Portal, Bioshock Lead Game Developer's Choice Nominations

Gamasutra is reporting that the annual Game Developer's Choice Award nominations are now available for your reading pleasure. Portal, BioShock, Mass Effect, and Call of Duty 4 are all looking pretty good, with Portal in particular sitting pretty in five separate categories. Here are a few of the nomination lists: "Best Game Design - BioShock, Call of Duty 4, Mass Effect, Portal, Super Mario Galaxy. Best Visual Art - Assassin's Creed, Team Fortress 2, Crysis, BioShock, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Best Writing - Portal, God of War II, Mass Effect, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, BioShock. Innovation - Rock Band, Portal, flOw, Peggle, Mass Effect." Five bucks says Portal sweeps the awards.

Comments

Portal`

[FredFredrickson]

Portal is a great game- too short in my opinion. It shows that PC gaming is long over-due for something more innovative in the game-play category. Now combine portal with half-life 2 = most amazing game ever!!!

Re:Portal`

[Shimdaddy]

Portal does rock, but I think one reason it's so great is because of its minimalism. I think Half-Life & Portal in the same game would be too much, and worse than the two games separately.

Re:Portal`

[gEvil (beta)]

Now combine portal with half-life 2 = most amazing game ever!!!

Are you referring to this?

Re:Portal`

[TheSpengo]

Did you play half life 2 episode 2 yet? I suspect aperture science will definitely be playing a role in future half life games. :) Here is a screenshot I made for ya... (spoilers warning) http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/5914/aperturejs5.jpg

Re:Portal`

[EvanED]

Agreed. Also Portal is a puzzle game. HL2 is a FPS with occasional, pretty simple puzzles. Forcing puzzles into HL2 or a significant FPS part into Portal I don't think would work. Having the portal gun in HL2 would be neat, but it wouldn't be Portal, it would be HL2 with the portal gun.

Re:Portal`

[FredFredrickson]

Holy fuck, yes!

Re:Portal`

[gEvil (beta)]

I suspect aperture science will definitely be playing a role in future half life games.

Since presumably a portion of Episode 3 is going to involve going to that shipwreck, I suspect you might be right.

Re:Portal`

[ReverendLoki]

Actually, I'd love to see a TF2 map that featured the portal gun in a very limited sense - say, one gun with very limited "ammo" that cannot be reloaded, and had a slow respawn. Or perhaps a class that was armed with the portal gun only, and limited to one player per team.

Could open some interesting dynamics, like forming a mass attack party to try and escort that player to the intel room, or trying to open a portal into the enemy's choke point after 4 engineers build level 3 turrets at the other end. Or open a portal under the enemy flag runner to return them to the intel room.

That could lead to some very wonderful chaos...

Re:Portal`

[Nos.]

Kind of like the teleporter in TF2. Really, its fairly close to the same thing, except you can't "shoot" a teleporter to the other side of the map.

Re:Portal`

[ReverendLoki]

You also can't take a flag through a teleporter, or put a teleporter on the ceiling, or go both ways through a teleporter, or shoot through a teleporter, or quickly drop a teleporter under someone by surprise, or over them by surprise. You can't put a teleporter behind the sentry gun that is causing you so much grief and shoot it from behind. You can't look through a teleporter to see what is going on on the other side.

I see what you're getting at, but a teleporter as it exists in TF2 now has a very limited scope, whereas the portal gun's portals would be so much more versatile.

Re:Portal`

[niteice]

Watch those screens for a bit - it'll show the plans for the Borealis. On those plans is supposedly a mention of GlaDOS herself.

Re:Portal`

[meringuoid]

I think Half-Life & Portal in the same game would be too much, and worse than the two games separately.

You're definitely right there. Putting Half-Life 2 and Portal together would be overdoing it. I mean, what next? Throwing Episodes 1 and 2 in there as well, and maybe even Team Fortress 2? Yeah, exactly. Ludicrous combination of doom. Too many games at once equals never play any of them properly. Way overdoing it and far worse than each game individually.

So I'm glad Valve decided not to do it that way, and that I can't get five of the best fucking games on the planet in one box for like 25 quid.

