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SpikeTV "Video Game Awards" Results
Last night SpikeTV aired its second annual Video Game Awards. Commentary is available from the Video Game Ombudsman, who did some live blogging during the event. From his post: "Seven Awards in 50 seconds - And that's including the lame intro. and Bloodrayne's 9 second acceptance "speech" for cyber-vixen of the year. Way to stand there, BloodRayne. The categories and winners aren't even vaguely related. And these are major awards, not the largely immaterial technical awards at the Oscars. Oh well, I guess now they can squeeze in another musical number." Grimwell Online is also available for snarky analysis, as is Buttonmashing.com. For non-flash results, Voodoo Extreme has a list of the winners.
Word.
$6.21 is the number of the beast before sales tax. Meh.
That network is the only reason I've ever felt ashamed of having a penis. I can now empathize with the African American's feelings about Amos and Andy.
it sucked! The show just seemed clumsy and trying way too hard to be crass. Is there such a thing as too much hip hop? Well...YES! Next time a wider variety of music and some real fun in presenting the awards that doesn't involve so much swearing. And this is coming from someone who likes hip hop, when it's actually good that is. Snoop Dogg, you sooo disappointed me!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
The difference between these award shows and, say, the Oscars is that the actors who are accepting awards at the Oscars are people we know (not personally, for the most part), and also they can actually speak when they get up to the podium.
On the other hand, the chumps that make video games are usually not very well known (outside of a select few, your Carmacks, your Meiers, etc...), and we as a viewing public don't really give a shit about who they are and what they have to say, because chances are they aren't going to be able to say it interestingly anyway. Just like the technical Oscars.
On the other hand, who's the target demo for this sort of thing? Late teens and early 20's males. Let's cram as much crap as we possibly can into a couple of hours! They should just give in and not bother censoring... Anyone who'd be offended by the tripe they'll show probably isn't going to be watching anyway.
/didn't watch it this year//watched it last year, "meh"s all around.
Luckily it was when Brooke Burke was being presented the prize for Best Human Female Performance(?)
::drool:: (At that point in time I was inclined to believe that this was the Best.Awards.Show.Ever) , however as soon as she walked off stage I changed the channel.
wow.
Chewie does not get a medal. Come on, George. Can a Wookie get a medal?
Video Game Awards
and
Motley Crew
People can now no longer make fun of WWE RAW being the dumbest show on Spike.
Don't mod me, bro'!!!!
Stuff like this makes me sad. The MTV-ization of gaming culture has begun and it's not pretty. The people Spike, G4, and MTV call "gamers" are not the kids that grew up playing Nintendo; they're the kids that grew up beating up the kids that played Nintendo. This is the demographic whose entire gaming universe consists of Madden, GTA, and Tony Hawk.
It's fake enthusiasm, style over substance, blatant product placement, EXTREME! everything bullcrap. Watch an episode of The Screen Savers on G4 if you want to know what I'm talking about. Now that the pointy-hairs have finished lobotomizing the show, the new hosts haven't figured out that reading the teleprompter VERY! ENTHUSIASTICALLY! is no substitute for knowing about or giving a damn about what they're reading. It's acutely unwatchable.
I think I understand now how the old-school punk rockers felt when their culture got subverted by the unceasing quest for corporate profits.
--riney
Yah, I saw about 60 seconds of that bloody farce. I flipped in long enough for some bimbo to say "my goal next year is to learn to play one video game. ONE!" Then I flipped to something else.
WTF!! How much credibility can an award have when its participants don't even partake in the art being awarded. Then again, Ashlee Simpson RECIEVED a Billboard Award so I guess a little integrity is too much to ask from awards distributors.
The Statue of Liberty is America's lawn jockey.
But who won what? (I don't even dare to ask "why")
Okay, let's discuss.
Where does rap/hip-hop have a place in video gaming? Where is that music heard? IN FOOTBALL GAMES. IN *some* DRIVING GAMES. Surprise, surprise, that's it.
You don't see the Master Chief getting jiggy with it.
You don't see the Price of Persia losin' his mind up in here.
Lara Croft may take off all her clothes when it gets hot in here, but I guarantee you if Nelly tried to party it up in her, she'd embed an ounce of lead in the wall behind Nelly's formerly living body.
