orifices" is so good.
I do like a good apple
People are forgetting the signature Yathzee negativity, so I'd like to propose a few for the stinkers:
"Game i most never want to touch again"
"Game with protagonist i would be happiest to hear died"
"Game that made me the angriest"
"Game that produced the most eye rolls"
"Games that made me most feel like a hero" comes to mind for the second to last category; at the end of the day, a good adventure is one where you feel you are the hero, no?
Spec Ops: The Line would like a word.
@@SimuLord I know what you mean, and posit a joking rebuttal: How in the world could the game be described as an adventure, and Walker a hero?
@@Withernall Ironically, that's how.
Question is "a Game that makes the player feel like a hero" (like say Persona 5) different from "A Game that makes the player feel like a badass" (like new Doom or if you want RE7)
@@dubstepbee6892 Personal example; I just finished Wolfenstein: The New Colossus, and the game did make me feel like a badass, but it sure didn't make me feel like a hero.
"Best story game that stayed in my mind"
I still think about SOMA years later
Absolutely, same here.
This award should always be handed out a year late to make sure it's given to the correct game.
I guess I'll give it a shot again. I remember getting stuck at one spot and kept on dying
Games that you thought about long after they were over. Something like Bastion or Hollow Knight, where you get so invested in its characters and setting that the vibe follows you around for weeks.
"Best Game That Made mE Feel Like Errol Flynn" would be a good name for the adventure-based games.
"En Garde!" for 2023 then - not sure for 2024?
Yes! that's definitely what the games are aiming for
Ah, 2000's era Yahtzee Awards. Everything old is new again.
Best game that made want to take a long drag of a cigarette and exhale saying "Man..." while staring off longily in the diatance.
This still sounds like Yahtzee’s “best games that give you the horn” category…. Just, after you’re done with it
The disco elysium award.
These sorts of awards are what I like about the NerdCubed awards. There's one (or two) "game of the year" awards to capture their favorite but the rest have some sort of weird qualifier like "best conveyor belts" or "best hair" and it's mostly used as an excuse to highlight a variety of games.
I think Indiana Jones and the Great Circle would be "Best Movie Game". Not for being a game based in a movie, but best game that makes you feel like you are playing it inside a movie. The whole game is built to push you organically by way of the gameplay to take the role of Indy, not a game with a Indiana Jones wallpaper.
How about the:
"Really makes you feel like…"
…award.
Essentially rewarding when a game manages to adapt the specific fantasy previously shown in a different medium.
Would "Best Ghost Train Ride" be a fitting name for that?
Two primary 'Divisions' of awards. First side is feelings/emotion, like the ones you listed. Second side is the 'goal based' awards, things like "Grand Adventure" games, where you are put on quest/mission which makes you feel like you are playing out an epic story, like that of Odysseus. Or "Competitive Mini-games" so stuff like Mario Party or Jackbox Party Pack.
Loved the video. I think the problem with the concept is how different games can be that invoke a similar feeling, a.k.a. still the apples to oranges problem. For example, my "Best Game that Made Me Feel Powerful" was Factorio Space Age, which left me wanting to yell, "Look upon my factories ye mighty and despair," but is that comparable to Doom?
I love the idea of having a category for feeling like you're on a great journey or another one that made you contemplate life and the human condition (aka Xenoblade 3)
I suggest we could name it "Category 42" after the big answer about life, the universe and everything.
@@Taladar2003 Ooh that is an interesting idea
Just want to say that I really like this idea for reviewing and awarding games of the year.
Good idea, hope it becomes a yearly phenomenon.
Let's try a few,
'Best Game for Strengthening Family Bonds'
'The Game Most Difficult To Stop Playing'
'The Game That scratched my Creative Itch'
'The Game that Made me Want to Develop A Game'
'The Game That Best Encapsulated a Feeling of Flight'
That said, I do miss some of the really old school game of the year categories that Yahtzee would come up with way back in the day like the 'Razor Blade Filled Vagina Award'
I genuinely like this more than other game of the year type awards. It feels like I can use it to jump off and find something I'd actually like to try.
Counterargument: wearing nothing but socks/shoes/slippers feels more naked than actually being naked.
I've heard it referred to as the 'uncanny peek.' A person who is either fully naked or fully clothed is in a natural state, and expected; so seeing them at any point between those two natural states is inherently rare, and therefore thrilling.
I respectfully disagree. Socks make it look like someone is indecisive about being naked or not.
Is it because it's harder to put on (under)pants when you're wearing footwear?
The contrast between clothed feet and naked elsewhere makes you feel even nakeder than just being naked
Perhaps it is that I live in a hot climate but the thought of sweaty feet makes me physically uncomfortable. I can't watch it.
3:27 made me go "awww"
I propose "Best game that gave me a sense of discovery" award. This includes games that reward the player's curiosity to give a genuine sense of exploration.
The exploration can be of a physical space (i.e. most good open-world games), but it can also be of a mechanical space, encouraging the player to experiment with the game's mechanics to find out just how they work (i.e. Cultist Simulator).
How about Best Game That Made You Feel Creative?
