I Want Your Help With the MoeGamer 2019 Awards!

For the last couple of years, I’ve devoted December to a series of “alternative awards” based on things I’ve experienced and written about over the course of the last year.

The MoeGamer Awards provides both me and you with an opportunity to review what we’ve seen in the last year here on MoeGamer, to revisit some things that I feel are worth looking at again, and to highlight some things that I don’t feel got enough attention first time around.

A big part of the fun of this event is getting suggestions from you lot as to what I should write about, so I am once again soliciting suggestions from you, yes, you, dear reader. Hit the jump to find out more!

Once again, I’m not looking for specific game nominations, I’m looking for categories. And the more specific/obscure/weird those categories are, the better.

In other words, I’m not looking for “you should give an award to Senran Kagura“; I’m looking for, I don’t know, “best use of condensed milk in a video game”. (Although there’s clearly only one choice for that one.) And, crucially, the award should be relevant to something I’ve previously covered here on MoeGamer, preferably in the last year or so. Hit up the Cover Games, All Games or Index By Date pages to see what your options are — there are plenty of ’em!

And, as before, the more creative the better. I’m not at all interested in boring The Game Awards-style categories like “best graphics”, “best sound” or whatever; I want things that will provide interesting writing prompts and opportunities to talk about a wide variety of weird and wonderful stuff. So I’m posting this early so you have plenty of time to think!

Leave your suggestions in the comments on this post. And if you need some inspiration, here’s what we covered last year!

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The Most Terrifying Room award highlights excellence in environmental design, taking into account audio, visuals, architecture and all manner of other things. Anyone who played Project Zero 4: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse will not be surprised to hear that room from this game took the top spot.

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The Weirdest Character award celebrates a character who was always herself and didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought. It went, unsurprisingly, to the Kyary Pamyu Pamyu-inspired Sylvie Paula Paula from SNK Heroines.

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The Best System to Collect For in 2018 award is pretty self-explanatory — which platform did I most enjoy collecting games for that year? I went for the underappreciated Wii U; although many of its hits are being ported to Switch, the console remains a delightfully compelling curiosity, and in years to come I have little doubt it will be held in the same regard as other beloved niche curiosities like the Neo Geo and PC Engine.

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The Best Common Architecture award celebrates the best everyday architecture you find yourself staring at for the majority of a game. This will probably be the only positive award you’ll ever see Sonic 2006 winning anywhere on the Internet… though I really, genuinely, unironically enjoyed that game!

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The This Game Has An Excellent Female Lead and is About Being a Girl, Stop Whingeing There Aren’t Any Games About Such Things award speaks for itself, really. Blue Reflection proved that, indeed, there are games with excellent female leads that are about being a girl, so people whingeing that there aren’t any should probably just shut their cakehole, get off Twitter and actually look beyond the tedium of triple-A.

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The Least “Retro” Retro Game award explores an old game that has aged incredibly gracefully. This, of course, went to the incredible — and still fantastic fun — TimeSplitters 2.

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The Coolest Transportation Method award explores the most interesting way to get around in a game world. There were a few possibilities for this award in 2018, but it ultimately went to the Uppy Engine from the fantastic Evenicle.

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The Most Satisfying Sequel award is self-explanatory. Which sequel maintained the appeal of its predecessors while making significant advances? Why, Shantae and the Pirate’s Curseof course!

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The Best Boy 2018 award is for the best boy in 2018. It went to Gunvolt from Azure Striker Gunvoltbecause he is a good boy with an acid tongue.

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The Best Girl 2018 award is the natural companion to the Best Boy 2018 award. And, given that I played Neptunia game in 2018, there’s no way this was ever going to go to anyone else but my beloved Nepgear.

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The Character I Learned to Love award celebrates a character I thought would be unlikable, but who turned out to be interesting and sympathetic, even if certain aspects of his personality remain completely reprehensible. This dubious honour went to Wilfred Heisenburg from Re;Lord: The witch of Herfort and stuffed animals, one of the only times I’ve ever seen a genuinely right-wing lead handled in an honest, balanced manner.

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The Best Lightning and Storm Effects award is about sunshine and puppies. Just kidding! It provided a suitable opportunity to rave about how good Project Zero 5: Maiden of Black Water’s storm effects are.

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The Traffic Magnet award celebrates something I’ve written about that constantly, continually brings people here. In 2017, it was Deep Space Waifuin 2018, it was Honey Select Unlimited.

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The Best Romantic Comedy award is probably the most conventional of all the awards here. And it went to Gal*Gun 2which is charming, funny and romantic.

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The Best H-Scene award celebrates the scenes that will get you throbbing in the nether regions. It went to an outstanding scene involving a futanari demon from Seven Days With the Ghost.

