Day 1 of MonsterVine’s Game of the Year Awards covers Best Narrative, Multiplayer Experience and Prettiest Game. Find out who took home the honors!
Narrative/Story – Life is Strange
Will: Life is Strange is one of the most compelling stories to come out this year, flipping the script on the episodic adventure genre with a refreshing new take through its choices, interactions, and storytelling. Each episode had its own watercooler moment and tells a lot about the legs this game had throughout the year.
Spencer: Life is Strange is a fascinating experience as a game and a narrative. The game manages to be somewhat surreal in how well it emulates current school life, and friendships between different types of people, which gives it a great sense of immersion. The game is full of choices that become more and more difficult on a personal level, which makes Life is Strange a unique and memorable experience. Just make sure to water that plant.
Austin: Telltale should pay attention to what Life is Strange is doing. This is a perfect example of how to take Telltale’s stale dialogue choice, story focused adventure game formula and make things interesting again. Life is Strange encapsulates youthful, social experiences and blends them with science fiction in a way that deeply resonated with a lot of the MV staff.
Multiplayer Experience – Destiny
Diego: When Destiny first released I was among the people who saw the potential the series had but grew bored of it quick but that changed with the release of The Taken King. A slightly better focus on its story, more interesting multiplayer modes, and a slew of long overdue updates turned Destiny into the game it should have been a year ago. Even though I wish the game I’m playing now was the one I got when it launched, I’m glad to see Bungie listened to the complaints and turned a barebones game into an addicting experience.
Michael: As one of the many day one players that fell off the wagon, I was extremely satisfied with Destiny this year around. Destiny’s first year was filled with missed opportunities and disappointing missteps (looking at you Dark Below), and after my original grind past the Vault of Glass I stopped playing, and many of my fireteam members sold their games. With the arrival of Taken King nearly every one of my complaints was rectified, and Destiny has successfully grabbed my attention. With the low selling price of $60 USD for Destiny and all 3 of its subsequent DLC packages, many of my friends have picked up the game again. The use of an actually interesting story, a raid comparable to my favorite raid of all time (Vault of Glass) and new events like the Sparrow Racing League makes this title my most played of 2015.
Austin: In 2015 Destiny introduced Trials of Osiris, their ultra competitive, high skill mode and reminded me what it meant to have fun with a PVP shooter. This variant a white-knuckled elimination mode is 3v3 and requires the utmost cooperation in order to succeed. The teamwork combined with the loot motivation for going flawless (nine consecutive victories) Is what kept me coming back every weekend and made Destiny my favorite multiplayer experience of the year.
Prettiest Game – Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain
Will: MGSV’s prettiness stems from the robust Fox Engine and it certainly showcases its visuals, from its locales to the detailed character modeling and expressions seen in its in-game cinematics. Its also a testament that gamers could play this on last-gen consoles, as this is probably the last Kojima directed Metal Gear the games industry will ever receive. Goodbye Kojima Productions, hello Kojima Productions.
Diego: The majority of MGSV’s development was spent creating the engine it would eventually run on and that hard work really shows. This is a gorgeous game that runs at a stupidly smooth frame-rate with an attention to detail that will have you zooming in on everything you see.
Michael: If MGSV looks anything like its prequel/tech-demo Ground Zeroes did, then MGSV is gaming’s next big step towards visual realism in games.
