Best Games of 2011 Nominated by British Writer's Guild

[Sizzle Montyjing]

brink has a story if anyone bothered to read the journals you unlock and listen to why you are fighting in the first place.

but i guess people are entitled to their opinions

Yes... i've done all of that...
But let's be honest.
Brink does not deserve an award for writing.
In fact, the whole conflict seemed totally redundant when you play through both campaigns, because either the Rebels are right and help from the outside will be a good thing in which case 'Why the fuck are the security forces stopping them!?' or the security way which could be resolved by TELLING EVERYONE WHAT HAPPENED.

I was happy to see Britain and videogames put together, but now my face has dropped slightly...

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Brink?

You've got to be shitting me.

There wasn't a story to speak of.

Did you play the game? Im pretty sure it had some very strong writing and a very impressive and interesting backstory

Yup.

Still terrible. It was terribly implemented.

 

[PatrickXD]

All those people hating on Brink, did you listen to all the audio logs? That game has a lot of story. More so than many other games. Unfortunately it's the only game of the three that I have played so I'd rather not judge who I think should win.

 

[Thespian]

I'm amazed Portal 2 isn't on here...played it months back and I still remember all of it...

Slight spoilers in this post so I tagged it.

Spoiler

Seriously? Portal 2 was a horrible mess. The plot was paper thin, the jokes could be seen coming from a mile off and all the characters were shallow enough to remain flexible to the plot.
Look at Wheatley. His entire character is based around being stupid - In fact, he was specifically designed to be the stupidest robot ever - Yet he repeatedly makes better decisions than GlaDOS, the ingenious super computer.
Then we're given a pointless look at Aperture Science's past back when it was run by humans and boring and tossed a meaningless but huge detail about GlaDOS' origin which has absolutely no elaboration or effect on anything. In fact, towards the end the whole Caroline plot point is just *bloop*, deleted. What the heck was the point of that? The team put absolutely zero work into the interesting characters. All they did was make GlaDOS cease to be in anyway threatening or intriguing. In fact, they stuck her in a god-damn potato. But it's okay, because potatoes are funny! Right?
In portal 1, GlaDOS' weaknesses were more subtle - She appeared as a discreetly murderous goddess, but later we found out her crippling inability to understand how humans work and she ended up looking harmless. The whole thing was pulled off very well.
Portal 2 has her lobbing fat jokes and adoption insults your way whilst zapping the companion cube in the hopes that it'll become funny again. The whole thing is so god-damn overdone. There is zero pacing or subtlety.

Though fun and at times amusing, the last award Portal 2 should ever even be considered for is a writing one. Simply because, instead of writing it, the team sat around trying to come up with jokes, and forcing a storyline out of it, unlike the original, where the humour naturally emerged from the story.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Brink?

You've got to be shitting me.

There wasn't a story to speak of.

Did you play the game? Im pretty sure it had some very strong writing and a very impressive and interesting backstory

Yup.

Still terrible. It was terribly implemented.

Kinda like how the distributor for David Lynch's Dune handed out pamphlets to explain a lot of the plot and terminology.

 

[C117]

Isn't it a bit too early for this kinda stuff? I mean, the year is far from over and there are still tons of hot AAA-titles waiting to be released.

Also, the only thing I can say about Brink being nominated; *snicker* *snicker*

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Best games of 2011:

Brink.
Enslaved.

.......

Spoiler: wat

[image/]http://memedepot.com/uploads/1000/1148_1253230725640.jpg[/IMG]

 

[jackanderson]

I loved Enslaved's writing and the ending, whilst a rather strange disconnect from what came before (check out 28 Days Later and Sunshine, Alex Garland isn't very good at wrapping up his stories), was still extremely thought provoking and kept me thinking about it long after I'd finished it.

So, yeah, Enslaved please!

Also, only three nominees? Hardly seems worth it, to be honest.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Best games of 2011:

Brink.
Enslaved.

.......

Spoiler: wat

[image/]http://memedepot.com/uploads/1000/1148_1253230725640.jpg[/IMG]

Yeah, I'm no exactly gonna champion gaming being full of Hugo Award winners, but there are a TON of games with far better writing and plots than the three games they picked. Especially Enslaved which is chock-full of NT's self-loathing pretentiousness

 

[Leather_Raven]

Whilst it's great to see you giving the WGGB awards publicity, you're also doing them a disservice by not checking your facts properly.

In order to be nominated and shortlisted for the WGGB's Best Videogame Script award you DON'T have to be a member of the UK Guild (and never have) you just have to be British or working in the UK. That goes for all the other WGGB awards. This is why titles like Portal 2 aren't nominated. It's also only a shortlist of three because it's been whittled down from a much longer list. Again, this is the same for every other shortlist in the WGGB awards.

With the Writers' Guild of America awards you don't have to be American or pay full Guild fees to enter, but you do need to join the New Media Caucus (at a cost of around $100.) This included a free subscription to Written By magazine, which more than makes up for it.

The WGA & WGGB awards have been around for 4 or 5 years now and the fact that games writing is getting proper recognition deserves a little more celebration and a little less snark.

EDIT: I see this has now been corrected. Thanks Greg!