Game Developer's Choice Awards 2007

I just got back from GDC, had a great time there and saw a lot of good panels. However, one thing that really baffled me was the award show on Wednesday. In fact, I was entirely flabbergasted at a lot of the outcomes. Generally, I had held the GDC award show in higher esteem than other similar awards, mostly because it was (at least, in theory) more insulated from what was merely "popular" and more discerning of what was actually quality work. I heard Dave Sirlin saying that the Choice awards, at least in his opinion, were sort of within a "ballpark of reasonableness" that Gamespot awards, or whatever, might not be. I know that he felt quite disillusioned by the neglect of Resident Evil 4 and God of War at the 2006 awards, and now I have to question the results of the 2007 show.

Innovation:
Three awards were given for innovation. I only ended up agreeing with one whole-heartedly.

Line Rider: This small title (which I had not heard of before) seemed rather clever - it was a sort of 2D skateboarding game, but the levels were entirely driven by these sketches/doodles. The game would automatically pick up the contours of the sketches and use them as skateable surfaces. I don't know much else about this title, but it looked pretty smart.

Okami: Now is where I have to break with the awards show. Calling Okami innovative does an injustice to the term, and cheapens our critical discourse. Okami is not, fundamentally, very innovative. Okami is really just another Zelda game - a very well-done execution of that, certainly; but still it is not anything fundamentally new. The much-vaunted "Celestial Brush," while a cool and clever feature to be sure, is really just a proxy for the old inventory system other Zelda-type games rely on. It's a nice touch, but in terms of innovation it ranks up there with the hot-reload feature in Gears of War (although we could actually argue the reloading feature is more innovative in some respects, because while the novelty of the "Celestial Brush" will probably not be repeated, I think it is likely the Gears reload system will filter into many shooter games in the same way the Halo health system is now the standard shooter health system. By introducing a new feature that may very well become standardized into other games, I think it's plausible to argue the reloading system of Gears may actually better fit the definition of innovation.) Much is also made of the art style in Okami, and while the art style is indeed innovative and a breath of fresh air, I do not feel that as a game, Okami is strictly innovative. Same old Zelda game, interesting new paint - clever, yes; creative, yes; innovative...not really. Besides, as we'll soon see, the award show undercuts the art argument a bit later.

Wii Sports: I probably break the most from mainstream view when it comes to this game - strictly speaking, what exactly does Wii Sports do that is innovative? Wii Sports is really just a compilation of sports that already exist - boxing, tennis, bowling, golf, baseball, etc. Certainly no new game design ground being broken here. No, Wii Sports is not innovative - it is the Nintendo Wii itself that is innovative. Wii Sports is, in my opinion, a fairly obvious application of innovative hardware. Wii Sports is really just mimicry - it takes something that already exists in the real world, and mimics it at the interface level. It doesn't actually do anything new, per se, and thus I don't really feel it fits the qualification for being innovative. If we perceive this to be a proxy award for the Nintendo Wii itself - that would be more appropriate. The Wii Sports software, however, does not strike me as terribly innovative.

New Studio:
Gastronaut, Iron Lore, Naked Sky, Ready at Dawn, Wadjet Eye
Ok, to be honest, I don't know much about any of these studios, and I haven't played any of their games, so I don't have anything to say here (how novel!)

Writing:
Bully, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, Sam & Max Episode 1: Culture Shock, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Unfortunately, I have to confess I have not played any of these titles either. However, I've played enough Zelda games to know that when a Zelda game wins an award for writing against several adventure games, something is wrong. None of the previous Zelda games have been very story intensive, and the writing in them has always been very basic and bare-bones. It's simply not a narrative-heavy franchise. So, while I have not played Twilight Princess, there is something intuitively wrong when a Zelda game beats out adventure titles like Dreamfall in the writing category. Of course, Zelda games are one of the most precious sacred cows of gaming, so I suppose that all makes sense. Certainly, they will have a bigger lobby than games like Bully.