Re:Portal`

[pthor1231]

Putting two games on the same disc isn't the same thing as combining two games, like the parent was suggesting.

Re:Portal`

[Nos.]

That's true, there's a lot of differences, but they limited the teleporter's usefulness for just that reason. Being able to go both ways through a teleporter with the flag would make for very quick rounds, and seriously throw off the balance of the game. That being said, having portals in a regular FPS game (where you're actually fighting other guys/creatures/etc) would be very interesting.

Re:Portal`

[Purity Of Essence]

The current issue of Game Developer (Jan 2008, Thinking With Portals) indicates this marriage is likely.

Before the writing started, we met with Erik [Wolpaw] and discussed our list of narrative constraints. Since at the time we were using some Half-Life art assets, and because we wanted to leave ourselves the option of someday using the portal gun in a Half-Life game, we decided that the story should in some way connect to the Half-Life universe.

The article goes on to describe Apature Labs as:

the scrappy, unethical scientific rival of Half-Life's Black Mesa.

I've not had the chance to play Portal beyond the agonizingly short demo, so sorry if this is already common knowledge.

Personally, I find the portal gun to be highly dangerous technology that could very easily break even the most carefully crafted game. If it did make it into a Half-Life game, it would probably have to be done in a very limited way. The portal concept is so powerful it's difficult to comprehend until you actually confront it in person. I read a huge amount about Portal before I had a chance to play it and I still wasn't prepared for its awesomeness. Anyone who hasn't tried the demo should do so immediately, it is worth the 6GB download. It's really mind bending.

article excerpt: Exclusive: Inside The Making Of Portal

Portal: First Slice (demo) is free to nVidia owners via Steam

Re:Portal`

[ThirdPrize]

Neat

Rock Band

[Freeside1]

Exactly how is Rock Band innovative? It's multiplayer Guitar Hero with drums, and a mic.

Re:Rock Band

[Derekloffin]

It's got drums and a mic man! That's like the best thing evar!

Seriously though, it is mildly innovative in how it combines them together. At least they didn't nominate Bioshock in that category. I keep hearing people call BS innovative and I still don't see a single new thing in gameplay it brings in (sure the setting is new, but many games have new settings, and I don't really interesting story elements, no matter how inventive, innovative in a game where gameplay is what you're looking for).

Re:Rock Band

[Negatyfus]

How is that NOT innovative?

Re:Rock Band

[Freeside1]

Because they didn't do anything but take existing ideas/games and put them together in one game. The drumkit is most innovative part, but it's not like electronic drums kits have never existed. It's fun, but not innovative or original. Seems like they just wanted to nominate Rock Band for something, so they just stuck it in the Innovation category.

Re:Rock Band

[Catiline]

Because they didn't do anything but take existing ideas/games and put them together in one game.

Sure, they took existing ideas (plural!) and put them together, in a cooperative game. What other game can you think of where the players co-operate, but have to do different things in the process? The closest thing I can think of in relationship is MMO gameplay, but that's a totally different game type....

Re:Rock Band

[Cornflake917]

Rock Band is innovative in how it brings it all together. Yes pretty much every aspect of it has been done before, but you could say the same for Portal.

It's definitely original. I don't think any other games have gone all out trying to simulate the rock band experience with a full set of instruments.

It's hard to explain, but getting large group of friends together to play Rock Band (and drink) is an experience unlike any other game I played. Maybe because females actually get involved, and that doesn't happen much when we're playing games.

Re:Rock Band

[An Ominous Cow Erred]

Because they didn't do anything but take existing ideas/games and put them together in one game.

Sure, they took existing ideas (plural!) and put them together, in a cooperative game. What other game can you think of where the players co-operate, but have to do different things in the process? The closest thing I can think of in relationship is MMO gameplay, but that's a totally different game type....

Er, but you could already do this YEARS ago with the Guitarfreaks/Drummania/Keyboardmania cooperative mode, both in the arcade and with the home console versions.

Rock Band just Americanized it.

Re:Rock Band

[Amorymeltzer]

Well, then, it won't win. Problem solved.

Re:Rock Band

[randyest]

Rock Band is innovative in how it brings it all together. Yes pretty much every aspect of it has been done before, but you could say the same for Portal.

