Sunday, December 11, 2011

Spike VGA's 2011

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Spike's Videogame Awards are being heralded as being the worst thing to happen to award shows since ... well, ever. Although the Oscars are giving it a run for its money with their usual elitism, the VGA's continue to degrade in quality. Case in point, this year's batch of winners (that were announced in between commercials and trailers, probably.) 

Game Of The Year:
Batman: Arkham City
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim [Winner]
The Legend Of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Portal 2
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

Really? Skyrim? Agreed, Skyrim is a fantastic game in many ways. It provides a vast world to explore, with loads of history and a fascinating tale. However, ... it's buggy beyond belief and the graphics aren't even all that impressive. People cover it up with "oh, but it's an open world game". To which I reply: It's a Bethesda game. They should have learned by now that having 50% more bugs than an average open world game is not a good thing. 
Who should have won? Skyward Sword is fantastic, but still nothing to innovative. Portal 2 is just a longer version of Portal 1 with a few new toys. Uncharted 3 ... was underwhelming at best, not managing to surpass Uncharted 2 in the slightest. So, my vote goes to Batman: Arkham City. It went from closed quarters to open world and went bigger and better in every way. 

Studio Of The Year:
Bethesda Game Studios [Winner]
Naughty Dog
Rocksteady
Valve

Bethesda? Really? Lolnope. Again, buggiest game of the year and they're studio of the year? No, it should have gone to Naughty Dog. I like their approach a lot. They start off by thinking of ways to challenge themselves by thinking of the set pieces first. That is how every company should work, honestly. Sure, Uncharted 3 isn't the best game of the year, but you can't say that it wasn't impressive as all hell.

Also, Valve, lol. Next up, Half Life 3 ... with HATS. Lolhalflife3 

Character of the Year:

The Joker [Winner]
Nathan Drake
Marcus Fenix
Wheatley

... Agreed.

Best Xbox 360 Game:

Batman: Arkham City [Winner]
Forza Motorsport 4
Gears of War 3
Portal 2

Really? There are only two games in this list that even remotely have a chance of winning. Forza 4 and Gears 3. The other two aren't exclusives, therefore shouldn't be even allowed to be put up. And yet ... here we are.

Best PS3 Game:
Infamous 2
Killzone 3
LittleBigPlanet 2
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception [Winner]

From a technical standpoint, I'm inclined to say that it deserves to be nominated. However, it failed in its execution. The magic that made Uncharted 2 such a success was missing. Now it was more like a Gears of War game. In Gears, you have places where you need to bunker down and places you need to traverse through. Only in Uncharted 3, these places are drawn out by many more minutes. Unfortunately, artificially so when it comes to combat. In Uncharted 2, this all felt like it was flowing. Here it feels like a process. And, above that, the story wasn't even remotely interesting. Save for the characters.

Killzone 3 was basically Killzone 2.5. And LittleBigPlanet 2 was LBP 1 ... but bigger and better. So, at least LBP has a good shot of winning. If it hadn't been for InFamous 2. This game should have won GOTY. Level editor, varied locations, new powers, great characters, awesome new weapon and so much more.

Best Wii Game:

Disney’s Epic Mickey
Kirby’s Return To Dream Land
Lost In Shadow
The Legend Of Zelda: Skyward Sword [Winner]

Agreed...

Best PC Game:

Battlefield 3
Minecraft
The Witcher 2: Assassins Of Kings
Portal 2 [Winner]

Now here we can say it's at least a fair choice. Wouldn't have been my choice (minecraft), but at least this category had good options all around.

Best Handheld/Mobile Game:
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Infinity Blade
Super Mario 3D Land [Winner]
Jetpack Joyride

Wait, I don't understand ... why is this crammed together in to one category? And where's Ocarina of Time 3D? Or ... nah, I'm not gonna go on a ramble. Let's just say this category is all around BS.

Best Shooter:

Battlefield 3
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 [Winner]
Gears of War 3
Rage

Incoming fanboy rage. Also, again, BS category. It should have been split in to FPS and TPS. Also, I would have tied MW3 and BF3 for the simple reason that: MW3 had the best single player and BF3 had the best multiplayer.

Best Action Adventure Game:

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations
Batman: Arkham City [Winner]
The Legend Of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

No opinion.

