Welcome to Aftermath's inaugural Game Of The Year Deathmatch! As already discussed, this is not going to be a long-winded series pontificating about the merits of some good video games over thousands of words and hours of podcast. It's the holiday season, you don't want to read that, we don't want to write it.
We all, however, thirst for blood. And so without further ado, let's introduce our first combatants in this year's Deathmatch: Spider-Man 2, the $300 million blockbuster from Insomniac Games, and Dredge, Black Salt's little indie game about a boat and some sea monsters.
Rules! To recap what was outlined in our introductory post: there are 16 games in the mix for Game of the Year 2023. We're pitting them against each other in a knockout tournament. But we're not pitting the games themselves against each other; instead, we're selecting a Champion from in or around each game and having them duke it out in the arena in hand-to-hand (or weapon-to-weapon, or hand-to-weapon) combat. The winner, decided via a schoolyard "would Batman beat Superman" style debate, moves on. The loser does not.
Representing Spider-Man 2 in today's bout is the titular hero himself. Representing Dredge will be the little boat from Dredge. Here's how it went down:
Nathan: Spider-Man's natural enemy: water. I'll take Spidey over almost any land-based opponent, but the open sea is a whole different ballgame. What can he affix himself to? How does he swing? Eventually Spider-Man tires out, and then Boat From Dredge pounces.
Riley: Yeah, Spider-Man seems pretty useless if there aren't any tall buildings to swing from, whereas a boat has the open ocean and, I don't know, some canals to manoeuvre in. I think the boat definitely wins here.
Luke: While Peter can swim in Spider-Man 2, he can't really use any of his powers while he's doing it. To fight a boat he's gotta be in the water, and on water, without his powers, the little boat wins.
Riley: In sympathy to Spider-Man, I too have been defeated by boats. No shame in losing to the best.
Chris: He can skate across the water. There’s a boat sequence in the game but Pete generally doesn’t handle the situation well.
Gita: Spider-Man isn’t more powerful than a boat. Thanks.
WINNER: DREDGE
Congratulations to the little boat, who will now go on to face the winner of Star Wars: Jedi Survivor and Cities Skylines II.
