FUCK. SHIT. Umm… FUCK.
Okay uh…
SCREW THE RULES I HAVE MONEY Award
Winner: Watch_Dogs
Fuck Ubisoft, seriously. The company should be renamed to “Fuck You Forever and Die.” These people are not in the industry to provide quality products. They don’t care a single tiny bit about the games they develop and produce. They care about one thing: Money. And they get that money by fucking as many people as possible.
Dishonorable Mention: Assassin’s Creed whatever number we’re up to now.
Sales 101 Award
Winner: Destiny
Gotta give it to Bungie. They figured out how to get mad rich off of an utterly worthless, soulless, life-draining piece of complete shit.
Dishonorable Mention: Call of Duty 2014. Yeah I called it Call of Duty 2014. It’s the same business model as FIFA or NFL and it’s just easier to refer to it by year so I don’t have to keep track of whatever the fuck they’re calling these things. I’m calling this shit right now: Call of Duty 2016 will launch before it is actually the year 2016.
For ONCE Can I Please Keep Some of My Money Award
Winner: Super Smash Bros. 4
If you want this game you’ll need a Wii U (at time of writing this, that’s around $350-400 on Amazon), Smash Bros ($60). Those are the bare minimum requirements. But if you wanna play it properly and not feel like a total fool, you’re gonna need a GameCube controller for it ($35-45). To make that work on a Wii U, you’re gonna need an adapter. The adapters are SO very out of stock and have been for so long that I don’t even know what the RRP is supposed to be. Right now scalpers are selling them for up to $140 though. So yeah, Super Smash Bros is gonna cost enough that it’s more worth your while to invent time travel so that you can go back in time and buy that pizza.com domain name in order to sell it in 2008 for a cool couple million and then wait 6 years for Smash to come out. I mean, I’m just assuming you’re not gonna get perfect timing on your time travel and that you can only go backwards in time. I am saying travelling backwards in time to at least pre-2008, and then waiting 6 years, is better than paying for Super Smash Bros right now.
Who’d Have Thought an Assassin’s Creed Clone Would Turn Out Okay Award
Winner: Shadow of Mordor
Hey, not bad. This game actually turned out alright. It plays like the Assassin’s Creed games should have and it’s actually set in a good universe and runs well, even on potatoboxes. Of course it runs better on PC though, so fuck you if you’re a lowly peasant or whatever. But anyway. I mean, I’m not an LotR nerd so I don’t know how much this game actually shits on the story, but I’m gonna guess that it shits extensively and aggressively over Tolkien’s master work. I mean really aggressively. If there was a physical, human manifestation of this game I bet it would actively seek out Tolkien’s grave, dig him up and proceed to viciously, douchefully shit directly into every orifice in his skull. But whatever, it was fun to play.
SCREW THE MONEY I HAVE RULES Award
Winner: Bayonetta 2
Okay so, every game out there wants money, for sure. That’s why they make the games. I’m not gonna find any good games that really, truly did it for the fun these days. Maybe back in the day, who knows. But Bayonetta 2 at least didn’t do it for your money. Not entirely anyway. Nintendo made it rain cash on them for a quick exclusive to sell some consoles. But I’d like to think maybe the guys at Platinum were like “Hey, we have these fat stacks. Let’s just use that and really focus our efforts on providing a quality product to people.”
Who am I kidding they probably clothed hookers in the fat stacks, took photos of them with cameras made out of fat stacks, went through a huge controversy when the photos got leaked on Twitter, fired their CEO, got a new CEO who almost ran the company into the ground with terrible business decisions, almost went bankrupt, brought back the original CEO who threw a giant party where hookers made of a cash-human hybrid DNA animated by stem cells beat each other with solid gold dildos until they died, then hid their bodies (poorly) in a nearby dumpster with his fingerprints all over it, and then the police threw out the evidence because, and I quote from their interview with the Tokyo Times, “Well, Bayonetta 2 was really good, so, we just figured fuck it, he can do what he wants.”
Did any of that actually happen or is it just what I now always assume happens in every company ever? It is not clear.