Best RPG:

Dark Souls
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Dragon Age 2
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim [Winner]

Considering the options ... agreed. With a big massive >_>. Dark Souls is hard as balls, which is artificial difficulty if you ask me. Deus Ex was boooooooooring with shitty boss fights. Dragon Age 2 was ... well, a BioWare game a la recent years. So yeah ... Skyrim. Gz.

Best Multi-Player:

Battlefield 3
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Gears Of War 3
Portal 2 [Winner]

Again, should have been split in to Multiplayer and Co-Op. If that happened, Portal 2 should have won Co-Op. BF3 should have won MP.

Best Individual Sports Game:

Fight Night Champion [Winner]
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters
Top Spin 4
Virtua Tennis 4
No love for dance games? Dance Central 2 should have won, if you ask me. For the rest, no opinion.
Best Team Sports Game:
FIFA Soccer 12
NBA 2K12 [Winner]
NHL 12
MLB ’11: The Show 

Best Driving Game:
Dirt 3
Driver: San Francisco
Forza Motorsport 4 [Winner]
Need For Speed: The Run 

Best Fighting Game:
The King Of Fighters XIII
Marvel Vs. Capcom 3
Mortal Kombat [Winner]
WWE All Stars

No opinion. except for: Gz MK, I guess.

Best Motion Game:

Child Of Eden
Dance Central 2
The Legend Of Zelda: Skyward Sword [Winner]
The Gunstringer

Oh, Hi Dance Central 2. Well, I guess you were nominated somewhere. Well, Skyward Sword wins. Flawless victory.

Get it? Cuz ... MK won last ... shut up.

Best Independent Game:

Bastion
Minecraft [Winner]
Superbrothers: Sword And Sworcery EP
The Binding Of Isaac

Well, this is one way of getting it to win.

Best Adapted Video Game:

Back To The Future: The Game
Batman: Arkham City [Winner]
Captain America: Super Soldier
Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars

BEST ADAPTATION? Oh, come on. How sad of a category is THIS? And to nominate Captain America? It's a standard knock-off tie-in. For fucks sake.

Best Song In A Game:

Bastion: “Build that Wall (Zia’s Theme)” by Darren Korb [Winner]
Portal 2: “Exile Vilify” by The National
Dragon Age 2: “I’m Not Calling You a Liar” by Florence + the Machine
Bastion: “Setting Sail, Coming Home (End Theme)” by Darren Korb

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1jjjosF51k is all I'm going to say.

Best Original Score:
Bastion [Winner]
Batman: Arkham City
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Portal 2

What, no Zel- Original, K. I got it. No opinion.

Best Graphics:

Batman: Arkham City
L.A. Noire
Rage
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception [Winner]

Agreed.

Jesus, how many more categories.

Best Performance By A Human Male:

Portal 2: J.K. Simmons as Cave Johnson [Winner]
Batman: Arkham City: Mark Hamill as The Joker
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception: Nolan North as Nathan Drake
Portal 2: Stephen Merchant as Wheatley

Nolan North should have been nominated for The Penguin. And Mark Hamill should have won.

Best Performance By A Human Female:

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception: Claudia Black as Chloe Frazer
Portal 2: Ellen McLain as GLaDOS [Winner]
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception: Emily Rose as Elena Fisher
Batman: Arkham City: Tara Strong as Harley Quinn

Tara Strong should have won. Ellen McLain is a good voice actress, but it's the lines that made her performance memorable. Not the performance itself.

Best Downloadable Game:

Bastion [Winner]
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet
Stacking
Trenched

Didn't we have this before? Mobile game ... independent ... No? K. 

Best DLC:
Fallout: New Vegas – Old World Blues
Mass Effect 2: Arrival
Mortal Kombat: Freddy Krueger
Portal 2 Peer Review [Winner]

Best DLC ... and you include a simple fucking character. Bite me.

Most Anticipated Game:

BioShock: Infinite
Diablo III
Halo 4
Mass Effect 3 [Winner]
The Last Guardian

Lolnope. Diablo III and BioShock: Infinite are more anticipated than Mass Effect 3.

Gamer God Award

Blizzard Entertainmnt

Should have been a person

Video Game Hall of Fame
The Legend of Zelda

Agreed.

Winners list source: http://www.gamersmint.com/vga-2011-list-of-winners-skyrim-takes-goty-uncharted-3-best-ps3-goty
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All in all, pretty underwhelming.

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