Zelda and the Golden Geeks

If you spent the weekend playing Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, you are not alone. Here’s the latest gaming news to catch you up.

Golden Geek Award winners announced

The Golden Geek Awards are presented each year by Board Game Geek, one of the biggest names in board gaming. Golden Geek games are nominated and voted on by members of the BGG community throughout the year. Here are the 2022 winners:

Best Board Game App: Everdell
2-player game: Splendor Duel
Artwork Presentation: Flamecraft
Cooperative Game: Return to Dark Tower
Expansion: Dune: Imperium – Rise of Ix
Innovative: Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition
Party Game: Ready Set Bet
Wargame: Undaunted: Stalingrad
Print Play: Aquamarine
Best Podcast: This Game Is Broken
Solo Game: Turing Machine
Thematic Game: Heat: Pedal to the Metal
Light Game of the Year: Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition
Medium Game of the Year: Heat: Pedal to the Metal
Heavy Game of the Year: Carnegie

See a complete list of finalists.

Have you caught Zelda-mania?

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom released this past Friday, one of the biggest game launches of the year. Digital ads played in Time Square and fans took the day off to celebrate and play the game. While there are no national sales numbers yet, reports of it doing well in the United Kingdom and my own discussion with the sales representative at Costco show it is quite the hit.

For those who did play the game this weekend, they were rewarded with one of the best reviewed games of all time on Metacritic. Despite not being able to pet the dog, reviewers with early access to the game loved it:

For more on Zelda, read about how the game makes you feel like a genius, or check out some of the ridiculous contraptions being built in the game (spoilers).

Sex in jetpacks?

Starfield received a M for Mature 17+ rating this week for “blood, strong language, suggestive themes, use of drugs, and violence." Not unexpected, but one section of the rating summary is making headlines. From the ESRB rating:

The game contains some suggestive material in the dialogue, and after sharing a bed with characters (e.g., ‘Life is a sexually transmitted disease that’s a hundred percent fatal’; ‘I’m all for getting a little wild, but next time let’s try it without the jetpacks’; ‘Talk about seeing stars, whew… that was amazing.’).

After issues on launch for Redfall some are worried Starfield, the next planned game release by Bethesda, will flop as well. Does this worry you more, or increase your excitement levels for the game?

Side quests (more stories worth reading)

🎮 Originally anticipated in the first half of 2023, Hollow Knight: Silksong is delayed. More details will be available once the developers are closer to a new release date.

👑 To assist their merger with Xbox, Activision Blizzard hired Queen Elizabeth II's former lawyer.

🐉 Need some music to enhance your Dungeons & Dragons session? Check out RoleplayRhythms, music for tabletop gaming & RPGs.

🎮 GQ asked the experts, and came up with their own list of the 100 greatest video games of all time.

📝 Want to gamify your life? Here are the 8 best games for productivity, according to one publication.

🕹 Open betas are the new rage. Get ready to try the Street Fighter 6 open beta this weekend, May 19-21.

💸 Humble, the game company that gives a percentage of their bundle sales to charity raised $33 million in 2022.

💰For the first time, Activision Blizzard  is making more money on PC games than console.

🎸 Jack Black has a new song called Video Games, which might be the new unofficial song of this site.

😈 Diablo IV announced their Battle Pass. A great way for you to spend more money after the game is released. Well, great for Blizzard.

🤔 A funny and well thought out video rant about long playtimes in video games.

New Releases this week:

5/15: Trail of Ayash (PC)
5/16: Humanity (PlayStation and PC)
5/16: Tin Hearts (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and PC)
5/17: Starship Troopers: Extermination (PC)
5/18: Firmament (PC)
5/18: The Outlast Trials (PC)
5/18: Veiled Experts (PC)
5/19: Lego 2K Drive (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and PC)

Check out our story on 10 new games to play in May.

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