Andrew WK was awesome last year. The man performed in a fucking wheelchair. That's just a part of what makes him so kickass.
Don't give me this Snoop Dogg shit, keep him in movies and music where he belongs.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Spike seems to think game players are all 14 year old gangsta wanna-be desperate virgins.
How sad. How sad for the game industry. How sad for all the developers who work hard to create classy sophisticated entertainment products, only to have shit like this taint their image.
I've got news for you Spike! The average gamer is is 26-28. A good portion are married and have families. And guess what? Females play games too. Why must you cater to the minority??
...and I was in the kitchen for most of it.
I realized that Spike TV didn't really care what they were talking about when they announced the best "human female" category, and Brooke Burke won. Now, the clips they showed of every other nominee had gameplay and voiceovers, while Brook was only shown as a sylized photograph on an menu screen - did she actually do anything but pose for the game? They had been hyping her as a guest for about a week though, which is why I'm guessing she won.
Yeah, that and all the rappers. Everyone is trying so hard to nail down the gaming demographic, but I still don't feel included. My guess is that they've decided that since the group of people that play games is so diverse, they'll just stick to the people they've been able to so successfully trick into buying crap in the past: MTV mooks and midrifs.
The Grimwell Online article is the best of the three by the way.
Contrary to last years (madden game of the year, matrix goty, yuck!), the results were almost spot on. HL2 as best pc game, and GTA:SA as GOTY (instead of madden or def jaf vendetta) makes sense from a players perspective. It was a good idea to let actual viewers vote.
A couple of surprises though, is curious and sad that Doom 3 and MGS3 didnt won a single award and is kind of cool to know that MK:deception was voted as best fighting game, halo 2 as best fps over doom 3 and hl2 (Well... if you mean by the multiplayer game I think I can agree on that) although hl2 won best pc game and best graphics (to keep balance), burnout 3 beat everyone else as a racing game (is a game about spectacular crashing cars at 200mph you have to admit is tempting). Im kind of unsure about fable but considering it wasnt competing against kotor 2 (which was delivered later in the year) its a lot better than the other nominees.
Go ahead MOD my day!
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That wasn't an exact quote, but i'm sure you get the picture. The entire show(the few seconds I watched, anyway) was nothing but advertising, and name-dropping of people that have nothing to fuckin' do with making videogames. Even the name-dropping was just advertising for upcoming crap, like Tara Reid(sp?) and the Alone in the Dark movie(IIRC).
Funkmaster Flex seemed to be ashamed of being there, and Snoop is nothing but a "Corporate-ChumpA$$-Bitch"(TM).
I whole heartedly expected GTA: SA and Halo 2 to sweep the categories. Best shooter: Halo 2? Wow, I'm glad it wasn't in the same category as HL2 or Doom 3 or Far Cry... It was simply commercialized hype for the well funded console games.
You can check out Tycho's version of events at Penny Arcade, though it's an usually weak cartoon today so maybe you shouldn't bother...
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It looked to me like it was an ad for a company that creates games out of 100% Human Misery. Just about all of the "segments" had to deal with EA games or people who perform on EA Trax, and even the categories were dominated by EA. (The ones that weren't were thrown into 60 second "and other games receiving awards..." commercial bumpers.) Hell, the Best Racing Game category were three EA games, and that's it.
Sure, other games won some of the categories, but just about all of the "segments" used EA properties or talent that appears in EA games.
Katamari Damacy was way more addictive than the other games in that category, but since it wasn't by EA and didn't have any rap music in it, it didn't stand a chance. (Also, the "Best Soundtrack" category was won by a game that used all licensed tracks from the early 90's...It beat out games that had original soundtracks that were amazing...Great message to send to publishers!)
I only caught a few minutes, but the highlight for me was when Samuel L. Jackson accepted the Game of the Year award for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, but kept referring to it as "Grand Theft Auto 2." He accepted an award for a game whose title he didn't even know. It was a joke.
I think an interesting trend is the lack of games that were made in japan winning awards. Looking through the list the only one I see is metroid: zero mission.