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The Evergreen award celebrates a game I keep coming back to, and which can potentially be played pretty much forever. Of course it’s Hyrule Warriors.

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The Shutterbug award celebrates the Project Zero series as a whole, and forced me to come to the difficult decision as to which one I liked the most. It was a difficult decision, but ultimately it had to go to the incredible experience that was Project Zero 4: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse.

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The Old Flame award celebrates how one of my first loves attracted me to a game that ended up being a lot of fun in its own right. That game was Soldam: Drop, Connect, Erase.

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And the Game of the Year 2018 award, as you might expect, reflects my favourite experience that I had in 2018 — note that when I do a “Game of the Year” award I define it by things I played in 2018, not those that were necessarily released in 2018. And given that Xenoblade Chronicles 2 released too late in 2017 to get any mainstream Game of the Year Awards… well, I didn’t really have a choice here, now, did I?

So that’s that! I’ll kick off the awards on the 2nd of December — that’s the first Monday in December — so be sure to leave some suggestions by then, including if you want to see a repeat of any of the previous awards. I’ll continue to take suggestions until partway through the month depending on how much of a response I get, so please leave any categories and awards you’d like to see in the comments below.

I don’t have any “prizes” to award for being picked or anything, but if you include your social media, website, YouTube info or whatever, I’ll make sure to include it when I credit you for the award concept.

One last thing to note; as with previous years, these awards are intended to be positive in tone, so anything along the lines of “worst game” or “most incompetent games journalist” won’t make the cut, I’m afraid. If you want negativity, you should know by now that you are emphatically in the wrong place!

Thanks in advance for all your bright ideas, friends; I look forward to seeing what you come up with!


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29 thoughts on “I Want Your Help With the MoeGamer 2019 Awards!”

  1. Last awards were surprisingly normal. So, here’s something more out there, but still relevant: The Atari game you want to be remade with cute (anime) girls the most. Preferably something that has been covered in one of your “Atari A to Z” videos.

    Also, it’d be nice to see another “The Least “Retro” Retro Game award”. Mine would be the original Yu-no, btw. I just finished it and it aged better than I expected (amusingly, the fan translation, which references the Rick-Roll meme at one point, aged less well).

  2. This is some Zero Punctuation levels of awards giving, I love it.

    I’ve started playing video games this year, and I actually have an award to give out this time! The award for most self-deprecating game goes to the game Disco Elysium.

    Never have I seen a game so well written and yet continues to crap on its own premise, its main character, and even the player on certain occasions with increasingly absurd scenarios for losing health and morale in a game that DOESN’T EVEN HAVE A COMBAT SYSTEM.

  3. Fun idea! Here’s a few suggestions..

    Best game from a genre you didn’t think you were into
    The five characters (from games you played this year) that you’d take on your desert island survival team
    Most satisfying character arc – just because I find it’s a rare game that manages to pull these off (when they even bother to try).

  4. First thing that popped into my head was “The most vanishing point-est racer”! Been at least a couple of Atari games that fit that but I bet you could find an interesting alternative or two from the many titles you’ve played this year. 🙂

  5. Sorry for not commenting as often as I should. Child and work tend to eat up all time. Most of my games this year have been catch up. Tales of Berseria was quite a ride but I was very satisfied with it’s bittersweet conclusion in a way I haven’t felt for a Tales game since Graces. So, maybe an entry on “Most Satisfying Character Death/Doom”. It’s so thematically realized I was both deeply saddened and joyfully impressed in some way.
    Another idea I had was “Best Dicking Around” so many western open world games have so much contrived filler that do nothing to enhance the actual gaming experience. A select few open-world games actually put the effort into actual world-building. Unfortunately for me, XC2 would fit the bill again…maybe Torna the Golden Country? Thanks for another really inspiring year of reading. I am actually FINALLY playing my first Ace Combat with 7 this year and so far it is an absolute joy.

  6. Ok, Some random ideas here.

    The “Second chance” award for best re-release or remaster.

    The “That was unexpected” award for best game nobody saw coming. Use it for sleeper hits, weird games that released out of left field, stuff like that.

    The “Social media used boycott! It wasn’t very effective…” award for best game that was otherwise overshadowed by controversy. Sword and shield is probably an easy win here but I best you could find some honorable mentions.

    The “Tommy Wiseau approves this scrip” award for best worst writing in a game.

    The “I read it for the articles, I swear!” award for best non-H gameplay in an H game.

    The “Stopped clock” award for best game in a genre you hate and/or consider over-saturated.

    I could probably think of more if I REALLY wanted, but 6 is likely more than enough from me.

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