Fez wins over the audience at Fantastic Arcade

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Another year of Austin’s annual videogame festival Fantastic Arcade has come to an end, but not without a couple winners, losers (haha!), and pissed-off Norwegians. Seriously, don’t make eye-contact with them. They will mess your sh*t up.

The biggest winner is also the most predictable one: Fez takes home the Audience Choice Award along with a neat Lego statue. Faraway (by Little–Eyes) won the Best in Show award, which would be pretty impressive if I knew anything about the panel of judges. 

My game of show? GUN BULLET! Pinballz Arcade were nice enough to bring its cabinet to the show and set it on free-play. I played it obsessively over the past couple days. 

Click below for the full list of winners.

  • Best in Show: Faraway by Little–Eyes
  • Audience Choice Award: Fez by Polytron 
  • Most Punished for Lack of Ninjas Award:Radical Fishing by Vlambeer
  • The Bionic Commando Award for Grappling Hook Excellence Award: Capsized by AlienTrap
  • The “You got 2D in my 3D, or maybe 3D in my 2D” Award: Fez by Polytron
  • The Mandlebrot Award: Fract by Phosfiend Systems 
  • The Most Recent Use of Japanese Tradition by Westerners Award: Skulls of the Shogun by Haunted Temple Studios
  • The Implied Cephalopod Intercourse Award: Octodad by Team Octodad 
  • The Teach the Controversy Award: Jesus vs. Dinosaurs by Martin Jonasson, Petri Purho

For those of you foaming at the mouth for some quasi-3D indie-platforming action, word has it that you may have to wait a while longer. Fez is saying, “Screw you” to 2011 and moving to an early 2012 release date. Damn, now we’ll never know if it would have outsold Skyrim

Once I get done flunking out of college and typing up some film reviews for Flixist — which you better read everyday for awesome movie news — I’ll have the rest of my Fantastic Arcade previews up for you all to read, including a first look at Serious Sam: The Random Encounter and what may be Pixeljunk’s finest game yet (hint: It’s not 4am).

 

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Allistair Pinsof
His name is Allistair. He lives in Austin. If he is ever in your city, please come visit him in his minivan. He has have many fresh diapers. No worries!
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