5punk Awards 2014

[Dog Pants]

Welcome again to the 5punk awards. 2014 has been a subdued year here what with one thing or another, but the 5punkiness remains perfectly intact. This years awards have followed this trend in some regards, the number of votes dipping to single figures in some categories. It's also interesting to see some of the old stalwarts for some of the awards missing out on nominations, although I strongly suspect this is because everyone assumed someone else would nominate them. Still, it's nice to shake things up. Some awards have been retired, a couple have been invented, but I think all are deserving. Thank you 5punkers one and all, for coming out and voting in support of this masturbatory exercise, for providing each other with the material to produce the nominations, and most of all for continuing to be here.

Single Player Game of the Year 2014

I remember a time when we were barely playing any single player games. They seemed to suck back then, all corridor shooters with no substance. These days we seem to be struggling more with the multiplayer games. I'd like to blame the rise of crowdsourced financing, showing the big companies that there's an appetite for original, intelligent single player games. I can't back that up though. This year has a good spread of nominations; From AAA shooter to indie turn-based RPG, and all had votes. The winner turned out to be... um, a shooter. But it had substance! It had character and beautiful architecture, interesting mechanics and environments, and a few suck-ass QTEs, one of which forced a decision many of us didn't want to make and had little effect on the outcome. But even so, it was awesome. I even played it myself. Congratulations Bethesda, the winner is:

Wolfenstein: The New Order


Multiplayer Game of the Year 2014

Gone now are the days when we would have regular COD or BEEF nights, both franchises gone the way of the iterative AAA machine. Our tastes in multiplayer games have become more eclectic by necessity as the big releases have become more formulaic. Occasionally though something stands out, a gleaming kernel or originality in the big pile of copy/paste team based shooters and MOBAs. Our nominees reflect that with real diversity of scale and genre, some we might expect to see in a mainstream list, others not so well known. The winner, though, is unusual in two ways. Firstly it returns from winning our Game of the Year last year, albeit in a slightly less prestigious category. Secondly, it does so mainly because of an official mod which seemed to arrive at Hallowe'en and be left there for us all to play with. Battling waves of ridiculous monsters using sword and bow, against ghostly skeletons and naked trolls, wisecracking peasants and, most feared of all, a bloke called Tom. Our winner is:

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare


Most Anticipated Game (for 2015)

A second outing for this category, and it has brought many nominations as people list those unreleased games they're enthusiastic about. That's a good sign for gaming, and there are some fine looking games due for release in the coming year. Maybe the list includes next year's Game of the Year. The winner of the award is a single player game. Perhaps that says something about 5punky habits changing, or maybe we're just looking for something with a bit more depth than a multiplayer brawler. Either way, 5punk's most anticipated game of 2015 is:

Batman: Arkham Knight


5punk Game of the Year 2014

5punky games are rare things, those which bring out the sense of humour in us. Many of them do so because they're hilariously broken, but in order to win the Game of the Year award they need to be good too. There were plenty of nominations, but it ended up being a two horse race. One game has been a regular fixture in our gaming day in and day out all year, seducing us with its casual cooperation and hectic, cinematic reprisals for failing to do so. The devs have steadily provided a feed of new content without dividing the community, handling their customers intelligently. The other game is a Johnny-come-lately for us, with most of its players picking it up in the Christmas Steam sale. Nonetheless, its combination of crazy physics, simple but clumsy controls, and swinging crotch pouches has been a roaring success and has had us crying with laughter - the mark of a great 5punky game. In the polls the votes went with the old favourite, and deservedly so. This game is going to continue to be a familiar sight on Steam in the coming year too I suspect. The 5punk Game of the Year 2014 is:

PayDay 2


TV Show of the Year

This new category reflects the fact that 5punk is more diverse than just gaming. That's our focus, but there are lively discussions about other media as well as the general aspects of life. What a contemplative crowd we are. The TV Show of the Year award goes to that basest of mediums, television, and there was a good spread of nominations. I can't say why the winner was chosen, I personally haven't seen any of the shows, but in the words of Pnut it is "quite good." A sparkling recommendation for a show I assume to be about pooing:

The Strain


Film of the Year

A second award for non-gaming media, the Film of the Year award is a straight choice of which film we enjoyed the most. 5punkers watch lots of films, even some where all the cast aren't naked, and that was reflected in the number of nominations. I have to admit, I didn't get to see any of them. Mind you, I only got to the cinema once this year and that was to sit alone and watch a 30 year old film. The winner must be pretty good though, because it got over half of the votes. Raccoons and trees rejoice, it's:

Guardians of the Galaxy


Fail of the Year 2014

This award is a new and experimental thing, thrown out there to see what happened. The biggest fail, be it 5punker or otherwise, gaming or not. Most of the nominations centred around poor game launches and the people responsible, and for sure this year has had more of its fair share of those. The winner by a huge margin, however, tarred all of us and our beloved hobby with bile and vitriol. It was like a videogame civil war, where both sides set out to troll and be dicks to each other. It was pretty much avoided on 5punk bar a small and civil discussion, and thank fuck for that. A massive fail for all concerned with:

goobergate


Master of Rings

The Master of Rings award is intended to be a celebration of the 5punker who has put the most effort into the thankless and futile task of trying to promote the community, drawing 5punkers together or bringing in new and like-minded people. 5punkers are a notoriously unguided lot, and trying to herd them is no mean feat. The award was closely contested, all three nominees for their sterling efforts in bringing us together for weekend gaming. The winner though, a constant for our Frigames and Saturgames, and rounding us up most regularly, is:

