The First Annual Multi-Platformer Awards!

It's around that time of year during which we're all flooded with everyone's opinion on which games from this year deserve to be put on a pedestal next to Ocarina of Time and Skyrim and which games were at least good at what they were. So I think you know very well what games were really good this year. So instead, I figured it would be more beneficial to us all if I did my GOTY awards a bit differently. These categories will be rather unconventional, but they'll also be helpful to those of you who really want to know what was what in 2015. So without further ado, welcome to the first annual Multi-Platformer Awards:

Best Game That I Haven't Played: Rocket League

It may come as a surprise to you that I haven't played Rocket League yet, but unfortunately I just never found the right intersection of "good price" and "fun I expect to have." This isn't to say I think I won't have fun playing Rocket League, but every time I think about buying it, I become unsure of myself and instead just buy a collection of indie games that give me a small amount of satisfaction when really we all know that I'm not really happy with this life. From the look of it and from everything I've heard about it (I mean it's so many people's game of the year), it definitely deserves to be somewhere on this list even though I've never touched it. Maybe I'll buy it now...

Best Game That Didn't Come Out This Year, But That I Discovered This Year: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

If you've been reading my reviews for a while, you'll know that I first met with this return to Hyrule this year and loved every moment of it. I played the whole thing to completion within a week (that's quick for me) and even though it's two years old already, it still holds up and has become my favorite Zelda game and one of the best titles on the 3DS.

Best Wii U Exclusive: Splatoon

While Xenoblade Chronicles X could force me to reorganize my Top 5 Games of All Time list, I can assure you, it wouldn't displace Splatoon. The sheer fun that you can have with just 5 minutes in Splatoon is mind boggling. It breathes new life into a genre that most thought didn't need new life and this inventiveness shan't go unrewarded on this site.

Best Trailer: Anything with Cloud Strife in it

Well you can't expect me to pick just one thing in this category. Especially due to the fact that one character did so much this year. Final Fantasy VII is being remade. Fantastic. Team Four Star is abridging it? Off-topic, but yay! Oh who's this new character gonna be? That's space, it's gonna be Wolf! Oh wait, WHAT? Is that stage gonna be tournament legal- oh wait, never mind.

Best Xbox Exclusive: I don't know and I don't care. I don't own an Xbox of any kind and I don't feel the need to get one for any reason. Now can we get back to business?

...

Fine, let's just say it's Halo. I bet it's good anyway.

Best Supported Game: Super Smash Bros. for Wii U/3DS

It's hard to argue with the amazing work Nintendo has done this year to keep Smash Bros relevant on top of the already solid gameplay aspect. With five new characters, eight new stages, and countless additional Mii Fighter costume choices in just this year alone, Smash isn't going away any time soon.

Biggest "Fuck You": Konami

Everything wrong with one of my favorite games this year is exclusively the fault of this assortment of assholes and dumbasses. They found some odd reason to fire Hideo Kojima, attempted to remove his name from as many things as they could find, and claimed that this was all in order to "restructure" the company. Fuck you, Konami. Fuck you.

"We Salute You" Award: Satoru Iwata

There's not much I can say about how it felt to learn of the passing of one of the most influential men in gaming. He lead Nintendo through its best and its worst in recent years. But I'm not gonna drag this on with everything he's done and accomplished. Instead, I'll end off with this: We salute you, Iwata. We salute you.

Best PlayStation 4 Exclusive: Bloodborne

Bloodborne has surpassed all previous From Software games and has achieved a level of its own in the gaming industry. Hell, Game Trailers just gave it game of the year and it damn well deserves it. The combat is deep and satisfying, the setting is atmospheric and only adds to the unsettling story, and it truly lives up to that good old Souls series challenge. While writing this article, 500 Bloodborne players have died...

Best Remake/Remaster/Port: Majora's Mask 3D

Though 2015 will probably be remembered as the year of the Open World, I'll remember it as the year of the Remaster Collection. With Uncharted, Halo, and even Final Fantasy X giving out their entire franchise at a better resolution for the price of one game, it wasn't the easiest thing in the world to give this award to a 3DS game that featured only one N64 game. But I can't recommend it more. Majora's Mask's content still holds up to today and the graphical update has only helped make it more accessible, seeing how N64 games are aging fast. But that's truly what I think a remake should be: A game that emphasizes the strengths of the original game and only makes the game more accessible and that's exactly what Majora's Mask 3D is.

(Conventional) Game of the Year: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

I call this my conventional game of the year because my actual game of the year isn't a game that normally comes up in the conversation.  I'd love to be that guy that just says a cult indie game is my GOTY, but there are times when you just have to pick a conventional candidate and for me, that candidate is The Phantom Pain. Somehow, even with all the Kojima-Konami bullshit, Kojima was still able to bring us the best Metal Gear game of all time. Instead of having a bunch of disconnected features that you need to deal with to get by in the game, all of its systems melt into one another forming a near perfect game from a fantastic developer and an awful, awful publisher.

Most 2016 Hype: No Man's Sky

Though many games have tried to give you a large sense of scale, this year especially, no one can argue with 18 quintillion planets. 'Nuff said. Okay, I'll say a bit more. Compared to the amount of this game there is, we haven't seen much of No Man's Sky, but what we have seen gives us the impression that this is more than just big; it is dense. It's one thing to make a world big but filling it with things to do, vibrant locations to find, and unique flora and fauna to discover is a far greater challenge. Hold on to your hats, boys. We're going into the sky.

Game Of The Year: UnderTale

What can I possibly say about UnderTale that I alone haven't already said? It's retro, it's inventive, it's funny, and most importantly of all, it's fun! UnderTale is the kind of game that makes you fall in love with games all over again. And that's why UnderTale so handily took my GOTY award and my heart.

So that's it for the first ever Multi-Platformer awards (Multies?). If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, don't be afraid to let me know; I'm not as much of an asshole as I might seem. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go tie a ballon to my street. The sign says "Fulton Road" and I need to follow orders, right?