Like whether it’s organizing an entire town in something like Littlewood or feeling good about a piece you made in Passpartout, just something where a mechanic involved flexing your creative muscles in a way that you enjoyed
Oh I like this one, although It covers quite a few genres. We have the city(/theme park) builders, the "level editor"-games (Little big planet / Mario Maker), the "no-gameplay"-sandboxes (townscaper / Tiny glade), and life-sim games (the sims / animal crossing).
6:10 Yahtzee is such an innocent. You keep your shoes on in case you hear keys jingling at the door. That way you can get out of there before her husband walks in
This immediately works so much better - genres are for marketing, not consumers!
I was made aware of this in a recent Hank Green skeet, and it's a pudding I now consider proveful.
I want these awards every year, this is so much more useful than a genre comparison.
I've always been a fan of multiplayer games, so it would be good to see some representation outside of industry circlejerks - How about categories for:
"Multiplayer game that brought together/tore apart a friendship" (This would be your Liar's Bars, It Takes Twos and PUBGs).
And
"Multiplayer game that had me quinthruple guessing my opponent" For the games that sucked you into that competitive state and didn't let you leave till you'd got one over the other player.
This is so much better than regular categories! I really hope this will will format will continue for next year! And hopefully be recognized by others.
As for categories - I would propose something like "Sun's coming up already?" for games that make you completely lose track of time. Rouguelikes, MMOs, Factorio and other digital crack cocaine.
Fun as so many of those games are, I feel like we shouldn't encourage games that so easily form bad habits. Or, well, we shouldn't encourage them specifically for their ability to do that, anyway.
Praise Factorio for its legendarily smooth design, not because it fucks up your sleep.
This was a great idea, it gave me an actual sense of excitement for new games, which, these days, is a very rare prize indeed.
The "Flow" award for movement, and the "Awe" award for games that have a sense of scale.
I like these categories because I avoid horror games for the stress they induce, and I like power fantasy games to help me cope with my powerlessness in society. Make these again next year Yahtzee!
I think a good category would be "Best game that transports you to another world"....that "world" could literally be a different world, or just another time, but it's basically an immersion award for world-building.
The shoes are for when the floor gets slippery, usually an oiled scene in a room with hardwood or tile floors.
new porn lore just dropped
Love it. I hope you do a full blown version next year.
I love this concept. I'll definitely be applying these ideas in my day to day.
This is actually a really nice way of categorizing games, and giving recognition to good work. I hope you do this again a year from now, maybe with more categories.
Best horn game sounds like a great category.
@@awgmax I think in general porn games need more critical analysis from a non-judgmental approach since, for every Adastra and Hardcoded, there is thousands of Harem Hotels or Five Nights at Fuzzboobs (these are all real games.)
I think the best game that made you surprised is an important category - either through a really great plot twist, or just showing you new ideas and mechanics.
I think there’s a lot you can fill out based on feeling such as
Best teamwork/comradery
Best community support
but you also need more factual ones such as
Best innovation
Best controls
I actually really like these categories and I hope a video like this makes a return next year.
This kind of award system needs 2 broad categories of awards, artistry and craftsmanship. While the emotions a game invokes are absolutely important games require a great deal of technical mastery and these awards don’t give any accolades to fields like sound design, accessibility, animation, acting and so on.
I agree, yahtzee likes spec ops the line cos of the story (artistry) but i think he dislikes the gameplay (which is fair, i dont love it either). Also in his Ghost of a Tail review he said that the story saves it when the game play is just fetch quests
Loved the video, even feels like the better and logical evolution of the top 5, hope you bring it back next year !
That is such a brilliant idea. Well done yahtzee!
Ten Bells had it's biggest sales day yesterday so thank you so much!
I really like that way of giving awards.
This is an excellent experiment and I hope you do more of it.
You can kinda do the NerdCubed way of "making up catagories for each game you want to give a shoutout for" with the extra bonus of having your audience try to guess what that catagory even means
This may now be my favorite end-of-year video ever, fantastic concept!
How about "Game that make you feel like a bastard" for games that explore morality in an interesting way?
Maybe have some mini-awards for "Best Moment" of a certain feeling? Just to shout out the games that hit you with a strong spike of emotion somewhere. Like Best Moment of Awe (noticing Farosh for the first time in Breath of the Wild), Best Moment of Creeping Dread ("I thought Milla's nightmares would keep coming after me, but they only showed up in the mind of... an arsonist... Ohhhhh." in Psychonauts), or Best Moment of Silliness (Larry in Pokemon Scarlet/Violet).
00:38 if you don't do this you'll have a thousand categories like the Grammys and one or two games even nominated for each category
"Satisfaction" is the kind of feeling you get from mechanics done right in a video game. One such scenario is every time I land a perfect hit with a giant hammer swing in Monster Hunter. The feedback, the recoil, and the camera panning out just make it oh sooo good to look at. That doesn't need to come from action games, it can come from pleasing inventory management, flights through space or sky, transition screens from one area to another, etcetera.