Shot2Bits


Funny cupcake

This isn't usually such a contested category. A lot of 5punkers are funny, but we have a couple of stand-out hilarious bastards. For whatever reason the previous regulars weren't nominated (I think it's because they've become bitter, miserable old bastards), which opened the floor to a raft of nominees and some very even voting. The winners are a double act, their back-and-forth routine of setting up pisstake after pisstake which rolled off each other like a line of dominos proving to be infernally (and hilariously) bewildering to poor WifeyBerk, who probably deserves an award herself for patience in the face of a cackling server full of man-children. This year's Funny Cunts are the not-fit-for-TV double act of:

Fab and Berk


Talented Bastard

The Talented Bastard award is a mark of envy, that other 5punkers look upon their creations in wonder and wish that they could do the same. The bastard. Historically the award has gone to talent outside of the games themselves, and I suspect this has only differed this year because of peculiarly low nominations in some awards. Even so, there was only one vote in this between the three nominees. The mathematically shrewd among you may have spotted that this means there must be another tie, and you'd be correct. Our winners both got their nominations for constructions in the same game (and MP Game of the Year nominee), Space Engineers. One showed up days after the rest of us and immediately built a disco-lit space tuc-tuc, before extending it and extending it until it had robotic arms and a fabulous lighting array. The other steadily worked away on producing a leviathan project, simple and single minded in its purpose but no less impressive for that. A vast pyramid (not the first game to feature such a thing, too) which chewed great square chunks out of asteroids. In the end it seems the community couldn't decide between elegant genius and insane focus, so the award jointly goes to:

Friznit & Joose


Meat Shield

The Meat Shield epitomises the 5punky quality of being a bit shit at games. This is good - we don't like to take things too seriously, and striving to be good at something could encourage the kind of behaviour we see in clans and other such undesirables. Ugh. Our Meat Shield this year is a special one, earning over 90% of the vote by failing spectacularly at Dota, and failing reasonably hard at Planetside 2. To be fair both are difficult games to pick up at first, but lets not let that stand in the way of a good award. To quote my own nomination, "I mean it with the greatest of respect when I say I have never seen a worse Dota 2 player." A well earned Meat Shield goes to:

FatherJack


OMG HAXXOR

Thee antithesis of the Meat Shield award, the OMG HAXXOR goes to the 5punker who can't help but be good at games. There were quite a few nominations this year and I pity almost all of them (apart from myself, I got no votes therefore I still suck). We had votes for insane spaceship building, being not shit at DOTA, and being genuinely good at shooting computer men. The community couldn't decide between two rather 5punky nominations in the end though, and we've been left with a tie. One of our nominees famously was found standing amid the entire enemy team, smoking LMG in hand and insane grin on face, in instakill tactical shooter Insurgency. The other has proven to be hilariously proficient at hurling semi-naked men at piles of other semi-naked men in Mount Your Friends. Update your Grindr profiles everyone, our winners are:

Shada & Pnut


5punker of the Year

As always our final award is for the 5punker of the Year, awarded for services to 5punkdom, keeping our little community the happy, puerile mess it is. We all contribute to that though, and 5punk is very much the sum of its parts. Every 5punker contributes in their own way to form a wonderful, sticky melange which smells faintly of fish. The award has to go to someone though, apart from that year when everyone won it. I've known the winner for a long time and, over the years I think I've come to know him pretty well. In the tender, thoughtful words Anery once used to describe him to a room full of people, "you're a cupcake." Our 5punker of the Year is:

Dog Pants

The fucker.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Funny cupcake

This isn't usually such a contested category. A lot of 5punkers are funny, but we have a couple of stand-out hilarious bastards. For whatever reason the previous regulars weren't nominated (I think it's because they've become bitter, miserable old bastards), which opened the floor to a raft of nominees and some very even voting. The winners are a double act, their back-and-forth routine of setting up pisstake after pisstake which rolled off each other like a line of dominos proving to be infernally (and hilariously) bewildering to poor WifeyBerk, who probably deserves an award herself for patience in the face of a cackling server full of man-children. This year's Funny Cunts are the not-fit-for-TV double act of:

Fab and Berk

[FatherJack]

Thanks all for the award, it's good to know how much you all - wait what? Meat shield of the year? Bastards.


I'm going for game of the year next year. Multi-player, oh yes.

[Mr. Johnson]

If it makes you feel any better FJ, I plan to make every single 5punker at least once in their lives a nominee for the meat shield award.

Congrats to all winners, here's to another year of 5punky excellence!

[Dog Pants]

Didn't Pnut once get nominated for both Meat Shield and Haxxor in the same year?

[HereComesPete]

Conspackulations everyone! Pretty sure he did DP, shows how much he vacillates between surprisingly awesome and utter bollocks, an example to us all!*

I'm missing the gaming tremendously but the result of 24 hour workers is 24 hour management and it leaves me with fuck all time. No idea how some people squeeze time from the day like they do. Friday nights for me consist of a few bottles of wine and passing out early because I know I'll be woken up around 6 to discuss what latest adventures spongebob and patrick have been having.

But despite not liking the idea of new years resolutions I'm going to make a damn good go of a couple, one of which is to get my beard going again (so please hurry the fuck up and send me some character details and back story if I don't have them fanks) and the other is a glorious belching return to Frigames, so if I'm not working or such, I'm on it like white on rice.


*of the effects of long term substance abuse

[Pnut]

Thanks for the nominations and the award

I can't remember being nominated in the haxxor before, but that's no great surprise really.
Don't get too comfortable with that meat shield award FJ, it's coming home next year.

[Dog Pants]

Is there some rule that our game subcategories have to have a colon in them? Or is it just that 90% of games released this year had colons in them?

[deject]

gratz to all the winners!