How many Spike TV Video Game Awards will your favorite game win on the live December 11 telecast from the Los Angeles Convention Center at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT?
Appearing on the PC and Xbox 360 with a PlayStation 3 version coming on New Year's Day, Mass Effect 2 cleaned up with a leading 11 nominations.
The big three console categories — Wii, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 - were predictably filled by their own companies — Nintendo, Sony Computer Entertainment and Microsoft respectively except for Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption on PS3 and Electronic Arts/BioWare's Mass Effect 2 on Xbox 360.
Early 2010 games still packed a punch while Fallout: New Vegas was a surprising multiple nominee due to several noticeable glitches and graphic snafus. The Nintendo DS and the PlayStation Portable split the nominees for best handheld with two each with Super Scribblenauts/Professor Layton and the Unwound Future and God of War: Ghost of Sparta/Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.
Superstar discoveries await players who did not know Sam Worthington, Neil Patrick Harris, Gary Oldman, John Cleese, Kristen Bell, and Emmanuelle Chriqui provide voices on favorite games. Andy Serkis definitely should have received a "precious" best performance nomination for Monkey in Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.
Patrick Stewart, Robert Carlyle, Jason Isaacs and Natascha McElhone were all silenced for Castlevania Lords of Shadow, one of several prominent games that did not get a nomination. Just Dance 2, Enslaved, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, and Gran Turismo 5 should have got at least one, but there are only so many nominations.
So do the big budget productions win out or do the artistic effects on the audience determine the nominations. Check out the full nominee list:
Game of the Year
Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision/Treyarch)
God of War III (Sony Computer Entertainment/SCE Studios Santa Monica)
Halo: Reach (Microsoft/Bungie Studios)
Mass Effect 2 (Electronic Arts/BioWare)
Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar Games/Rockstar San Diego)
Studio of the Year
BioWare
Blizzard Entertainment
Bungie Studios
Rockstar San Diego
Best Xbox 360 Game
Alan Wake (Microsoft/Remedy)
Fable III (Microsoft/Lionhead Studios)
Halo: Reach (Microsoft/Bungie Studios)
Mass Effect 2 (Electronic Arts/BioWare)
Best PS3 Game
God of War III (Sony Computer Entertainment/SCE Studios Santa Monica)
Heavy Rain (Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream)
ModNation Racers (Sony Computer Entertainment/United Front Games)
Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar Games/Rockstar San Diego)
Article comments
1 - shadownin
This is not a very good game of the year nomination list Super Mario Galaxy 2 is better then Call of Duty in every way not counting for your tastes in games and the fact it has multilayer. It also got better reviews at almost every review source then any game up there how can they not include it.
2 - Tall Writer
Yes. A Wii exclusive game should have made the list. Ironically Call of Duty: Black Ops was the only one of the multi-console nominees that included the Wii.