At Gamer Malaya and Gamer Matters, we celebrate both visual flair and bopping tunes that make a cohesive, remarkable style. Or aesthetics. Always the toughest to come to a consensus, the nominees and winner highlight how you don’t really need a bombastic orchestra or state-of-the-art photorealism graphics to make a pleasing visual/audio experience.
The best game to use a style, a combination of artstyle and sound design, that makes it stand out from the beige of normality
- Ape Out
- Daemon X Machina
- Hypnospace Outlaw
- Sayonara Wild Hearts
- Void Bastards
Deliberations Summary
For the longest part of the deliberations, it was a stalemate on which games have to be cut from the list. The original nominations list was long with a lot of strong looking and sounding games. But babies have to be sacrificed.
Daemon X Machina eschews the usual military-heavy “tacticool” aesthetic of mech games for bright colours and doses of heavy metal. Ape Out is a living jazz album with minimal visuals that looks and sounds amazing in motion. On the same note, Sayonara Wild Hearts is a living pop synth album, but instead of a wild violent gorilla with pent-up rage, it’s a lady with pent-up baggage over her past love.
Void Bastards is an exemplary use of style over substance. The game’s gameplay loop resembles closer to a classic Doom, complete with flat, 2D enemy sprites. But it’s comic-book visuals elevates the package with cool animated panels, stark colours, and bold outlines.
The winner? Given the name of the category, it would seem rather obvious in hindsight. Hypnospace Outlaw’s outlandish take on late ’90s/early ’00s internet has aesthetic written all over it. Many of its official screenshots can pass as a vaporwave album cover. But it’s not just nostalgia bait. The lo-fi MIDI songs and animated gifs capture a wide range of people who would surf the world wide web at the time. From try-hard dudes that rock to alternative music to sweet old people and their wholesome landing pages, they are well-made in and of itself, unique and gives a sense that a lot of love is being put to pull these off.
Congratulations to Hypnospace Outlaw for winning the GM GOTY Award for Best a e s t h e t i c !
Previously, we crowned the winner for Best Racing Game. For the full list of awards, have a look at that here.
Check back tomorrow for the winner of the Best Story Award!