Game Design:
Bully, Okami, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Viva Pinata, Wii Sports
Now this is when things really start getting out of hand. I haven't played Bully, but I've played the rest. Is this really the best we can do in game design? Seriously - we have another formulaic (but very pretty and well executed) Zelda game, an RPG (always at the forefront of game design ), a cute (and again, visually quite clever) take on Harvest Moon, and a direct copy of real world sports. I can't believe this! And the most galling bit is that Wii Sports wins here. Someone, somewhere, please tell me - what is so damn great about the design of Wii Sports? If a Madden game won this award, gamers would be up in arms. Wii Sports is just the exact same games we play outdoors in real life! There is nothing new or clever in the actual game design. Again, while the Wii hardware is very clever, that does not automatically make Wii Sports clever too.
Actually, more insulting was the fact that Company of Heroes was not even nominated. CoH, I feel, gets overlooked because on the surface, it is a WW2 RTS game - popular grounds for dismissal (whereas being just another Zelda game is instant grounds for approval.) However, despite the seemingly formulaic surface, at its heart, CoH is really a new beast in the RTS world. It's true that the RTS genre has become extremely stale and tedious - people hack away at trees and gold ore, and start hording units. Eventually, each time sends their "unit cloud" at the other guy's, and simply hopes for the best. There's a little strategy in making the optimally proportioned and balanced cloud, but ultimately there is almost no tactical engagement - you just throw your men at theirs until one side is depleted. CoH finally brings RTS games out of this mess, focusing fully on engaging and interactive combat. Unit position is supremely important, as there is a full cover system implemented in the game. Furthermore, units are controlled at the squad level, with individual elements in the squad acting semi-autonomously. What that means is, the player is not tasked with tedious babysitting of the units, trying desperately to get them to shoot right. No, the player is engaged in more meaningful tactical and strategic play - ideal positioning of squads, utilizing squad special abilities (which are numerous), retreating units that are taking casualties, capturing territory, and so forth. CoH puts the player into the task of attacking and commanding actual smart soldiers, instead of babysitting peasants and base-building.
So, basically, the RTS game that might just revitalize this poor tired genre out of its decay doesn't even get a nomination, but a game that merely mimics actual, real life sports, by directly copying its interface mechanisms, wins the award. I think we can do better than that.

Maverick:
Greg Costikyan
Can't argue this one. Hard to find a more maverick type than Costikyan.

Audio:
Company of Heroes, DEFCON: Everybody Dies, Guitar Hero II, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend, LocoRoco
I myself have not played the new Tomb Raider nor LocoRoco, but I have played the rest and am once again very disappointed with the result.
Is Guitar Hero II really the best we can do with game audio? If so, we may as well quit now, because we are admitting that the best games can ever achieve in audio is to do covers of metal and rock songs. While the audio in GHII is extremely well recorded and of a very high fidelity to the source material, it isn't anything new - the vast majority of the songs are relatively well known hits. Guitar Hero is a great series of games, and the audio is immesely well done, but at the end of the day, the audio is ultimately just covers of other songs extrinsic to games. Game audio can and should be more than that - in fact, two of the other nominees prove that beyond doubt. Ultimately, I get the feeling GHII won because it was the only game most people actually played from this list, and that its wide popularity ended up outweighing the individual merits of its audio as it relates to the game itself.
CoH audio is very visceral and intense at the sound-effects level; but what really distinguishes it is the unit chatter. Unlike most RTS games where units are basically silent unless a) they're being selected or ordered or b) they die, the various units in CoH are full of personality and have an enormous breadth of contextual chatter during the game (based on whether they are doing well or poorly.) Furthermore, the chatter in CoH has a much more personal and empathic aspect to it than the chatter of other RTS games - squad members often call each other by name, reinforcing their humanity and preventing the player from simply treating them as mindless masses to be sent into battle. When the player gets a notification bubble alerting him that Engineer squad #2 has recieved a flamethrower upgrade, no bond is forged. However, when the player hears the unit saying, "Johnson, you're on the flamethrower, so be careful," the units are made into real characters the player can empathize with. It could be fairly said that this is a relatively simple bit of dialouge, but it is something no other RTS I can think of has done. The audio in CoH transforms the units from faceless pawns on a chessboard into real characters with real personalities, and the player thus feels like he is taking on a much greater responsibility ordering the unit around.
Of course, while I am heavily biased towards CoH, the other titles all seem to have reasonable justifications to have potentially won this award. DEFCON makes a subtle, yet chilling impact on the player with its soundtrack. Rather than overload the player with bombastic tunes, the soundtrack is very low key, occasionally punctuated by sickly coughing. It is hugely successful at reminding the player of the isolation of their self from the impact of their actions in-game (as they presumably hide out in a bunker somewhere,) and therefore makes its anti-nuclear statement more profoundly than any Metal Gear Solid game could ever hope to achieve.
While I have not played LocoRoco, I have seen some videos and it certainly seems to share some of the charm of Katamari. That's worth something, at least.

