Extra Punctuation: BAFTAs Are Bollocks

[Okysho]

Here's a question: Why was FIFA 11 nominated for ANYTHING? Best sports game I could understand, but Game of the Year? Don't misunderstand me, as far as soccer sims go this is probably as good as they're going to get, but did it really need to be nominated for GotY? I know this is a british award show and soccer is to them what football (that is to say American Football) is to us here in the States, but could it have been good enough to get GotY? No, I say!

That said on the "Bioware Face" that the good Yahtzee commented on in Bioware adventure/RPGs...eh, maybe a little. I see what you're getting at, how the characters themselves stand completely still and maybe wobble back and forth (or if they're really advanced, moving their arms/hands) while the line is being spat out and usually have an almost deadpan expression on their faces, but it's nothing I really pay that much attention to.

It bugs me a bit when yahtzee rips on Bioware for their NPC conversations. They're not THAT bad, yes they move a bit too much (especially Revan in KOTOR and Shepard in ME) but they at least do something. It may be true that their movements push them a bit more into the uncanny valley, but FUCKING HELL!

Bethesda is a far worse criminal for NPCs. Their eyes fix completely on you, uncanny valley face, sometimes they stare at you, but their eyes are looking slightly off, or their head is fixed turning somwhere else and the body turns towards you without the head. Freaky!

Bioware might not be the best, but it's far from the worst...

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

every article needs a child prostitute simile

 

[Prof. Monkeypox]

Why is it that the same nominees were in every single category, even ones that they had no business being in. I mean CoD for action I understand, but artistic achievement?
CoD 4, maybe, but not Blops. Blops was never meant to be enjoyed as high art.

Also, why are they all generic mainstream FPSs? Is that honestly all there was?
Fine games to be sure, but not worthy of any special accolades.

And while Yahtzee pointed out the hypocrisy of having Mario Galaxy 2 nominated for innovation, I'll also point out that Brotherhood was an expansion pack, Halo: Reach was on the same engine as 3, and Blops uses exactly the same controls, design, lettering and objective markers as previous Modern Warfare games.

Final thesis: This the most dissapointed I've been in awards since the Oscars. But here's the thing- it seems to me that the Oscars go to arty movies no-one liked, while great mainstream films are snubbed from all directions, videogame awards have the opposite problem, i.e. arty independent games are completely ignored in favor of pure entertainment mainstream titles with no soul.

 

[Prof. Monkeypox]

Alright Crowshaw, you want an answer to this? It's because Mario Galaxy 2 was just so much fun that most of us were able to overlook the fact that it was a $50 expansion pack. It reminded me as to why I love video games in the first place and it had a good amount of challenge to it.

Why do have to groan on and on about it being nomin.....oh wait, we all know why that is: It's because you'd rather please the "we hate the Wii and won't grow up and forgive Nintendo for E3'08" crowd that keeps conspiring around the company. You know? The same crowd you give shit for praising boring, bland shooters like CoD:BlOp in this same article?

Right, because Yahtzee didn't also, in the same article, and with more vehemence than he ever directed towards MG2, berate the fact that CoD was the viewer's choice for best game, despite being bland garbage directed at gun-porn enthusiasts and people with non-discriminating tastes.

I loved Mario Galaxy, it made me fall in love with Mario games all over again. Then I played Mario Galaxy 2 and it almost made me hate the first one- not because it was bad, but because it was the same good, presented in a less compelling way, and priced at an additional $60.
Yahtzee never criticized MG2 for being bad, he criticized the BAFTAs for putting an expansion pack in a category for most innovative. You admit it was an expansion pack in your post, so don't claim it had any actual innovation.

I love Nintendo too, but you will never hear me jump to its defense purely on principle.

 

[Tempest13]

Assassin's Creed's "Action" was pretty good, if you could call that simple and easy thing action. Where's the love for Bayonetta? Or as Yahtzee said Just Cause? Seemed like most of these nominations have a, "You must sell this much to ride" bar

 

[RA92]

On that note: New Vegas should have won best story. I didn't play Heavy Rain, but New Vegas had a really mature and well written, but at the same time very flexible story.

Agreed. The fact is, I don't appreciate heavily scripted story lines - it undermines the concept of 'interactive medium' as it puts us on arbitrarily imposed rails. New Vegas managed to be rather well-written even after being so open-ended - efforts like that should be rewarded.

 

[CarlsonAndPeeters]

Okay, why did Black Ops get nominated for Best Story? I actually liked that game, but seriously...I have never played a game with a worse story and challenge you to think of one.

 

[Octopusesgarden]

I would've liked to have seen a best story nominee for red dead redemption instead of black ops.
Plus, I'd also really like to see a category for best voice acting/performance in a game.