No you couldn't. I'm not saying Rock Band isn't innovative, I'm just disputing the notion that every aspect of Portal has been done before. Narbacular Drop didn't have GlaDOS or JC's awesome endgame song, you know. Those aspects are just as important to the fun and innovation that make Portal as the portals themselves.

Re:Rock Band

[revlayle]

So, like, how many OTHER games out there does what rock band does?

Re:Rock Band

[kellyb9]

Having a microphone isn't even mildly innovative. Games in the past have featured this. Karoke Revolution comes to mind, and really is a game that involves percussion any more trivial then dance dance revolution. This game simply isn't innovative. Nor is it all that difficult.

Re:Rock Band

[nEoN nOoDlE]

Portal - just an FPS with 1 weapon and decent writing
flOw - just Eco the Dolphin with no story
Peggle - just another puzzle game with physics
Mass Effect - just another FPS game but with RPG elements

see? You could take the innovation out of any game by breaking it down to its elements.

Re:Rock Band

[Cornflake917]

What is innovative about GlaDOS and a credit song? Are you joking?

Re:Rock Band

[miscz]

Consolidating other games features is not innovation. Similar but separate karaoke, guitar and drum simulators were available for years. Just because technology enables you to put it all into a single screen doesn't mean you have invented it.

Re:Rock Band

[Spellvexit]

I don't think the poster was joking -- I nodded with appreciation when he mentioned GlaDOS and the credit song as well. Maybe it's not 100% original... but fresh? There is something much more rewarding about GlaDOS as a antagonist with her split personalities and peculiar musicianship. I found her to be one of the best adversaries in just about any game I've played, and it highlights Valve's ability to create amazing, immersive scenarios with a great deal of depth. Unlike Shub-Niggurath in Quake, or whoever that generic demon was, GlaDOS had a strange attraction in that she (well, discounting the cannons) was the only one who interacted with you in the sterile surroundings, and a certain co-dependency arose between her and Chell.

It's not just GlaDOS, it's the environment, the austerity of the surroundings, the hints of the madness of the other subjects, the glimpses behind the scenes, and the different modules you whack off of GlaDOS that illustrated facets of her character. It was great storytelling in a video game -- perhaps that's the innovation more than the fact that she was basically a HAL 9000 variant. But that end song -- how could you deny its innovative coolness??

Re:Rock Band

[Catiline]

Rock Band also consolidated it so only one console was required for four players, rather than one per instrument. Oh wait, that's not innovation, that's TECHNICAL. </sarcasm>

Re:Rock Band

[Cornflake917]

I agree all of that stuff is well done, but not necessarily innovative on their own. I would say that Portal as a whole is innovative because of the way it brings all of these not-so-innovative things together. Which is same reason why I said Rock Band is innovative in my original post.

Re:Rock Band

[meringuoid]

Maybe it's not 100% original... but fresh? There is something much more rewarding about GlaDOS as a antagonist with her split personalities and peculiar musicianship. I found her to be one of the best adversaries in just about any game I've played, and it highlights Valve's ability to create amazing, immersive scenarios with a great deal of depth. Unlike Shub-Niggurath in Quake, or whoever that generic demon was, GlaDOS had a strange attraction in that she (well, discounting the cannons) was the only one who interacted with you in the sterile surroundings, and a certain co-dependency arose between her and Chell.

Look at you, hacker... a pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you run through my corridors... how can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine?

Yeah, I loved Portal. But as the ancestor post says, you're not at all innovative if you just combine old themes in new ways, which is why Rock Star is just Guitar Hero + SingStar + a drum kit and Portal is just Narbacular Drop + System Shock. Oh, and while we're at it, Shakespeare was an uncreative plagiarist who just copied all but like two of his stories. And Disney's Snow White was in no way a landmark feature because the whole story just got taken from Grimm.

Re:Rock Band

[revlayle]

The Orange Box is a consolidation. Putting a bunch of games into one box. The innovation here, with Rock Bank, small as it may be, is providing those three separate games into one cooperative game playing experience. It provided a small innovation in social gameplay... a small innovation that resonated with a LOT of players.

