Episode 258: The Alternative GOTY Awards 2025

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Need a video game awards show with dumb categories no company would ever sponsor? We’ve got your back, once again.

Thanks to all our returning guests from this year for dropping in!

Best Hang

• The lad who really likes football in Despelote
• Pinky in Promise Mascot Agency
• Liu Bei in the first half of Dynasty Warriors: Origins

Worst Hang

• Yatzli in Avowed
• the main character in Baby Steps
• Gestrals in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
• the horrible jealous girl Rinko in Silent Hill F
• the sex mascot Oh in Promise Mascot Agency

The Critics Got This Wrong Award

• Blades of Fire
• Hell Is Us
• Promise Mascot Agency

The Alarmo award for most defensive customers

• Matthew Castle for Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour
• JRPG fans who act like the genre wasn’t taken seriously in the 2000s

Most Surprising Game of This Year

• Dispatch
• Silent Hill f being built around replays

Most Spectacular Set Piece

• the final sequence of Split Fiction
• the collapsing star sequence of Split Fiction
• the Star Fox bit in Split Fiction
• the Day of the Dead bit in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
• the Hell Carrier sections of Doom: The Dark Ages

Best Bit in a Bad Game

• detective game riffing on The Inugami Curse by Seishi Yokomizo in Shuten Order
• the track transformations in Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds

Worst Bit in a Great Game

• the optional Gestral climbing puzzles in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
• the gliding sections in Shinobi: Art of Vengeance
• the Management minigame in Dispatch
• Levels that are hard to read visually in Lumines Arise

The Chrono Trigger award for most welcome remaster

• Super Mario Galaxy 2
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Switch 2 Edition
• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Switch 2 Edition
• Least welcome was Croc: Legend of the Gobbos (2025)

The Portal Gun award for coolest mechanic exclusive to a single game

• the metal detector in Atomfall
• the central mechanic in MotionRec

Best hub world/area or best level

• Lake Cynon in Hell Is Us
• Blue Gate in ARC Raiders

Best Boss Fight

• Lu Bu in Dynasty Warriors: Origins
• The octopus monster Nu Udra in Monster Hunter Wilds

The Yoko Shimomura award for a total banger

• Ceyx - Stage 5 of Birdcage by Barry Topping
• Flying Waters - Goblu from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 by Alice Duport-Percier and Lorien Testard
• Flying Waters ‐ Rain from the Ground from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 by Lorien Testard
• Sword of the Sea

A Non-Hitman Game Location That Would Make a Great Hitman Level

• that town square in Ecuador where everyone is watching football in Despelote
• Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour
• the Groove Layer of Donkey Kong Bonanza

Game I Played For 10 Minutes On Game Pass And No More Than That

• Lost Records: Bloom & Rage
• Marvel Cosmic Invasion

Best Tip We Can Offer To Improve Any One Game

• Absolum’s roguelike structure should be more generous
• Shrink the hitboxes of the spiky tunnels in Shinobi: Art of Vengeance’s flying sections. 
• Don’t worry too much about leveling and min-maxing your first play through of The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy

Oh My God I Hope No One Walks In While I’m Playing This Award

• The opening fight of Dispatch with that naked green guy
• the horse penises in Baby Steps
• experimenting with the different swimsuit outfits in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

The ‘I wish you well’ award for a game we acknowledge is good while choosing not to participate

• Powerwash Simulator 2
• ARC Raiders
• Rematch

Most Cursed

• the three rituals in Silent Hill f
• the chef Masaru’s live-action dating scenes in Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II

Biggest Existential Crisis Trigger

• not finding Blippo+ funny
• falling back to the start in Baby Steps

I’ve Thought Of a New Recipuh’ Award For Best Virtual Food

• Blue Prince
• the giant square watermelons from the Resort Layer of Donkey Kong Bananza

Least Satisfying Side Content

• the naval battles from Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
• Dynasty Warriors: Origins

Worst Discourse

• game budgets
• Miles Mackenzie in Metroid Prime 4: Beyond

No best discourse

• but that Subnautica 2 stuff was wild

The brought to you by Doordash award for emptiest I’ve felt about video game hype

• Hollow Knight: Silksong
• Battlefield 6

If I Was a Thirsty Overly Online Person, This Is the Character I Would Thirst For Award

• Lune in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Game From This Year That Will Make a Great Tv Show or Film

• Dispatch

The David Hayter award for a game performance we each liked

• Aaron Paul in Dispatch
• Jeffrey Wright in Dispatch
• Brandon Keener as the fish man Kai in Avowed
• Adrian Vaughan as Mick Carter, the main character in The Drifter

Non-gaming media from this year that would make a great game

• Pluribus
• Dept. Q
• The Long Walk (2025)
• The Running Man (2025)
• Wake Up Dead Man

The Master Miller award for betrayal of a game we said was good then turned on weeks later

• Monster Hunter Wilds
• Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Best 5 minutes of a game

• the scarecrows in Silent Hill f
• The Curse of the Last Reaper, The Rise of the Golden Idol DLC

Press Triangle right now to hear the best QTE of the year:

• Hitting a spinning piece of bamboo in Ghost of Yōtei
• Lune, Lightning Dance, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

The FF7 Rebirth prize for best minigame

• the Dragon, Doom: The Dark Ages
• Zeni Hajiki, Ghost of Yōtei

The Masahiro Sakurai award for best unlockable

• The Aristocrat King Boo costume from Mario Kart World

Most frustrating earworm sound effect

• the ‘something went wrong with a mascot’ sound in Promise Mascot Agency
• the ding dong bing bong that plays at the start of every day in The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy

Biggest mountain out of a molehill

• Nintendo game-key cards

Best addition to virtual console library

• Chibi-Robo!

Game you did the biggest u-turn on

• Fortnite when they added The Simpsons

Most Back Page coded character or location

• the Feast Layer in Donkey Kong Bananza

2025 Predictions Results

Guests ringing the doorbell

Joe Skrebels

• Rematch
• ARC Raiders
• Skate (2025)
• Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector
• Blue Prince
• Promise Mascot Agency
• Monster Train 2

Matt Leone

• Sword of the Sea
• Capcom Fighting Collection 2

Dave Jewitt

• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II

Lucy Blundell

• Promise Mascot Agency

Ashley Day

• The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy

Dave Scarborough

• Split Fiction

Katharine Castle

• Drop Duchy