 

[xXDeMoNiCXx]

GAME award (voted on by the public)
Winner: COD Blops

"voted on by the public" <- That's your problem right there, seriously you add that and Black-Ops as a nominee you might as well a) put EVERY nominee as Black-Ops or b) threaten to assassinate anyone who votes for Black-Ops otherwise there's no doubt that it'll be the extremely-disputed winner.

Also, Black-Ops for story? Almost as dumb as Sgt. Wood from the same game winning "Best Character of the Year" at the Spike VGA's last year. Against Kratos, and Ezio....well let's just say I've long since given up on the thought of the majority of gamers having more intelligence than a half-eaten donut.

 

[ryanthemadman]

what the fuck were these people smoking? codblops as goty!? fuck no!

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Calm down, son. If you're impressed with and enjoyed Black Ops I can't imagine why my opinion matters to you.

This was more of a knee-jerk reaction than an attack directly on you.

You have to remember that I'm a CoD fan on the Escapist, a forum where people constantly attack the series and, while playing it, attack the people who like it.

So, yeah, this was not so much directed at you than at the other people in this thread.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Heavy Rain had plot holes? This is news to me.

Screw plot holes, there was one massive hole in the game that every character fell into -the uncanny valley.

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

On that note: New Vegas should have won best story. I didn't play Heavy Rain, but New Vegas had a really mature and well written, but at the same time very flexible story.

Agreed. The fact is, I don't appreciate heavily scripted story lines - it undermines the concept of 'interactive medium' as it puts us on arbitrarily imposed rails. New Vegas managed to be rather well-written even after being so open-ended - efforts like that should be rewarded.

I have absolutely no problem with rigid scripted story lines. Instead How I think of it is: Obsidian, with Fallout: New Vegas, managed to epitomize the "Free Roaming Game Story". That's what FNV did. It wasn't the first. If you remember, GTA 2 did the same thing, with the different factions in an open world.

GTA 2 just didn't have a great story wrapped around all of it, and I hope we get to see more of the same from "Open-worlders" cause they work better than the GTA4 style rigid story that often clashes with the free-form gameplay.....

 

[Stabby Joe]

I wish more would call out Heavy Rain's story. Along with Yahtzee, the only ones I can think of off the top of my head are Destructoid and GamesRadar.

In fact, the latter has this article about Heavy Rain's "plot":

http://www.gamesradar.com/f/heavy-rains-big-plot-holes/a-20100224105436979020

Most of those plot holes listed don't even make sense, unless you go by video game logic instead of actual logic.
I don't need to read past Hole number 1 to see a stupid list

Spoiler

About Hole 1: We didn't see her interacting with the killer on screen therefor she never heard his name, despite being a journalist investigating the same case as the PI/Killer, and talking to/interrogating the same people. Why wouldn't a journalist know the name of the people involved in the investigation, specially one that was on the center of it?

Erm, o...k...

Yeah, I don't buy that at all.

Spoiler

While the article singles it out since they never heard the killer's real name, there is not even an assumption or a hint of it. The killer interacted with many characters, Madison did not however interact with all of the same. It's still a big plot hole, one that could have easily been fixed with one line of dialogue. A good story doesn't make people assume random details like that.

Therefore I'm not sure how that makes everything else redundant. It's stuff like this is why people take issue with some games and their fans (of which I would include myself apart despite the plot).

 

[birlyth]

Dead Rising 2 is obviously not an "expansion" of the first Dead Rising. MOAR ZOMBIES, that makes it all different, alongside coop mode.
Of course I am generalizing but so does Yahtzee with AC:B.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Heavy Rain had plot holes? This is news to me.

Screw plot holes, there was one massive hole in the game that every character fell into -the uncanny valley.

Hey, Miracle, did you get a PS3 all of a sudden?

No?

Well, then why do you blah blah blah about Heavy Rain? *smirk*

 

[repeating integers]

This thread serves as proof of the internet's pretentiousness.

Not the BAFTA awards, or even Yahtzee's article. This fucking thread. All of it. Every single rage-filled, highbrow, elitist post of it.

Special mention must go to the people who said that "public awards are stupid because the average joe's opinion is invalid, not being as artistically refined and intellectual as mine".

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Heavy Rain had plot holes? This is news to me.

Screw plot holes, there was one massive hole in the game that every character fell into -the uncanny valley.

Hey, Miracle, did you get a PS3 all of a sudden?

No?

Well, then why do you blah blah blah about Heavy Rain? *smirk*

Actually I watched a playthough, smartypants!

 

[MissAshley]

Both Super Mario Galaxy 2 and the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 were built off the assets of a previous Mario title. Yet to me, Galaxy 2 managed to feel far, far less "samey" than SMB 2.

I'll even go so far as to say it felt less samey to me than Majora's Mask compared to Ocarina of Time.