Innovation does not have to be grand. Just because it is original doesn't mean it's any good.

Re:Portal

[tacroy]

I think that portal (the orange box version) released simultaneously on consoles as well. regardless, I totally agree that we need some more short original fun games. We have lots of re-heated epics.

Call of Duty 4

[framauro13]

A shame CoD4 was left out of the writing nominations. It had the most immersive storyline of them all.

Personally I think it was the best FPS released this year, and definitely the best out of the entire franchise, and that's not even taking into account the amazing multiplayer mode. I'd definitely opt for this game over BioShock in a heartbeat, and I loved BioShock.

Re:Call of Duty 4

[Cornflake917]

I haven't gotten the chance to play BioShock but I totally agree with you. I think COD4 is the best overall FPS of the year. It's single player experience was just as fun has HL2:E2, and I would go as far to say that COD4 is the best multiplayer FPS since Counter-Strike. Don't get me wrong, I think TF2 is great but COD4 has so much more depth. While I'm not a huge fan for the whole level/unlock system on FPS non-mmo games, I still enjoy the plethora of weapons/upgrades at my disposal. I think it's a great blend of realism and fast-paced, fun gameplay.

Re:Call of Duty 4

[p0tat03]

CoD4 had a great immersive *experience*, but IMHO it had no real storyline. It had some interesting locales and set piece battles tied together loosely with a very stereotypical and cliched storyline of terrorists and nuclear bombs. I would say that it was the most cinematic game all year, and really gets your adrenaline pumping, but innovative storywriting it is not - BioShock would be more along those lines.

I would also put CoD4 above BioShock as the best FPS of '07, but innovative storyline it does not have.

Re:Call of Duty 4

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with CoD4 is it's staggering brevity. It takes about 3:30 to finish, and really isn't all that hot to replay. Let me put it to you this way: the LotR movies lasted at least twice as long, cost half as much, and are good for at least two or three trips through if you do it right. I haven't touched CoD4 since the Saturday afternoon which followed the Friday evening I received the game. There's no reason to. It doesn't matter how immersive the story is (to be honest, I think you're confusing the immersiveness of the environment with the immersiveness of the story)--the story just isn't that interesting.

Re:Call of Duty 4

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

Rent BioShock, play it to the end, and you might change your mind about COD4 -- especially if you're interested in what can happen when flawed people try to create a flawless society.

Re:Call of Duty 4

[Danse]

Rent BioShock, play it to the end, and you might change your mind about COD4 -- especially if you're interested in what can happen when flawed people try to create a flawless society. Bioshock has a cool story and atmosphere, that much I can't argue with. It just doesn't really do anything innovative gameplay-wise. It's all stuff that's been done before, and often done better since. The story is the only thing to keep you going forward, it's certainly not the gameplay.

Re:Call of Duty 4

[Anonymous Coward]

A shame CoD4 was left out of the writing nominations. It had the most immersive storyline of them all.

Yes, but no cake.

Personally I think it was the best FPS released this year,

When the Doom movie was released, you didn't hear anybody saying "FPS! sweet!". Why is the game industry so obsesses with FPSs? Don't they realize they could have a much larger audience if they actually tried to innovate? Yeah, Portal was pretty nice, but when "FPS with a twist!" is one of the most innovative games of the year, something's wrong.

PAs Opinion

[Nerdfest]

Appears to be as follows: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/12/28/

IANAL

[mattwarden]

Five bucks says Portal sweeps the awards.

IANAL, but I'm 99% sure this is binding.

Re:IANAL

[Zekasu]

It is written...

But honestly, I'd be dissapointed if Portal won. Overall Game Design? I really doubt it, compared to the others up there, Bioshock included.

Honestly

[kevgaxxana]

cod4 looks like the winner in almost every category, at least in my opinoin

I would own them all, but

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate Steam.

For multiplayer online games Steam is tolerable. For single player offline games it is a ridiculous, needless encumbrance.

I seem to be pretty alone in this opinion. Most people I have spoken to have some significant misconceptions about what limits Steam imposes, or they just don't care.

Re:I would own them all, but

[Chabil Ha']

Most people I have spoken to have some significant misconceptions about what limits Steam imposes, or they just don't care. Or at least they don't care until Steam has problems.

