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Gears of War Sweeps AIAS Awards
GamesIndustry.biz reports on a very successful night for Epic Games, which garnered no less than eight awards for their 360 console shooter Gears of War. In addition to awards like 'Best Console Game' and 'Game of the Year', feathers in Epic's cap include 'Outstanding Character Performance Male' for John DiMaggio's Marcus Fenix and 'Sports Best Online Game Play'. Epic's CliffyB and Michael Capps were onhand to accept the awards, and were elated by their success: "The thing is ... being on the outside of this industry looking in as a kid, and wanting to be part of it, and then being able to be here and get an award from all of these talented people who've been in the business for so long, finally to be a part of it, to be recognized like this is absolutely unbelievable. We could not be honoured more." Other impressive winners for the night included Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fight Night, Rainbow Six, and the Wii. The full list of awards winners is available on the article.
It's like some billionaire's skanky daughter winning some beauty contest.
Let's just sum up this 'blockbuster' of a game:
The most egregious example of outright marketing lies with fake screenshots. I challenge you to find an ACTUAL in game screenshot on the net. Epic has flooded the media with bogus 5k by 5k 16xAA marketing shots claiming they are 'real'.
The single player game is an utterly retarded run of the mill braindead 8 hour snorefest. Watch some clips of the game if you have any doubts what a complete turd the game is.
Online play is a complete joke. The game can only handle 4 vs 4 players. The game has massive lag problems due to there being no dedicated servers - 50 dollars a year for what again Microsoft? And there is a persistent disconnect problem.
The online play is so fucked up that people have given up playing ranked matches or gone back to tired old Halo 2.
Think I'm exaggerating, just google around for what other players are saying about the game.
After six years in the console market Microsoft entire strategy seems to be nothing more than:
Make one big shooter with lots of that cool shiny metal armor and spend as much cash as necessary to buy awards and reviews for the game.
Overall Game of the Year
Gears of War (Epic Games/Microsoft Game Studios)
Ka-Ching!
Console Game of the Year
Gears of War (Epic Games/Microsoft Game Studios)
Ka-Ching!
Outstanding Achievement in Animation
Gears of War (Epic Games/Microsoft Game Studios)
Ka-Ching!
Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction
Gears of War (Epic Games/Microsoft Game Studios)
Ka-Ching!
Outstanding Character Performance - Male
Gears of War (Epic Games/Microsoft Game Studios)
Ka-Ching!
Outstanding Achievement in Online Game Play
Gears of War (Epic Games/Microsoft Game Studios)
Ka-Ching!
Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering
Gears of War (Epic Games/Microsoft Game Studios)
Ka-Ching!
Action/Adventure Game of the Year
Gears of War (Epic Games/Microsoft Game Studios)
Ka-Ching!
Listening to Epic talk about this shame is like having to listen to some guy bragging about what a stud he is after paying a prostitute to fuck him.
Yeah Epic, you're a bunch of studs!
Look around on all the popular console discussion boards and you will see Microsoft and Epic getting laughed at for this disgusting show of marketing payola. This is the type of shit that makes Microsoft so despised by the vast majority of console developers. Not that anyone who does console development gives a damn about these or pretty much any other game awards, but to crow about spending the cash necessary to land all these awards just reinforces everything console developers already despise the company for.