This really is the epitome of 'mainstream' gaming in America. I guess I finally know what it feels like to be in on something before it 'sold out'. Expect more of this.
I can't believe that this year's Spike TV Video Game Awards show was so bad; it came as a complete surprise to me. That's all I have time to say since I'm cooking something; I have to go into the kitchen and touch my stove to make sure it's still hot.
Rob
I didn't actually watch it, but I like the idea of having a video game award show. Even if it's MTV in style, I think an opportunity to recognize people making games that normally wouldn't get recognized (I suppose like the technical awards in the oscars) can be a good thing. I also think it's still too "young" an awards show to take it seriously yet. But give it a few years, and it might become a "real" awards show. I remember the first MTV movie awards show, I don't think they had any celebrities even there. But the MTV movie awards are genuinely entertaining now, and while still not "real" as in oscars caliber, the celebs show their faces, and it's a fun awards show. I'm hoping someday, maybe this video games award show can be sorta like that. Although, once again, I didn't see the show (nor RTFA since I don't install flash player).
You've got a lot to learn before you can beat me. Try again, kiddo! (ha ha ha!)
...after reading a lot of the above comments am I the only one who had to google to find out who Brooke Burke was?
--- If we knew half the things we shouldn't we'd stop wishing we knew it all
Judging from all the comments, I guess I am glad I missed the show. However I was instead abused by involuntarily/accidentally attending what turned out to be an "Interbiz/Amway" type meeting. God help me. I grew up in the age of the Atari 2600, Intellivision and even Odyssey 2...(yikes). They should have a legacy award to honour the forebearers of today's games. Ever see the developers of Activision's "River Raid" being awarded? or how about "M.U.L.E" for the Commodore 64? Now there was an intensive game. On the other front, I am currently playing Halo 2. Good game. I think better than GTA.
just a web application developer and instructor in Toronto, ON Canada
How did Fable did best RPG??
Was Shadow Hearts: Covenant on the list of RPG nominees? I haven't played it, but from what I hear it would beat Fable by a long shot.
is that like the movie industry everything you saw at the video game awards was an act! Thinking that they were actual awards is like saying that the pepsi challenge was going to show coke as the overall winner. Like any indstry that is vying for YOUR HARD EARNED CASH the control over the information in the industry is severely limited. Until we see a larger market for indie games, like indie films, this will not be a respected industry. To think differently is ludicrous.
Tyler: You don't know where ive been, Lou. YOU DONT KNOW WHERE IVE BEEN!!
For anyone who has played both games, it shouldn't have been to hard to tell which one was better. Even if you didn't think HL2 lived up to the hype, the havok physics engine had alot more uses and was much better put to use in HL2 than in Halo 2. The gameplay and AI was much better, the design was much better. And and top of that it was alot more fun. Even all the Halo 2 fans over here dropped their jaw and were quite content even in just watching me play Half-Life 2. The only thing Halo 2 has over HL2 is its multiplayer system.
Not necesarrily complaining, of course Halo 2 was going to win because it was better known and more people were able to play it (and the whole $$$ factor), but its just another example of how this award show is like every other award show on TV.
It's the Game Developers Choice Awards. That's where you DO get to see the industry's best and brightest honor the games, and it's an awesome event. I've been to two; they're every year at the Game Developers Conference.
HL2 simply hasn't delieved yet. Oh wow gravity gun and physics? Goodie, now how about something besides deathmatch on 2 maps that aren't designed for less than 8 players? Unless you played on a private server, messing around by stacking things to block doorways or to make towers was just a waste of time since people would just tear it down. Guns? Nothing new either. The AI in HL2 is awful, I don't know where you get the idea that the HL2 AI is better considering they don't even try to get out of the way when an airboat is speeding at them at 90 miles per hour. In comparison, Halo 2's AI will hijack your ride if you're careless (I've seen them do it on Normal so your not looking very hard if you don't see them do it on Heroic or Legendary.)
I tried to vote for half-life 2 but I couldn't understand where the fuck I was supposed to go. That flash voting site is a mess and I don't even know where the links are. Terrible layout. 0/10 See: Neopets.com, google.com for examples of clean layouts.
Have you metaroderated recently?