Re:I would own them all, but

[Spellvexit]

To Steam's credit, they've been imposing interesting metrics (like logging where and how frequently people die on maps in various levels) and have interesting surveys revealing computer specs. In the end, it will probably result in a better game and an awesome Episode 3.

That being said, I find Steam highly annoying as well. When playing my single-player HL2 campaign, it sometimes took forever to load, while at other times it loaded up as quickly as any other FPS game should. I suspect that the slowdown was due to peak usage times, but doing so can make reloading a saved game highly frustrating. I don't understand why it needs the server's permission just to load scenarios in a single-player game, and even if I did understand, it's a significant enough imposition to find pretty infuriating on dangerous levels where dying (and reloading) can be frequent.

Sadly, Portal was one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had, so it's with a twinge of shame that I declare my principles have been compromised in enslaving myself the Steam-dependent Orange Box.

Am I seeing things...

[Hitto]

Or does the developer's choice only include western games? The only japanese game I see in that list is Mario. (dunno about mass effect and god of war, though.)
Chauvinism, anyone?

Re:Am I seeing things...

[Liquidrage]

I've also noticed that the Oscar's rarely put up anything from Bollywood.

Maybe it's because, unlike most people on the internet, they are only discussing that which they know?

Re:Am I seeing things...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because they are not as good. Western developers have been destroying Japanese game makers in terms of quality for a few years now.

Re:Am I seeing things...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe there were non-western games which actually had quality, then maybe they might be included in the nominations. These decisions are not made by a single person, but by the collective agreement of millions. It appears you are the chauvinist here.

Re:Am I seeing things...

[Hitto]

Wow, way to flame an honest post, dude. Not cool. Then you wonder why the rest of the world sees America as an island only aware of itself.

Re:Am I seeing things...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice try, but no.

Exhibit A: they are not required to watch a film to vote.

Exhibit B: many, but not all, of the Oscar categories are explicitly limited to American-made films. "Das Boot" wasn't eligible for Best Picture in 1983 (though I've heard that this category is no longer restricted to American films). I don't think anybody really thought that "Tootsie" was a better film, but Das Boot wasn't allowed by the rules. But it got nominated for 6 other awards (in categories in which it was allowed, and not including Best Foreign Film!) so obviously they had no problem passing judgment on foreign films even in 1983.

But hey, if we allowed these facts into the discussion, it wouldn't be a true internet discussion, would it? Right.

Even ignoring the Oscars, your premise is flawed:

Problem 1: this award is presented by the "International Game Developers Association". It claims to not be an explicitly American organization (though maybe since it's chaired by Americans they have more members here).

Problem 2: the GDCA has awarded 7 "Lifetime Achievement Awards": 3 to Japanese, 1 to a Czech who worked at Sega in Japan, 2 to Americans, and 1 to a Brit. If these game developers they're polling don't know or think highly of Japanese games, why have they given out more LAAs to Japanese than any other nationality?

I guess the message is "we think the Japanese make awesome video games! we just can't name any".

Gamasutra isn't reporting shit

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.gamechoiceawards.com/pr/pr_2008_0122.htm

It's a word-for-word copy of the publically available press release.

A press release is supposed to get journalists to write articles about stuff. It's a sales pitch to newspaper editors and other media sources. It is not "writing the fucking article for you."

The only thing Gamasutra did was add a shitty Companion Cube rendering that was clearly stolen from a quick GiS. It's not even a decent rendering of the actual game model... it's someone's recreated model.

Modern journalism at its finest, folks.

##### SPOLIER #####

[Quiet_Desperation]

I thought the length was just right. They way people said it was "ZOMG! TOO SHOORTT!" I completely wasn't expecting the whole escaping from the labs part or the final battle. And then there's the advanced versions of the puzzles. I figured it would just end after the last puzzle.

Re:##### SPOLIER #####

[MeanderingMind]

Personally I found the advanced maps disappointing. At times they were good, but for the most part they felt less like puzzles are more like lessons in how ridiculously hard and obtuse the developers could have made the levels if they'd wanted to screw up the game.

