The “Awards”

Such thoughtful nominees and winners.

Maybe it’s just me, but when I tuned in to the Video Game Awards, I actually expected some to be awarded. Between the game premieres, musical acts, and nightmarish silver women, there was almost no time to actually give the developers the awards they came to win. Half of them were given away in a brief montage with no one to even accept the awards at all.

And as for the winners, why not pick some underdogs here and there? It’s okay to upset fanboys, they’re just going to complain anyway. I applaud picking Professor Layton and the Curious Village as the handheld pick of the year, but why couldn’t more of the choices (or even nominees) reflect a more critical eye, rather than picking what’s popular?

Last year at the VGAs, Bioshock beat out Halo 3 for game of the year, which was a welcome change of pace. This year, however, there were no surprises. Grand Theft Auto 4 took home top honors over other contenders Gears 2, Fallout 3, Metal Gear Solid 4, and LittleBigPlanet. This was the second time a Grand Theft Auto game won game of the year (even though it didn’t even win best game on either console), as San Andreas earned the award in 2004. There were no surprises then, and there were no surprises now. Why not give it to an underdog, like LittleBigPlanet? Or a game not even nominated but no less deserving, Braid?

Overall, this year’s VGAs were admittedly the best they’ve had so far, but the show has only been going on for four years, and there’s still plenty of room for improvement. Perhaps Spike needs to pay less attention to the Soulja Boys of gaming and more time to the average, hardcore gamer. Next year, let’s have a show that focuses on the best games of the year, and doesn’t just serve as an outlet for aging rappers to promote themselves. I look forward to writing an article about what the 2009 VGAs did RIGHT.