Category Archives: MoeGamer Awards 2018

Features, MoeGamer Awards 2018

The MoeGamer Awards 2018: Game of the Year 2018

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The MoeGamer Awards are a series of “alternative” awards that I’ve devised in collaboration with the community as an excuse to celebrate the games, experiences and fanbases that have left a particular impression on me in 2018. Find out more here, but you’re out of time to leave suggestions, I’m afraid!

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Well, here we are once again on the last day of the old year, awaiting the arrival of the new. And, of course, that means one thing for anyone interested in games: the completely arbitrary declaration of “Game of the Year”.

Everyone has different criteria for selecting their own personal Game of the Year. For some, it’s simply the game they enjoyed the most or which took over their life to the greatest degree. For others, it’s to do with technical or artistic achievement. For others still, it’s all about sales figures.

For me, it’s quite simply the game I played this year that I feel was… “best”, across all its various aspects. A game that is a real showcase of just what is out there today, and which I feel is a shining example of what being interested in video games really “means”.

And the winner is…

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The MoeGamer Awards 2018: The Old Flame Award

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The MoeGamer Awards are a series of “alternative” awards that I’ve devised in collaboration with the community as an excuse to celebrate the games, experiences and fanbases that have left a particular impression on me in 2018. Find out more here, but you’re out of time to leave suggestions, I’m afraid!

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One’s first love is a powerful thing. Often it influences the way you feel about all sorts of things for the rest of your life — sometimes without you realising it.

Rediscovering one’s first love can go in one of a few ways. You can find yourself wondering what on Earth you were thinking. You can recall exactly what caused you to fall in love in the first place. Or you can be delighted to find that your first love has actually been making something of themselves, and is ready to provide you with some all-new entertainment that is simultaneously fresh and familiar.

This metaphor is getting slightly tortured, but regardless, this latter option is what today’s award is all about.

And the winner is…

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The MoeGamer Awards 2018: The Shutterbug Award

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The MoeGamer Awards are a series of “alternative” awards that I’ve devised in collaboration with the community as an excuse to celebrate the games, experiences and fanbases that have left a particular impression on me in 2018. Find out more here, but you’re out of time to leave suggestions, I’m afraid!

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Any time you have experience with an entire series of something and people are aware of your experience with said series, someone, somewhere is going to ask you the dreaded question: “which [insert series name here] is best?”

Given my recent coverage of Tecmo’s consistently excellent survival horror series Project Zero (not to mention the presently ongoing video series playing through its postgame!), I thought I’d pre-empt that question and attempt to give a definitive answer.

Well, definitive insofar as “this one was my favourite” anyway. You do not have to agree. But this was my favourite Project Zero game this year.

And the winner is…

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The MoeGamer Awards 2018: The Evergreen Award

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The MoeGamer Awards are a series of “alternative” awards that I’ve devised in collaboration with the community as an excuse to celebrate the games, experiences and fanbases that have left a particular impression on me in 2018. Find out more and leave a suggestion here!

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If you’re a gamer on a budget or simply going through a lean month or two, it’s always a good idea to have one or two “evergreen” games on your shelf.

The concept of an “evergreen” game is simple: it’s a game that you can always return to at any time and have an enjoyable experience with. It’s a game you can set aside for weeks or months at a time before returning to when you feel like it, able to pick right back up where you left off.

Evergreen games can involve narrative, but the best ones place a strong focus on mechanics, providing them a pick-up-and play quality coupled with extensive — potentially infinite — longevity. One game that I covered in 2018 definitely fits that bill more than pretty much any other.

And the winner is…

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The MoeGamer Awards 2018: Best H-Scene

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The MoeGamer Awards are a series of “alternative” awards that I’ve devised in collaboration with the community as an excuse to celebrate the games, experiences and fanbases that have left a particular impression on me in 2018. Find out more and leave a suggestion here!

This award was suggested by… well, me, but AK thought it was a good idea so I’m giving him credit.

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We’ve explored a number of visual novels together here on MoeGamer, many of which include explicit sexual scenes.

This is not an aspect of these games that tends to get talked about all that much by gaming culture at large; some critics, outlets and even players sometimes seemingly go so far as to regard the H-scenes of a game as something of a “dirty little secret”, or simply outright ignore them altogether.