Character Design:
Final Fantasy XII, LocoRoco, Okami, Rayman Raving Rabbids, Viva Pinata
Actually, this award seemed fair enough. While I don't Okami is mechanically very innovative, it certainly is in an artistic sense. The character and monster designs from Okami were all quite excellent, and did well at bringing Japanese mythology to life. I can't say whether or not they were too emotionally deep (I'm not too far into it yet,) but they certainly are great visually. Same goes for LocoRoco, Rayman, and Viva Pinata. All have a pretty unique and entertaining visual style, and hopefully serve to bolster Warren Spector's point that there is a lot of room for iconic (versus realistic) characters to be emotive and meaningful to players in games. I also almost wanted FFXII to win this award, if only to throw sand in the eyes of Tetsuya Nomura. While FFXII certainly has some questionable designs with some of it's characters (like the weird pot-holder things Basch wears on his chest,) it certainly is the best the series has done since Square abandoned Yoshitaka Amano as its lead character designer. One of the characters has facial hair and a non-photogenic scar!!!! Granted, the lead character is still one of the generic pretty-boy androgynous heroes that Japan has been in love with for some time now, but I have to be fair and acknowledge they are in fact making progress. Shame that Mr. Yoshida will not be character designer on XIII, I suppose all good things must come to an end, some sooner than others.

First Penguin:
Alexei Pajitnov
Can't disagree with this one either. In my mind, the Soviet Union only ever exported four things of note - weapons, oil, communist ideology, and Tetris. Mr. Pajitnov invented the modern puzzle game, and created possibly the world's most famous video game of all time. Mr. Pajitnov continues to prove his brilliance and creative approach, notably in the Game Design Challenge presented at this GDC.

Technology:
Company of Heroes, Dead Rising, Gears of War, Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis, Wii Sports
Finally, a nomination for Wii Sports I can heartily endorse! Anyhow, this category seemed relatively reasonable, although I do not think Gears was the best choice. Gears is essentially just a very beautiful rendering engine, capable of some incredible triangle and shader thoroughput. However, there is more to technology than simple rasterization; and honestly, rendering technology is much less important or revolutionary than the other sorts of tech on display here. CoH again appears, notable both for its sophisticated rendering engine, but more importantly for its advanced unit AI that knows how to take cover and fight battles effectively on its own. Dead Rising manages an interesting feat by simulating an absolutely huge number of agents. I haven't played Table Tennis and have no idea as to what is special about the tech behind it. Wii Sports doesn't need much introduction on this front; technologically, it's a very well-done package and capitalizes on the hardware extraordinarily well. Ultimately, I feel the award should have gone to Wii Sports or possibly CoH - the former is a great application of some clever hardware, the latter combines an unusually advanced renderer (for an RTS game) and a very smart unit AI system that saves the player tedious babysitting. Gears is ultimately just a very nice renderer (the AI has already been done before, and much better, in the Brothers in Arms games) that will fade in relevance as newer, better engines are inevitably released; whereas Wii Sports will be a technological touchstone for some time.

