Day 2 of MonsterVine’s 2018 Game of the Year Awards continues with our selections for Prettiest Game, Best Indie Game, and Most Disappointing.

Prettiest Looking Game – Red Dead Redemption 2

Diego: yo I have like, so many hours in this game and I still don’t know how they made this look so good on these old machines. People keep telling me it’s this thing called “hard work” and “nearly a decade of dev time” but I’m gonna stick with this just being dark magic.

Shannon: Then I’ma Kid Rock-it up and down ya’ block

With a bottle of scotch and watch lotsa crotch

Buy a yacht with a flag sayin’ “chillin’ the most”

Then rock that bitch up and down the coast

Runner-Up: Forza Horizon, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, Forgotten Anne

Indie Game – DUSK

Spencer: I haven’t played Dusk yet, but I can see why it won simply from Diego’s constant praise of the game. If my man Diego is impressed, you better believe it’s a homerun.

Diego: DUSK IS GREAT GO BUY IT SO YOU CAN HUP HUP HUP TOO

Shannon: Dusk is every 90s shooter boiled down to its essence. It is Mountain Dew Code Red boiled down to a viciously powerful elixir that keeps you HUP HUP HUP HUP HUP HUP HUP HUP

Runner-Up: Moonlighter

Most Disappointing – We Happy Few

Diego: When We Happy Few was first unveiled it led us to believe this was a game similar in vein to Bioshock and paired with its interesting art style it’s no surprise many people, myself included, got excited. What released was instead a barebones survival game that massively disappointed everyone. Some time later, Compulsion Games revealed that they were retooling the game and that it was now going to be that game everyone initially thought it was from that first trailer. Fast-forward to release and what we ended up with was a game that didn’t know if it wanted to be a survival sim or a narrative-focused action game, failing completely at both.

Shannon: I played a very early build of We Happy Few when there wasn’t a lot to it. The basic “roleplaying” mechanics were there where you had to do what everyone else did or the NPCs got antsy and the more distress you caused, the more the game began to hunt you. It was weird and I see why they retooled it, but it was weird and my kind of jam since it was a lot like playing The Prisoner or one of those other old weird British sci-fi shows.

Runner-Up: Fallout 76