Dishonorable Mention: Dark Souls 2. I mean, I don’t know if this deserves an honorable mention. Ever since they followed up Demon’s Souls with Dark Souls, this series has printed money. But… they made something really good. So… I guess I like these people and giving them my money is an act of capitalism that I am okay with.
What Is This I Don’t Even Award
Winner: Wii U
Seriously. What is this console even. The fucking gamepad is an awful idea. It adds nothing to any gameplay. If I wanted touch screen controls and bullshit like that, I already have a phone. I can play some cheesy $3 games and get the same experience. At least Nintendo finally made a console capable of just barely HD so at least Bayonetta 2 isn’t a blurry piece of shit or something. Shame the controllers available for this console are all awful though.
No really, this is a GENUINE question: What exactly is the Wii U for. What does it do.
Fucking honestly. Please tell me what the point of it is, because Nintendo are sending me mixed messages here. Is it for kids and families? Nintendo sure said that it isn’t. They said they turned their back on the casual crowd and decided to go legit again. But they’re clearly lying, because all of the games and controllers and even the interface are designed specifically for kids. They can’t fall and hurt themselves on those soft, round Apple-white corners of the bubbly little icons. They sure can’t do anything bad either. Too many restrictions.
Nintendo is the bitch of the gaming world, it changes its mind all the time and it expects you to know what it wants you to do, and you’re all like, wait, how am I supposed to KNOW what you want me to do if you won’t tell me, and it’s all YOU SHOULD JUST KNOW THESE THINGS, and you’re all, I’M NOT FUCKING PSYCHIC, and it’s like WELL MAYBE YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE BOUGHT ME, and I’m all like, BUT YOU HELD BAYONETTA RANDSOME SO I HAD NO CHOICE YOU FUCKING LUNATIC, and it’s screaming all like HOW THE FUCK ELSE WAS I SUPPOSED TO MAKE YOU LOVE ME, and so I’m all MAYBE BY SCRAPPING THE STUPID GIMMICKS AND GIVING ME SOME GAMES I GENUINELY WANT AND ENJOY PLAYING, NOT SOME BULLSHIT WITH MIIS OR WHATEVER, and at this point Nintendo is like sob-screaming, all barely comprehensible, all like I DON’T HAVE THE TIME OR THE RESOURCES ANYMORE YOU KNOW THAT, so I go THAT’S FUCKING HORSESHIT YOU LIAR, YOU’VE BANKED LIKE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS. GIVE ALL OF YOUR EMPLOYEES A DECENT RAISE AND GET THEM WORKING ON NEW, REALLY GOOD ZELDA GAMES OR METROIDS OR SOMETHING. YOU HAVE MORE RESOURCES THAN YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH. YOU’RE LIKE A FAT KID WHO HAS ALL OF THE CANDY BUT INSTEAD OF EATING THE CANDY HE’S JUST CHEWING THE SAME SHITTY PIECE OF FLAVORLESS GUM. I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHO THE FUCK YOU ARE ANYMORE. And then Nintendo is just going A BLOO BLA BLOOOO! because it wants to play the sympathy card and make you lower your guard and forgive it, but no. I’m staying strong on this one. Fuck the Wii U.
Yeah I realize the crux of this award is the same as one Renegade did last year but whatever. So congrats to Nintendo on sweeping our awards for shitty consoles two years running now. Apparently they have a vision and are sticking to it.
Okay whatever there’s some bullshitty awards for you this year, because we have this strange sense of obligation to do an awards thing every single year even now when we maybe review three things during that timeframe. Until next year, fuck you and have a great whatever. Maybe this year we’ll get another couple of good games. Maybe an acceptable one. And absolutely we will get about seventeen thousand and three god awful ones that IGN gives 9.82/10 and spends 70% of the review talking about graphics and “visual fidelity” or something.
Also, maybe we should start a pool on whatever controversy Kotaku will throw themselves headfirst into this year. I’m going with grand larceny. Yeah, you might think I’m crazy for thinking that a web-based company could actually physically steal something from you, but I think they’re gonna try real hard and make it happen this year. Let’s go, kotakunts! You can do it! If you work at it, you can somehow do the impossible and find a way to become even worse than you already are. I believe in you.