Visual Arts:
Final Fantasy XII, Gears of War, Okami, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Viva Pinata
I'm not sure I can even respond to this without resorting to crudity. I'll start with a short swipe at Oblivion - how can this game, with its generic D&D-inspired character designs, and rather deformed looking characters, been nominated for best in Visual Arts? While it certainly has some positively gorgeous vistas when you go exploring, they are promptly ruined when you spot a very strange anthropomorphic lizard walking about.
Ok, now onto the harsher rant. Okami, a game universally heralded for its beautiful and creative art style, loses out to the cruder Gears? If you hear a thud, its the sound of thousands of gamers hitting the ground unconcious. While Gears certainly had some of the most compelling environments in some time (very beautiful architecture that feels very real, truly connecting the player to the high-concept of "destroyed beauty,") the remainder of the art is somewhat less than impressive. Space marines versus aliens? Are you kidding me? That's the state of the art in 2007? Fantastic, I quit. While it is entirely seemly to say that Gears truly rings-in the "next-gen era" (whatever the hell that means,) the character designs lack soul. To say that Okami was deserving of one of the three Innovation awards (presumably for its creative art style) and then deny it the Visual Arts award (presumably because it tosses about fewer polygons) seems very disingenuous to me. I was actually quite shocked by this award, because based on the 2006 sweep by Shadow of the Colossus, I thought for sure Okami would enjoy the same success. Clearly, when push comes to shove, this industry still values higher triangle counts more than new approaches to visual presentation, and that's a damn shame.

Community Contribution:
George "Fatman" Sanger
Ok, fair enough. This man has done an enormous amount to further game audio, and has helped out as a volunteer in his home community. Not much to say here.

Lifetime Achievement:
Shigeru Miyamoto
Even less to say here. If there is any one man whose name is synonymous with our industry, it is without doubt Mr. Miyamoto.

Best Game:
Gears of War, Okami, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Wii Sports
Another award, another snub of CoH, the most important RTS game since Rise of Nations and possibly even Starcraft. Well, clearly, the Choice awards skew away from PC games - after all, the over-used buzzword of the year, "next-gen," specifically does not apply to the PC. Only four PC-only games were nominated for any awards (Line Rider, Sam & Max, Company of Heroes, and DEFCON,) and only one of them (Line Rider) came away with anything. They say PC games are dying, and when even developers stop caring about them, perhaps it is no surprise.
Man, I can't believe this garbage. Wii Sports gets awards for innovation and game design, but fails to win either the technology or game of the year awards. Why is this show so backwards? Gears is a ton of fun, no doubt. However, in ten years, who is going to remember Gears? Gears is, by CliffyB's own admission, simply a next-gen version of Bionic Commando. It's just another shooter game. A well-executed and tightly-paced shooter, most definitely. However, Gears ultimately does not, in my opinion, rise above the masses of other games. While the title of the award is "Best Game," I think that this award is not merely for the game that is "most fun," but rather the most important game. Which of these games will remain relevant in the next decade? Not the Zelda games, not an RPG (however expansive it may be,) and certainly not yet another space marines v. aliens shooter. No. While I think he is otherwise spot-on in his analysis here, I have to disagree with Omar Kendall on Wii Sports. While I have already stated that I don't find Wii Sports to be terribly innovative as a game, I can certainly recognize that it is an extremely important gaming touchstone, and probably the most important game of the next-gen released. Ten years from now, regardless of Nintendo's fortunes, we will all be able to remember how important Wii Sports was - either as a last gasp of an old company, or as the dawn of a new era in game design. Either way, Wii Sports will outlast all the other nominated games in posterity.

This sort of reminds me of the Academy Awards of 1941 - where How Green Was My Valley won Best Picture against Citizen Kane. Everyone today knows about Rosebud, even if they haven't seen the film; but I can't say I had ever heard of Valley before. Some may disagree, but I think the purpose of the Best Game award ought to be to highlight the most important, most influential game of the year - the one that will have the most lasting impact. I have a hard time imagining that any of the nominated games will have a greater lasting impact on the industry than Wii Sports has had already.

Anyhow, that's my wrap-up on the awards show for the year. A handful of well-earned awards and a couple of real puzzlers that apparently represent a collective psychosis on the part of the electorate. Loss of credibility? Perhaps it would be better to see it in terms of a loss of focus on what the awards are really about. I think we can do better, and ask more, of our games, in both the visual, auditory, and mechanical aspects. The only way that can be transmitted is if the developers pushing boundaries in those fields are properly recognized. If we let ourselves get distracted by the moment, by what appears to be entertaining at the time, how can we ever truly move forward?