oxm’s alternative awards

the final countdown

14 alternative 2014 videogame awards

You’ve read the best – now read the rest. Nah, just kidding. These game awards are the best. Those other ones are just rubbish corporate nonsense. Everyone knows the most important award in the industry isn’t ‘Best Game’ – it’s ‘Worst Pun’

01 Biggest Letdown of a Title: Watch Dogs A game about watching dogs? A game about dogs that can tell the time? The possibilities were endless. But no, apparently what the market was missing was a game about a guy who can do stuff while wearing an iconic hat.

02 Worst Use of New-Gen:

Grand Theft Auto V

We were having a great time punching people in first-person – and then we saw Trevor. No one should ever be subjected to an upscaled version of that face. Come back 720p, all is forgiven.

03 Best Punch Bag –

Disney Infinity 2.0

The combat is so lumpy that we can’t recommend the actual in-game punching – but being able to dropkick the adorable, miniature characters is a plus. The wonderful thing about Tiggers is… *PUNT*

04 The ‘Don’t Look,

Grandma!’ Award: Dragon Age: Inquisition’s Iron Bull Sex Scene

OH MY. Well. Um. Goodness. Is he – OH. Such, uh, big hands. And, well, everything else. We’re not usually squeamish, but this is like watching your parents flirt. “Xbox, turn off! Now!”

05 Most Descriptive

Character Name: Assassin’s Creed Unity

This one goes to our favourite continental boeufcake, Arno – because Unity wasn’t the piratey romp sequel to Black Flag everyone expected. Arrrrr...no? Because he’s not a pirate? Yep.

06 The ‘Go to Your Room’

Award for Worst Pun: Murdered: Soul Suspect

Thing is, he isn’t even the suspect, on account of being a) dead and b) the victim. Oh Square Enix. 08 The Budget Plastic Surgery Award for ‘Oh God, What Happened to Your Face?’: NBA 2K15 NBA’s face-scanning service left people looking less like new-gen basketball stars and more like the result of a love affair between Admiral Ackbar and a tapir.

07 The Kevin Spacey Award for Best Kevin Spacey: D4

Kevin Spacey’s turn as the owl in D4 – a non-speaking role, but one recorded entirely using stateof-the-art mo-cap – is one of his best. A timeless performance.

09 Worst Use of ‘Press X to do the thing’: Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

The only way CoD’s ‘hold X to pay respects’ event could have been any worse is if it were a QTE, and missing the cue made you rip off your kecks and pee a steady stream of warm, steaming disrespect onto the coffin.

11 The Savlon Raw Thumbs

Award: Sunset Overdrive

After several hours of buttonmashing and OD-bashing, we felt as if we had gone through several rounds of Thumb War with a rusty cheese grater. 150 collectible shoes later and they had eroded down to little toes.

12 The Pissnuggets Award for Most Creative

10 The Dick Van Dyke Award for Worst Accent: Assassin’s Creed Rogue Shay Cormac’s Oirish accent was a small step away from full-blown bad stereotyping – we half expected him to swap his hidden blades for potatoes and abandon his Templar life for a quest to claim a pot o’ gold.

Expletives: Guacamelee

Not sure why, but Guacamelee brought out Kate’s inner fishwife, as she wall-jump-double-jumpfell into the lava, yelling the sort of things we simply can’t print.

13 The Bumblesponge

Crunchypants Award for Detectiving: Sherlock Holmes

He doesn’t have razor-sharp cheekbones and deadly wit, but he is an insufferable snob. Spending his entire game telling Watson he’s a dunce? Sounds like the Sherlock we know and love.

14 Ugliest Character Design:

Kinect Sports Rivals

We used to complain about big, bald meat-men that looked more like they should be beating up nerds in the school corridors than fighting aliens. Then we scanned our own faces into Kinect Sports Rivals and it made us sad. Please bring back the meat-men.

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