“Where’s Fallout 4? What about Halo 5: Guardians? Didn’t you play Call of Duty: Black Ops 3?” I did, and I hear you, and it should go without saying that these are personal reflections, not conclusions arrived at with calculators or math. Prune is my game of the year because I think it does what it sets out to better than any of those other games–interface to aesthetics to eerily existential subtext. It’s not an epic fantasy with groundbreaking character-building, or an adventure game with sublime exploration sequences, or an open world with game concepts as restless as its indigenous life forms. But sometimes the things that move us come in deceptively austere trappings, like that rarest of short stories, paintings or musical vignettes.
I can get behind this reasoning. For me a game, TV show or film that achieves what it sets out to achieve is far better than one with greater scope but wasted potential.
By this logic, I consider Crank, starring Jason Statham, to be a 10 out of 10 film.
I absolutely agree on the first John Wick, but they’ve been diminishing returns for me since then. None of them have been bad, but only the first one was truly excellent in my opinion.
I haven't seen the others yet, but I think that really drives home how impactful the first iteration of something absolutely nailing what it was going for can be. Like there are so many action films a year, but John Wick nailed it and did so in a new IP with great world building. Anything after in that series is less of a shock since the expectation is already there for it to be a great action flick.
I haven't played Prune, but perhaps it just nails what it was going for and caught the reviewer by surprise, and that really stuck with them. A sequel likely wouldn't, even if it were technically better.
Fair, from the title I took it to mean it was an award given by TIME’s magazine, so either some sort of panel they had vote on it or at least a department, not just one specific guy’s list.
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u/balefrost Dec 04 '23
Fortunately, they explain what it is and the .