Game that makes you go to the wiki and absorb that shit
Love the concept! A category I would suggest would be "most interesting" game, for a game that sparked your curiosity or do a double-take without having to fit into one of the other categories. "Baba is you" would be a contender there in my list, because it for certain didn't make me feel clever, but the concept itself was something original.
On the subject of semantics, the description says "novel away" instead of "novel way"
This is the game journalism I need. Based of "FEELING" not trying to stuff it in some stuffy gameplay/story genre because all that does is leaving two sides of the pendulum feeling dissatisfied. This kind of stuff gives awards off the overall driving focus of a game and what makes it shine. Reasons why as a gamer you'd WANT to play it.
This is the creative freedom that I'm happy we get to see under Second Wind.
Game that took your mental space. Games that when you aren't playing it still have you thinking about them. Planning what to do next, going online to see others thoughts, replaying past actions in your head
Baldur’s Gate 3 most recently for me
I love videos like this. Feels like one for the Yahtzee fans. Thanks
How about the "Best Build a Thing" game.
This could actually work for several genres, such as roguelikes, deckbuilders, and RPGs with a good amount of customisation, skill synergies, ability combos, etc.
@@Triceratopping Exactly. It's a very broad itch, but lots of things can scratch it.
I am 2:43 in, and I think I love this, and I would love to see you do some retrospective on past years for that, although you'd have to just look at lists and think real hard. I'm glad you put game references too. I also appreciate the specific ones you've picked as well as I get it, even if I haven't played all of them.
Your Traversal Pick reminds me of when you'd talk about Spiderman 2 back in the day and later infamous / prototype debate and you talked about moving around the city. Like would arkham city get the award for it's year? Did you ever play dying light? That was pretty good for it. I think you are right, there are a lot... mario sunshine might even work, there are some that get very satisfying as moment options unlock. Hell even Minecraft might qualify. I would love to see a retrospective going through the last 20 years. You wouldn't even have to do it per year, you could just pick the top ten you remember for each of your like 8 categories.
So the first thing I want to say is I love and appreciate Yahtzee getting this idea off the ground. I would honestly LOVE to see this as part of the Start of the Year tradition on Fully Ramblomatic, completing the trilogy between Best/Worst/Blandest and Games You Didn’t Get Around To. Could also help a bit with the January drought period.
Secondly…yeah, there was some good “horn” in 2024, particularly in the sci-fi genre? Between Captain Firehawk, Eden Survivors, and Subverse coming out of early access, I’m relatively good on zero gravity horn right now…what? We’re all adults!
I really appreciated this as a follow up to the annual top fives. The turnabout on Nine Sols was a lovely balance. I had also watched the video on Still Wakes the Deep right after playing it myself and, though the review was fair, was a little sad Yahtzee hadn't enjoyed it more. This was a good call back and I'm glad to hear it sounds like he found the characters as engaging as I had.
The category I'd add would be "Pioneer of new mechanic", an award for a game which introduced something never done before in gaming or at least unique enough. I admit "True Originalilty" doesn't exist anymore because of "Simpsons Did It" but there is still so much potential in new ideas never discovered.
In a similar way there should maybe be a category for the games that were the first to use a new mechanic to its full potential after others clumsily introduce it and experiment with it.
Been waiting for this video since you first proposed the idea
@5:35 - Nah. That would be the "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Award". :)
Solid list, thank you for mentioning Balatro. The movement and horn categories sound real fun for sure. Onw suggestion feels it's kind of hard to really justify or reason, but I'd recommend award for "Game that sucked you in." Not necessarily in the Balatro sense of "Just one more round", but more of really getting nervous if you'll get the right cards, or when you really sink into the atmosphere of the game and feel enchanted or paranoid or such.
Maybe just go with "Games that enchanted you" category, just need to think on it.
Please, do not do the lewd game category. I do not want to know what gets Yahtzee off.
Coward
Well, it certainly ain't shoes, that's for sure
Are you troubled that it might coincide with what gets you off… and that you then won’t be able to erase the mental image of Yahtzee getting off, whenever you’re next getting off?
Unfortunately, it probably contains dolphins if hints he's dropped over the years are anything to go by.
Good idea! And I mean good ideas specifically for the various categories as well. And looking at all the ideas people have in the comments for even more categories I can see why most people don't try to do it this way. But it's useful in the sense that it only really points to one subjectively rated aspect of each game.
I nominate the “Killer 7” award for game that best elicits a mix of utter confusion and starry-eyed awe
I love this approach! Focuses on video games as art, as what it evokes within us.
Productive discussion of video games! this is what the industry needs!
The sound clip for #7 genuinely had me thinking my phone was going off! 🤣🤣 Well done Yahtzee, you charismatic stallion!
Just do your top 5 based on the senses:
Best looking, best feeling, best sounding, best tasting, best smelling, and best at keeping you perfectly aware of exactly where your hands are (even when your eyes are closed).
I love Jacks ad reads. I know they're not the point but he puts effort into it ya know? Just makes it feel special.
SO happy you followed up on this!!!
I think there should be a category for "house of cards" games where you struggle to perfect something, and find it extraordinarily satisfying when you get it right.