 Ha ha ha ha! Woo! Woo! The freaking game awards, man! The most accurate and precise awards on the internet. It's the time of the year where once again I jump up on a video and I show you my votes. Count the votes! Count! And then his Animal Crossing is winning all the PlayStation fans. Stop the votes! Is that too soon? Um, alright, no, okay. Settle down. Now I'm actually very curious to see if the game awards this year are a little bit more award-focused and a little less rushing through most of the awards so you can get to the next Subway Eat Fresh sponsorship spot. Also, I feel like my votes don't mean anything because at the end of the day, the people in charge of the game awards themselves have said that they ultimately have final say and no matter what we vote for, if they feel like something should win, it's gonna win. And maybe I'm wrong. See, I should preface this by saying, uh, allegedly, whatever, I don't care, whatever. Let's just vote. Pick a G Fuel, any G Fuel. Code, beat them up, just get 30% off. I'm gonna pick this one because I already opened it. We use cookies to improve your experience. No, you don't. You use cookies so you can track me down later and sell me Subway. I'm not looking. I'm gonna scroll all the way to the bottom. I wanna start at the bottom. I don't wanna see the good stuff yet. Alright, Best Esports Team. Best Esports Host. I gotta tell you, this is gonna be a tough one. It's between my boy Alex Goldenboy Mendes or James Dash Peterson. You know, James put on a great show this year, but you really can't overlook Alex the Machine. Why do all these people have nicknames like Goldenboy Machine, Dash, Sheaver, I'm gonna vote for her because I can't pronounce whatever, whatever that. Best Esports, okay, Best Esports Event, baby, let's go. Next debut game, Carrion, Mortal Shell, Raj, Rokey or Phasmophobia. I gotta tell you, Carrion is incredible and Phasmophobia just really took the world by storm, didn't it? That's a hard pick, but Carrion is such a great game. You have to play it. What the f**k is this? Who is that? And that, and that, and that, and that, where am I? Hold up a minute. All of a sudden, I'm being hacked over the internet and wearing a different sweater, apparently. ExpressVPN, there's three big reasons why I personally use ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN protects you from everyone trying to steal your private information, especially right now when we're all spending more time than ever at home, online, shopping and whatnot. You are unwillingly giving companies and advertisers even more opportunities to gather information about you. ExpressVPN provides a layer of protection to prevent others from being able to see what you're searching for and what sites you've been visiting. Just good for a lot of reasons. Second, TV and movies. We all love watching TV and, again, we're stuck at home. We've seen everything you think. Take ExpressVPN, drop yourself in any other country and suddenly you'll have access to a whole new library of things to watch. There you go. And third, gaming. That's surprise anyone. Many games restrict services based on location, like playing with people in other regions like me playing with my friends back home in Australia. Also, certain games releasing a day earlier or cheaper in other countries. I don't know what to tell you. If you don't have ExpressVPN already, I get it. Get it sorted. All right. Find out how you can get three months free by clicking the link in the description box below, expressvpn.com forward slash beat em ups. This is your last chance. OK, I'm not giving you any more warnings. Do it now or else I'll hack you. I'll be the one hacking you and you'll be all like, what the heck? What's hacking me? How could I have prevented this? I'll be like, see? I tried to tell you. Big thank you to ExpressVPN for sponsoring the video. No, I did not expect to be here. Actually, I know who Alana is. She's a fellow Australian. I thought for sure someone like Scott the Watt. Are all these people streamers? I know Alana Pierce streams, but she's mostly a YouTube content creator. OK, I've been falling around a lot up until now. But can we get serious for a second? Are they roping in streamers with YouTubers for content creator of the year as someone who streams on Twitch and makes YouTube content? I feel like those are very, very, very different things. Should this category really be roped into like everything like that? I feel like that's giving out awards for like like the film industry or whatever and roping best movie or TV show into the same category and having like three TV shows and two movies. They're very different things. And I'm not discrediting streamers or YouTube content creators and I do both and they're both very challenging, but they're also both extremely different things. How can you measure up the content someone's creating on YouTube to the content someone's creating on Twitch when they're so vastly different experiences? That said, I'm voting for Alana because she's the only person here that I know for starters and she does some really cool things