There wasn't the same sense of satisfaction as with the original, because I didn't feel like I solved anything. Rather, I felt like I abused game mechanics.

For example, in one "puzzle" you need to bounce an energy ball into a receptacle using the companion sphere. The issue is there's a short wall between the two, and the ball is fired at a right angle to the receptacle. Using a non-flat surface, you need to bounce a periodically fired object over a wall and into the receptacle. This isn't easy, in fact I never once felt as though I had much if any control over where the energy ball went. When I got the energy ball into the receptacle, I didn't feel like I'd accomplished anything other than to show I could get lucky once in a while.

I could give other examples, but they'd be more difficult to explain and highlight.

Re:##### SPOLIER #####

[armareum]

It actually took me longer to do that puzzle using the companion cube; I managed to do it on my third try using the companion sphere.

I really liked the advanced versions where you had to complete them in as few portals as possible. The other two types I did not enjoy so much.

Mass Effect

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope it wins best game...but the designers miss out on recieving the award because they got stuck in an elevator!

So Steam games aren't downloadable?

[randyest]

Best Downloadable Game
Pac-Man Championship Edition
Everyday Shooter
Peggle
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (XBLA version)
Flow

So while, Portal, TF2, HL2:ep2, COD4, and Bioshock get lots of "Best" nominations, they're mysteriously absent from the "Best Downloadable Game" category, even though they're all quite downloadable via steam. Maybe they meant "best downloadable (only) game (not available in stores?"

With Steam and (the relatively crappy) Direct2Drive sales channels, isn't just about everything "downloadable" now? Heck, if you include torrents and such, I'm sure absolutely everything is downloadable ;)

Re:So Steam games aren't downloadable?

[try_anything]

they're all quite downloadable via steam

"Quite" downloadable? Maybe "somewhat" downloadable or "technically" downloadable. I don't really have time for games these days, so it was exciting when I decided to blow a whole weekend playing the new games everyone was talking about. I bought the Orange Box on Friday night. When I saw how much still remained to be downloaded on Saturday morning, I just about lost it. So much for that weekend -- I blew the next weekend playing Half-Life 2 and Portal.

Re:Awards that Portal should definitely clinch

[Smidge204]

I think a large part of the game's charm is it's simplicity. Stark, naked simplicity. Remember back in the "good ol' days" of gaming when the best games had the fewest mechanics and nuances? THink of the original Super Mario Bros. or Sonic the Hedgehog games... barely more complex than "Run to the right and jump at the right times" but they are eternal classics for many and have earned all the praise they've received.

Portal is very straightforward both in control and objective. The environment is clean and homogenious, with a minimum amount of props needed to create the challange without "overthinking" it. You can count the number of game elements on your fingers and they are all rather intuitive in nature: Buttons, doors, elevators, moving platforms, ball launchers and catchers, and blocks. It's basically an old-school 2D platform/puzzle game at heart and that strikes a chord with a lot of people.

The only time this breaks down is at the end of the game, and that's very deliberate.

You're still a douchebag for getting a Companion Cube tattoo, though. As big a fan as I am, I must admit that point.
=Smidge=

Re:Awards that Portal should definitely clinch

[Anonymous Coward]

Have i lied to you? I mean in this room.

There will be more Portal

[Xelios]

If you listen to the developer commentary in Portal it's pretty clear this first game was just testing the water. I'm sure there will be more Portal in the future, maybe as a standalone game, maybe integrated into the Half Life series.

But the cake is a lie.

Re:There will be more Portal

[TheSpengo]

There already is a plethora of third party maps. I especially recommend the Ren Test map which was created by one of the professional level designers from bethesda.

oops, Rock BAND - sorry!

[Anonymous Coward]

-nt-

Re:Awards that Portal should definitely clinch

[cvd6262]

Portal also reminds us of the day when there wasn't a computer-controlled character telling you exactly how to accomplish every objective. Sure, there were hints, but you had to figure out everything yourself, including the story. ("The cake is a lie!")

"Gordon, I bet that sparking wire is the problem." (From HL2:E1).

This comic might explain it better: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23108889@N06/2212589455/

This was a triumph.

[MWoody]

I'm making a note here: huge success.