Our unofficial picks for The Game Awards 2017 winners

Why wait until December 7? Here's who we think should win.

Best Mobile Game

"For the best game playable on a dedicated mobile device."

  • Fire Emblem Heroes
  • Super Mario Run
  • Old Man's Journey
  • Monument Valley 2
  • Hidden Folks

For years people implored Nintendo to enter the mobile space to save themselves. Of course, Nintendo has never needed saving - even in the darkest moments of Wii U's failure, it was still sitting on a cash fortune that could keep it going for many years - but for whatever reason the company's executives have finally decided the time is right, and after dipping their toe a little with Miitomo, Shigeru Miyamoto himself stepped up to introduce us to Super Mario Run. Simple, elegant and surprisingly deep, Super Mario Run is a fitting mobile debut for the veteran plumber, and the fact it doesn't gouge you with microtransactions feels like something worth saluting in this day and age, too.

Best Handheld Game

"For the best game playable on a dedicated portable gaming system."

  • Poochy and Yoshi's Woolly World
  • Monster Hunter Stories
  • Metroid: Samus Returns
  • Ever Oasis
  • Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadow of Valentia

The Metroid game we really want is a new Metroid Prime on Nintendo Switch, of course, but Nintendo and MercurySteam's reimagining of Metroid II - dubbed Samus Returns - was a welcome makeweight while other developers busy themselves with Prime 4.

Best VR/AR Game

"For the best game experience playable in virtual or augmented reality, irrespective of platform."

  • Superhot VR
  • Star Trek: Bridge Crew
  • Lone Echo / Echo Arena
  • Farpoint
  • Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

It's been another slow year for virtual reality, which continues to deliver the odd fantastic experience but still feel like an overpriced novelty. With developers like Eve Online's CCP now moving away from VR, it feels like the hype bubble could be about to burst. Evidently nobody told Capcom, though, because Resident Evil 7 went full bore on PlayStation VR, allowing you to play the entire game within a headset. If you're anything like us, then your experience went something like this: "Wow, I'm actually inside a Resident Evil game... Oh s***, I'm inside a Resident Evil game waaaaaahhh!"

Best Action Game

"For the best game in the action genre focused on combat."

  • Prey
  • Nioh
  • Destiny 2
  • Cuphead
  • Wolfenstein II

There was a time when Bethesda's decision to buy id Software looked like an expensive mistake. Rage was pretty good, but it lacked the sort of personality and cohesion needed to launch a new franchise, while the acrimonious departure of John Carmack to Oculus felt like it might signal the end of the road. Instead, id has reinvented Doom in brilliant fashion, while MachineGames has taken Wolfenstein and made it its own. This year's second installment in the rebooted series is one of the best shooters in recent memory.

Best Action/Adventure Game

"For the best action/adventure game, combining combat with traversal and puzzle solving."

  • Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
  • Assassin's Creed: Origins
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
  • Super Mario Odyssey
  • Horizon Zero Dawn

We're not sure whether we'd call it an action-adventure game, but if you put Breath of the Wild in a category then we will generally vote for it.

Editor-at-Large

Tom is probably best known for the 15 years - FIFTEEN YEARS! - he spent at Eurogamer, one of Europe's biggest independent gaming sites. Now he roams the earth, but will always have a home here at AllGamers. You can try and raise him from his deep, abyssal slumber through tom.bramwell@allgamers.com or he's also on Twitter.

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