Spike Releases Moderately Perplexing 2010 VGAs Nominee List

[John Funk]

Spike Releases Moderately Perplexing 2010 VGAs Nominee List

Spike has released the list of nominees for its 2010 Video Game Awards. Some of them make perfect sense, but others, not so much.

As someone who is quite immersed in videogames and gamer culture 24/7, I've always found the Spike Video Game Awards a fascinating gauge of what "mainstream" culture thinks of our chosen hobby. We can rant and rave all we want about things like Minecraft and DRM and whether or not Obsidian should be blamed for a buggy New Vegas, but millions of people who play games probably never give those things a second thought.

Looking at the list of the nominees for this year's VGAs, it's hard to view it as anything but a mixed bag. Some of the nominees are spot-on - and it's great to see the likes of Professor Layton and Super Scribblenauts get some mainstream love - but some of the others, er ... they're a bit more worthy of a good headscratch.

I mean yeah, I love Nathan Fillion as much as the next guy [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/writersroom/8322-Why-Do-We-Love-Nathan-Fillion], but does he really need to be nominated for his voice work in Halo: Reach? Was he even in Halo: Reach? (Yes, apparently). It's baffling to imagine that one of Spike's genre awards includes the likes of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, God of War III, Red Dead Redemption, and Super Mario Galaxy 2. Do they have anything in common? Like, at all?

The sheer existence of an award for "Most Anticipated Game" is equally perplexing. Just think about that one for a bit.

The full list is as follows:

[blockquote]Studio of the Year
BioWare
Blizzard Entertainment
Bungie Studios
Rockstar San Diego

Best Wii Game
Donkey Kong Country Returns
Kirby's Epic Yarn
Metroid: Other M
Super Mario Galaxy 2

Best Xbox 360 Game
Alan Wake
Fable III
Halo: Reach
Mass Effect 2

Best PS3 Game
God of War III
Heavy Rain
ModNation Racers
Red Dead Redemption

Best PC Game
Fallout: New Vegas
Mass Effect 2
Sid Meier's Civilization V
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty

Best Handheld Game
God of War: Ghost of Sparta
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
Super Scribblenauts

Best Shooter
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
BioShock 2
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Halo: Reach

Best Action-Adventure Game
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
God of War III
Red Dead Redemption
Super Mario Galaxy 2

Best RPG
Fable III
Fallout: New Vegas
Final Fantasy XIII
Mass Effect 2

Best Multiplayer Game
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Halo: Reach
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty

Best Individual Sports Game
EA Sports MMA
Shaun White Skateboarding
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11
UFC Undisputed 2010

Best Team Sports Game
FIFA Soccer 11
Madden NFL 11
NBA 2K11
MLB '10: The Show

Best Driving Game
Blur
ModNation Racers
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit
Split/Second

Best Music Game
Dance Central
DJ Hero 2
Def Jam Rapstar
Rock Band 3

Best Soundtrack
Def Jam Rapstar
DJ Hero 2
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock
Rock Band 3

Best Song in a Game
Basket Case by Green Day
Black Rain by Soundgarden
Far Away by José González
GoldenEye by Nicole Scherzinger
Replay/Rude Boy Mashup by Iyaz & Rihanna
Won't Back Down by Eminem

Best Original Score
God of War III
Halo: Reach
Mass Effect 2
Red Dead Redemption

Best Graphics
God of War III
Heavy Rain
Kirby's Epic Yarn
Red Dead Redemption

Best Adapted Video Game
LEGO: Harry Potter: Years 1-4
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game
Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II
Transformers: War for Cybertron

Best Performance by a Human Male
Daniel Craig as James Bond
Gary Oldman as Sgt. Reznov
John Cleese as Jasper
Martin Sheen as Illusive Man
Nathan Fillion as Sergeant Edward Buck
Neil Patrick Harris as Peter Parker/Amazing Spider-Man
Rob Wiethoff as John Marston
Sam Worthington as Alex Mason

Best Performance by a Human Female
Dame Judi Dench as M
Danica Patrick as Herself
Emmanuelle Chriqui as The Numbers Lady
Felicia Day as Veronica
Jennifer Hale as Commander Sheppard
Kristen Bell as Lucy Stillman
Tricia Helfer as Sarah Kerrigan
Yvonne Strahovski as Miranda Lawson

Best Downloadable Game
Costume Quest
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
Monday Night Combat
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game

Best DLC
BioShock 2: Minerva's Den
Borderlands: The Secret Armory of General Knoxx
Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker
Red Dead Redemption - Undead Nightmare

Best Independent Game
Joe Danger
Limbo
Super Meat Boy
The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom

Most Anticipated Game
Batman: Arkham City
BioShock: Infinite
Gears of War 3
Portal 2

Game of the Year
Call of Duty: Black Ops
God of War III
Halo: Reach
Mass Effect 2
Red Dead Redemption[/blockquote]

Also, the lack of GotY nods for Mario Galaxy 2 and StarCraft II makes me a sad, sad panda. Ah well. Maybe you'll get it right on the money next year, Spike. Then again, maybe not.

