And so, Astro Bot triumphed at the tenth edition of The Games Awards, going on to history as the best game of 2024. Desored? Not deserved? The competition in the nominations was not so fierce, even if titles already well installed in the hard disks and the hearts of the gamers such as Final Fantasy or Elden Ring could certainly not be defined as easy opponents. And not even the new entries black Myth: Wukong and Metaphor: Refantazio didn’t joke. Last but not least was a balatro, who when I am writing the wall of the five million copies sold.
We have a winner: Astro Bot!
If it were for me, he would have to win Elden Ring – hater will say the Elden Ring DLC - because in ten years the memory of the battle against Miqualla will be much more vivid than the jumps of the platform on the Astro Bot platform, as well as the funambolics dodged in Max Payne Bullet Time were impressed in my neurons more than any Battle boss faced with Mario. I like video games in which every step can make the difference between life and death, and I love identifying myself in the protagonists. And no, in the role of a jumping robot I don’t see myself really. However, I am extremely happy that the production of Team Asabi triumphed. Why?
Astro Bot, exactly what are you doing here?
In Astro Bot is missing all that should absolutely be present in a true modern video game: the protagonist represents no ethnicity, has no emotional or sexual preferences or moral alignment, and does not have anything able to entice any political faction to appropriate it. The story does not pretend to teach us anything, there are no choices to be conscientiously made, the human race is not denigrated always intent on destroying the planet / make war / on Saturday to propose a new telephone operator.
Elden Ring. If it were for me he would have won him, but it is fine anyway.
The genesis of the game even borders on the ridiculous: simplifying, we could say that it is a former tech demo polished. However, the public expressed himself, and he chose him. At this point my imaginary readers will be thinking that I really have to be in bad faith, naive or very uninformed to believe that the TGAs somehow represent the tastes of the players, but I like to think that it is so and in any case in the end, As in the Oscars or football, those who raise the statuette or the cup are always right.
In Astro Bot is missing all that should absolutely be present in a real modern video game, yet he has won. What will be his secret?
In summary, I would not have voted for it, I sailly question the criteria for choosing the TGA, but I am happy that he won even if by my own admission I will forget it soon – Coming Out: if it had not been fished out on the occasion of this editorial, it would be In the 100 Godzillabyte folder called “To be repaid one day” with latest reading on April 13, 1985. again: why? I was perhaps gone mad? I’m content to get on the winner’s cart? Or is there more (recommended answer)?
I GIOCHI PLUG AND PLAY
The nice robot, like the plumbing plumber or the snappy porcupine, likes because it reminds us of the atavistic purpose of video games: beating the car that is challenging us. Whether it’s complete ninety levels, collect all coins or all the rings, it is always us against the software, which tries to hinder us in an increasingly aggressive way.
Let’s not forget the atavistic purpose of video games: the challenge between man and machine, between pads and software. The rest comes later.
The more we spend hours with the pad in hand, the more we can make us wide byte after bytes, a screen after screen. Everything else has been added to differentiate the offer in a sea of productions otherwise all the same. When we check those funny protagonists, the mission is only one: winning the challenge. Not that those who launch Mass Effect or The Witcher are predisposed to defeat, but many and such are the outline elements that end up diverting attention from pure survival, so we reach the credits without too much to heal the various defeats under the course , distracted by noteworthy stories, charismatic characters, ethical choices, twists and turns that are increasingly complex borrowed from cinema and literature. Despite blessing this evolution, sometimes I feel the need to remove the golden patina and simply test myself.
Baldur’s Gate 3, winner of 2023. Just now reward something lighter.
Thus, for a condicio, after Baldur’s Gate 3, winner of the TGA 2023 and worthy representative of the video games with multiple facets, it was right that this time he won a Plug and Play title, where you just have to press Start and show that our eye coordination does not belongs to inhabitants of this planet. With all due respect to the gamegristrates. And who would they be?
Are you also a gamegristate?
Gamegrastus, a word made up of gamer and magistrate, is a central figure in a society in which video games are no longer just entertainment, but tools for education and moral judgment. He observes, evaluates and estimates the choices of each player, using the data collected to decide the fate of the subject. Don’t worry: it is impossible that all video games are for all players. As far as we effort to make products accessible to the largest slice of the possible population, there will always be excluded. By personal choice, or by inclination. Think of the Frictional Games productions, often disturbing and distressing. Those who feel uncomfortable in front of jumpscasca or nictoophobic situations will rightly direct their attention to anything else. Nobody will ever be scolded for abandoning amnesia.
The gamegristrate applies two weights and two measures. Molbi amnesia? Happens. Milles Spiritfarer? You are an insensitive rough. Why?
Gamegistrati will look at these people with clemency, and they will thank them with their merciful forgiveness. Instead, try to Quittare Spiritfarer or Endling – EXTINSTION IS Forever, perhaps denouncing a slow gameplay or without particular twists and turns, and it will be your end. You will be hunted by the gamegistrati, who will incessantly accuse you of being insensitive to adult themes such as extinction at the hands of man and departure, inviting you with contempt to play some platformers, as if it were a Serie B category, because “the one deserved”. Marked by the gamegristicates with the Scarlet letter of the Menefreghiso, you will be considered primitives, guilty of not cried because a fox of Pixel has lost a pixel puppy, or not to be excited by building the boat to ferry the deceased remembering Aunt Artemisa InstaKillata by a self -articular.
The Endling – EXTINSTION is Forever. I played it. I also reviewed it. I liked it, but I didn’t cry. Ouch, ouch, ouch.
Sentenced to play Sonic, because adult games “are not for everyone”. Suddenly that “not for everyone” ceases to be a subjective condition and becomes the subject of discrimination; I’m sorry you had to give up The Evil Within, it’s not actually a game for everyone, but if you abandon this War of Mine then you don’t understand anything about video game. Gamegristrati likes to give themselves an aura of intellectuals, you can see it from how they speak of video games on Steam, on social networks, sometimes even on specialized newspapers, claiming to make us budget to even the detriment of some subjunctive to be underlined with blue pen; Don’t you want to put yourself to make the Nazi Grammar in front of the drama of mom fox who if it would not have (sic) met the man was (ri-Sic) still alive? Useless for us, populace from Panem et Circlenses, refute the elderbractions of the gamegistrati.
They have always been among us
The genesis of the gamegristrate is as remote as the world, only the names have changed with which it is identified, and has always loved to pigeonhole men according to their preferences. If you don’t read Stephen King there is no problem, you can see the movies based on the books. If you ask for the cinematographic transposition of some writing by Umberto Galimberti so as to spare you the reading of the tome, look at you as a caveman even if you correctly speak eight languages and you have just brought a child’s bespoke back to life thanks to a surgical technique of your invention.
The super busy game to which you play only you and the mother of the developer is beautiful. I really say.
If in your playlist there is Den Harrow next to Roberto Vecchioni, he takes you away from friends. He plays “for a few” videogames, he listens to music “for a few”, reads books “for a few”, where the “few” are always intellectual elite.
Read books for a few, listen to music for a few, play video games for a few. This time, however, he won the platformer for everyone.
This time, however, like a trumpet comic hidden in the midst of Herman Hesse’s book collection, a video game triumphed that plebeians like it, reminding all of us, but above all to them, that video games are mainly games and that sometimes – mind you, sometimes! – It is right to look at the battleship Potëmkin with Fantozzian eyes. Thank you again, Astro Bot, for bringing some color in some gray remnants of earth, hoping that the gamegists take treasure.
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