within the industry. I feel like that category needs to be broken down and I'm not offended by it in any way. Let me get this straight. I don't want to be here, but I feel like I know a lot of content creators on YouTube that should be here. People like Scott the Was. Where's my boy Scotty? The love would be spread even further if you could get five video content creators on whatever platform and five streaming creators on whatever platform. I just feel like roping them into one category doesn't feel right. All right, whatever. Moving on. Best multiplayer game. This one is so obvious to me. I don't know if you are thinking what I'm thinking, but immediately a lot of you might think, oh, of course, Wood's gonna vote Animal Crash. I know, actually, because Animal Crossing is a horrible multiplayer game. Try to invite people to come hang out on your island as a nightmare and then someone decides to leave or a connection drops. Everyone has to wait for them to leave and then when they're there, what do they do? They can't move your furniture. They can't help you build things. They can't help you do anything. They're just there in the way. It is a horrible multiplayer game. That said, the rest of these are pretty good, but among us, man. Among us. Whether you love it or hate it, that's multiplayer game of the year right there. Best family. Oh, oh, oh, my God. Oh, my God. No, you didn't do this to me. No, I mean, Mario Kart's fun. But I mean, unless you want to buy four carts at like 90 bucks each, it's not really a family game. What kind of kind of kind of it's honestly tough because what constitutes a family game? None of these really appeal to me as you sit on a couch with your family and you all play a game. Whatever, I'm going Animal Crossing. I'm overthinking it. Best role-playing game. Oh, God, what was that sound? What did I just do? Personified Royal, I haven't got to play it, but I played the base game and that has to be it. But I feel bad, like technically not having played Royal. But Final Fantasy 7 remake, though. How do you make me choose? Let me read the bloke. For the best game design with rich player character customization and progression, including massively multiplayer experiences. No. You're thinking of MMORPG. There isn't even an MMORPG in this list. Well, the definition didn't help me at all. Heads up is Final Fantasy. OK, Final Fantasy. Best action at pound. No. I love all of these for the most part. Assassin's Creed Valhalla, I just started. It's not going to take victory here, but it is actually surprisingly great. Ghost of Shushima is... Ori and the Will of Wisps is just unforgettable. I'm rolling out Marvel's Spider-Man just because it's pretty short. You know, I wrapped it up in six hours. So it's fantastic, though. Combat, traversal and puzzle solving. Those words alone. It's Ori. I honestly did think about it. It's Ori. Best VR AR. All right, here we go. Haven't played Dreams, bye-bye. Iron Man. Eh, it's kind of like a flight sim. Eh, we're out of here. Star Wars Squadrons. I really thought I was going to enjoy that, but it ended up being a lot of looping around in circles, trying to find things and having a really difficult time not throwing up in VR. Half-Life Alyx, I already said, was out. That is by far the first game I feel like I have stepped foot into a full video game and got to play it in VR. And not only, like, was it in VR, but it utilized VR and its mechanics in a way I've never experienced before. It is groundbreaking in the same way that the other Half-Lives were groundbreaking for their time. That is a perfect VR game. Best Indie. Carry on full guys. Hades. All right, never mind, moving on. Oh, best performance. Oh, oh, oh. Ashley as Ellie. Laura Bailey as Abby. God, the gettable character. It's not the voice actors fault. Considering what Laura had to work with, did a really great job. The choice definitely comes down to these three right here. Between Miles, Abby, and Ellie. You know, I think I'm going to go Miles. It's fresh in my mind. So maybe, like, if I went back, I changed my mind, but you know, he just did a really great job. Best Audio Design. There's one thing I can't fault with Last of Us and it's audio design. The audio design was incredible. Best Score and Music. Doom Eternal. Final Fantasy, Hades, Ori. All of these had incredible soundtracks and it's really hard to pick between them. I just caught straight to a random point in this video and I'm vibing already. That soundtrack is boss. This is a fantastic soundtrack and it's perfect for the mood. But it doesn't hit me the way Doom does. It's so good. This soundtrack is so good. Doom, you have two chances to impress me right now. Be still, my beating heart. All right, next. It's like Marilyn Manson if you beefed it up to 11. Okay, I delegated on that one. I'm giving it to Hades. I'm sorry, it's just so good. I was so close to giving it to Doom. It's just, I vibe with it too much. It's a perfect mix of, like, in your face and just chill out, man. Best Art Direction. Oh my God, I can't, I can't do it. I can't do it. I quit. Final Fantasy did a great job