(Joystiq [http://www.spike.com/event/vga])

Permalink

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

What? How the ^%*$ did modnation racers make it on the best PS3 game category? I heard horrible things about it

 

[Mr.Pandah]

That makes me a sad, sad pandah as well. I have no idea who decides the qualifications for half of this stuff. It'll never make sense to me.

 

[Gudrests]

really..no GOTY for starcraft 2?....REALLY?

 

[manythings]

That makes me a sad, sad pandah as well. I have no idea who decides the qualifications for half of this stuff. It'll never make sense to me.

A Kabal of dark and hateful wizards fuelled entirely by vitriol and columbian coffee.

OT: Is it that big of a deal? I've never let a reviewer tell me what to buy let alone an award show.

 

[SantoUno]

Ahhh, let the constant hate on game X for being nominated for category Y begin.

100 bucks says someone will bash Halo: Reach and CoD: Black Ops for being on the GOTY list.

Maybe I should bet 1,000,000.

 

[Irridium]

What? How the ^%*$ did modnation racers make it on the best PS3 game category? I heard horrible things about it

Really? Huh, I have the game and find it to be great fun.

OT: Never really payed attention to the Spike Awards. What I've seen in past shows were crappy musical performances and what seemed to be them trying to get as many Hollywood stars as possible to show up, whether their in games in some way or not.

Its a mainstream thing I guess. I don't know, I usually just ignore it.

 

[MR T3D]

most anticipated game
and its not DNF!??!

 

[thenumberthirteen]

I love how the cast of "Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog" are all up for voice acting awards

 

[Zayren]

Starcraft 2 is easily my GotY, but it's not hard to see their choices. Games developed for the mainstream will obviously be GotY for the mainstream. If Black Ops somehow doesn't win, I'll eat my hat.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Red Dead Redemption for best graphics? Eh... Well. Uhm. Okay.

Also, no NHL 11 for any sports? No F1 2010 for racing games?

Well, anyway, some of those are kind of strange, but it's obviously their opinion - who am I to argue?

Ah well. Maybe you'll get it right on the money next year, Spike. Then again, maybe not.

I was going to object to this phrase, but decided not to, but, by quoting it, I'm obviously objecting.

It's their opinion after all, John. They're not really supposed to "get it right" for other people.

 

[Casual Shinji]

How the hell can Brotherhood and Black Ops be nominated when they were just released?!

Then again, the VGA's have always been embarressing affair.

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

There's something about the categories denoting if the person is a "human" male or female that greatly amuses and yet also confuses me. Although on some level it is nice to see the performance for (the non-canon) femshep being nominated.

 

[StriderShinryu]

The only real problem I have with the list is the nomination of a couple of titles that just barely came out... but at the same time, that happens with the Oscars and whatnot too where a film is nominated not on a wide release but just after a limited release and copies are sent directly to voting academy members.

Oh, and why does most anticipated game get an award?

As for the Mario, AC:B, RDR and GoW thing; I'd say it's a decent enough category. There is no platformer category so while Mario doesn't exactly fit in with the other 3D action based games it's still something of a 3D action based game. It's either that or don't nominate it for anything at all. Also, would you rather have a tight set of awards like this or start creating specific award categories that essentially just exist to hand the award to a specific game?

 

[rockingnic]

I just hope CoD:BO doesn't take more than 2 awards at most and most definitely not GOTY. Every other game in the GOTY category has 1000% more originality than any COD easily. The only consistent categories is "Most anticipated game", "Best DLC", "Best RPG", "Best Action-Adventure" and "Best multiplayer". Even those I can see maybe one other game not on the list as a better candidate than one of them at least.

 

[Secret world leader (shhh)]

Red dead had good graphics???

I loved the game and it's the best i've played all year but...THE GRAPHICS???

I remember cutscenes where wrinkles would appear and disappear on john marston's face and ground textures would pop in after i rode past them.

 

[Sephiwind]

Wow this is seriously a mixed bag of WTF!?!?!? For christ sake best Music Game and best Sound track are almost the same fracing catagory with the exception of one game in each.

Personally ever since Fall Out 3 won GOTY 2 years ago I consider the Spike VGAs a joke.

 

[Moriarty70]

I love how the cast of "Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog" are all up for voice acting awards

It surprised me since I thought it was an industry requirment that the "Human Male" category featured Noaln North vs Noaln North vs Nolan North with the surprise nomination of Noaln North.