Ah yes, it is that time of the year again.
The 2018 Sports Game of the Year Award votes have been tallied and winners in our three categories are about to be announced. This year’s ‘Stevies’ feature a diverse cast of games, with no title bringing home more than one award — which is likely due to the trimmed down list of nomination categories.
So without further adieu, here’s our winners.
Sports Game of the Year
NBA 2K19
The staff felt very strongly about NBA 2K19 being our sports game of the year. 2K19 doubled the vote count of any other game and this year’s edition deserves plenty of praise for why its winning sports game of the year.
MLB The Show 18 (Reader’s Choice)
The readers, on the other hand, went another direction naming MLB The Show 18 their 2018 Sports Game of the Year by a rather wide margin. This is yet another win in this category for MLB The Show, with the series continuing a run of really good releases.
See the full staff roundtable for the 2018 Sports Game of the Year.
Best Feature of 2018
Madden NFL 19 Custom Draft Classes
Madden notches a win in the 2018 SGOTY awards for best feature from the staff with its Custom Draft Classes. This has been a feature we’ve been missing and since the death of the NCAA Football Franchise, the inability to bring college players into Madden has been noticed.
FIFA 19 Champions League/Euro League Integration (Reader’s Choice)
The readers, on the other hand, narrowly handed the Champions League/Euro League integration feature in FIFA with the best feature of 2018. While playing in these leagues is not a new experience for video game footballers — the integration in year one for FIFA was pretty flawless.
See the full staff roundtable for Best Feature of 2018.
Best Indie Game of 2018
Super Mega Baseball 2
In what you could consider a minor upset, Super Mega Baseball 2 won the staff vote for the best indie sports game. Perennial heavyweight Out of the Park Baseball 19 narrowly missed grabbing the nod — but the other baseball indie game with its superb gameplay and pretty visuals won the day.
Out of the Park Baseball 19 (Reader’s Choice)
However, the readers stuck to conventional wisdom and awarded Out of the Park Baseball 19 with the best indie game of 2018. What more can you say about OOTP? This year, the big new feature of Perfect Team was just debuted, making an already great game even better.
Published: Jan 18, 2019 08:00 am