While there’s no denying that nukige exist purely to be mildly interactive pornography, true eroge make good use of their sexual scenes to further their narratives and show us another side of the main characters. Today’s award celebrates an excellent use of an H-scene for exactly these purposes. With that in mind, please be aware that there is extremely explicit text and images ahead. You have been warned!

And the winner is… no, seriously, there really is all manner of extremely NSFW filth ahead, are you ready? Okay. The winner is…

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The MoeGamer Awards 2018: Best Romantic Comedy

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The MoeGamer Awards are a series of “alternative” awards that I’ve devised in collaboration with the community as an excuse to celebrate the games, experiences and fanbases that have left a particular impression on me in 2018. Find out more and leave a suggestion here!

This award was suggested by Toon Vandendries.

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This is a topic Chris and I very much want to discuss on the podcast at some point in the near future, but I’ve also written about it in the past, too.

I’m talking about the idea of genre. And not genre as it is typically used when talking about games — to describe purely mechanical elements — but rather genre as it relates to the core subject matter in a game; its central themes, style and overall feel. In the early days of gaming, this was not really something we could discuss with much confidence, but as games have become more ambitious in terms of their storytelling and overall sense of worldbuilding, we most certainly can now.

So with that in mind, what was the best romantic comedy game I enjoyed over the course of the last year?

And the winner is…

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The MoeGamer Awards 2018: The Traffic Magnet

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The MoeGamer Awards are a series of “alternative” awards that I’ve devised in collaboration with the community as an excuse to celebrate the games, experiences and fanbases that have left a particular impression on me in 2018. Find out more and leave a suggestion here!

Last year, there was one game more than any other that consistently brought people to MoeGamer; I was seemingly one of the few people on the Internet who had actually written anything about it. I chose to celebrate this game with The Traffic Magnet award.

This year I encountered a similar situation with a different game — last year’s winner still regularly appears in my top search results, but the posts about this year’s winner still appear in my top posts pretty much every day.

And the winner is… somewhat NSFW, so consider this before continuing!

Ahem. As I was saying, the winner is…

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The MoeGamer Awards 2018: Best Lightning and Storm Effects

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The MoeGamer Awards are a series of “alternative” awards that I’ve devised in collaboration with the community as an excuse to celebrate the games, experiences and fanbases that have left a particular impression on me in 2018. Find out more and leave a suggestion here!

This award was suggested by LightningEllen.

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I’m old enough to remember when weather effects in games were new and exciting.

I have vivid memories of desperately wanting to play Toyota Celica GT Rally on the Atari ST, for example, purely because it had rain, snow and sandstorm effects — and working windscreen wipers!

Nowadays, weather effects are something we just take for granted for the most part… but sometimes, a game comes along and impresses you with its representation of a particular environmental condition. Today’s award celebrates my favourite virtual thunderstorm from the year just passed.

And the winner is…

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The MoeGamer Awards 2018: Character I Learned to Love

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The MoeGamer Awards are a series of “alternative” awards that I’ve devised in collaboration with the community as an excuse to celebrate the games, experiences and fanbases that have left a particular impression on me in 2018. Find out more and leave a suggestion here!

This award was suggested by AK.

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A really interesting aspect of characterisation is when creators are able to put together a character who might initially seem obnoxious or odious in some way, then gradually bring the player to sympathise with them — or at least vaguely understand them –over the course of the complete narrative.

It’s a difficult thing to pull off, for sure; the most common approach taken to create this effect is to have an “anti-hero” main character, but in those instances it’s very easy to go overboard on the edginess and just create someone who is an unrelatable sociopath or psychopath.

But when it’s done right, it can make for some really interesting storytelling. So who fell into that category for me this year…?

And the winner is…

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The MoeGamer Awards 2018: Best Girl 2018

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The MoeGamer Awards are a series of “alternative” awards that I’ve devised in collaboration with the community as an excuse to celebrate the games, experiences and fanbases that have left a particular impression on me in 2018. Find out more and leave a suggestion here!

Well, if you’re gonna do “best boy” you’ve got to do “best girl”, haven’t you? And there sure are a lot of wonderful girls to choose from across the games we’ve explored together over the course of the last year.

Those of you who know me well, however, will know that, biases be damned, there’s only one lovely lady who was ever going to win this, given the year’s Cover Game lineup. But just to be fair, I’m going to say that her winning Best Girl this year will preclude her from winning this or any similar award in subsequent years, regardless of whether or not I cover another of her games. Gotta give the others a chance, after all.

And the winner is…

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