at working with the hardware and cramming it full. Ghost of Tsushima, oh my God, how do you pick? Even The Last of Us had, oh my God, that's something else I can't fault in The Last of Us. Hades could not have made that game look any better. It was perfect and Ori is perfect. I really think here it comes down to Ghost of Tsushima, Ori and The Last of Us and Hades is so close to being in there. I think I have to remove Ghost of Tsushima as well. But when you think of Art Direction, you also need to think of, like, the outfits and the set pieces and the costumes and the weapons and that's something I actually wasn't thinking about when I wrote out Ghost of Tsushima. I was thinking purely world building. No, you got to look at those things too and how authentic they are. The Last of Us is one of the most incredible looking games I've seen recently and I mean, we're talking about art. Ghost of Tsushima, nevermind. Nevermind, moving on. Best Narrative. For me, this comes down to two games as well. Final Fantasy VII had a fantastic narrative. I know it already was working with the narrative but they managed to twist it and change it in a way that without giving spoilers, shaped it to lead onto new exciting things and I really like how they did that. Hades, though. I have never seen a game implement narrative that strong, that rich, that deep, that crampacked full of lore and be able to tell that narrative in a linear fashion while still being a randomly generated game. The story cohesively makes sense and that story was not like some wishy washy light. No, it was in depth. Best Game Direction. Final Fantasy VII did a great job but there was definitely quite a few missions I could have done without. Ghost of Tsushima had, again, very cookie cutter game progression and game direction but fun, it was fun, it was good. It didn't do anything new but it mixed elements of games that worked together to create something new if that makes sense. Hades, again. It is close with Half-Life Alyx, though, to be fair because, again, they broke new ground, actually. Outstanding innovation. I'm going to Half-Life Alyx, actually. This game right here is innovation to its key. This game was a turning point for VR games. Oh, ladies and gentlemen and everything in between, I am not ready. Game of the Year. It's not Doom Eternal, that's out. Final Fantasy VII Remake is still in. Ghost is still in. Hades is still in. Animal Crossing is still in. Lactobus is still in. Look, I think the answer here is obvious. There's one game on this list that really came at a time in need. We'd just been told we were going to have to isolate, that we were going to have to stay inside, not see our friends or family. It was a game where we could invite our friends over and we could hang out with our friends. However cumbersome and annoying it might have been. It was a game where we could sink hours and hours into and forget the problems. I'm voting Ghost of Shushima. I really do believe it has to be Animal Crossing. That game took the world by storm. There was no controversy in Animal Crossing. There was no hate. It was universally accepted as a fun, cute, exciting game that just everyone wanted to be a part of. Animal Crossing was a game that refused to go away for the longest time. Its peak lasted for months. From March all the way to July. And I know this looks low in comparison to up here, but you compare it to other games on this list. Let's actually see. You see what I mean. Games for impact. Look, it's not about popularity. I know it's on a popularity contest here. What it is though is Game of the Year. It's what it says. Recognizing a game that delivers the absolute best experiences across all creative and technical fields. Okay, never mind that. When I think of Game of the Year, I'm thinking, what was Game of the Year? What made the biggest impact? What was loved the most? What gave the most joy, the most happiness? And when I think of all of those things, I not only think of Animal Crossing, but the proof is in the friggin pudding. Ha, ha, ha. Animal Crossing dominated this year. I also feel like it's the one game on this list that can offer something to everyone no matter what kind of game you are. And it delivers the clearest, most concise experience and fun for everyone. I don't know what I'm saying, but that's my answer. You can also vote on Billy Billy. Now you tell me, well don't I feel like a little silly Billy Billy? God, that's everything I voted for. Don't take my, yeah, everyone's different. Honestly, when it comes down to it, this is all personal preference. So feel free to leave whatever you voted for down below. Also, I'll link the site down below where you can go and vote your own. I'll stream this event whenever it goes live, December 10 actually. I'll be streaming it on Twitch. If you wanna come hang out and see if I got any of these right, probably all of them really. What do you think about it? Also tweet at the game awards where the heck was wood. They might get confused and wonder what the heck you're talking about and if it's a boner joke, but at the same time, screw them.