This past week on Thursday evening, the 14th annual Interactive Achievement Awards - the video game industry’s equivalent to the Oscars - was shown on the G4 Network. If you happen to be doing something other than watching TV at that time, I’m going to give you a little run down.
Every big video game released in 2010 was up for something. From Red Dead Redemption, God of War III, Alan Wake, Limbo, Starcraft II and Angry Birds HD, the Interactive Achievement Awards showcases the finest achievements of this past year in gaming.
The awards are dealt out after members of the video-game industry vote on each individual category. The Interactive Achievement awards are under the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences and the winners are announced each year at the academy’s DICE (Design, Innovate, Communicate and Entertain) conference.
Most critics believed Red Dead Redemption would have Game of the Year locked up. With its incredibly detailed open world, art direction, a solid main character performance in John Marsten and entertaining gameplay, sadly, Red Dead came up short to BioWare’s epic RPG-shooter Mass Effect 2.
I’m not going to sit here and say that Red Dead should have won (or any other game for that matter) or make a case that Mass Effect 2 is the clear winner, but Mass Effect 2 was well received by critics, but it generally wasn’t in the picture for Game of the Year. And sadly I would agree with that. Most of the time for these awards shows, games that come out later in the year are fresher on everyone’s mind and will get the nod for the GOTY. Not so in this case.
Red Dead and Rockstar Studios didn’t go away empty handed or anything. They made off with five individual awards (more than any other title) in: outstanding achievement in game direction, action game of the year, outstanding achievement in art direction, outstanding character performance (Rob Wiethoff who played John Marsten), and outstanding achievement in game play engineering.
Quantic Dream with their psychological thriller Heavy Rain gained a few awards in visual engineering, outstanding innovation in gaming, and outstanding achievement in original music composition. Blizzard’s sci-fi strategy game StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty won strategy/simulation game of the year and outstanding achievement in online game play.
No surprise to anyone, Playdead Studios platforming game Limbo won adventure game of the year and outstanding achievement in sound design.
Now if you’re sitting there thinking that the Mass Effect 2 over Red Dead Redemption for GOTY was the only big upset, you would be wrong. In the racing game of the year category, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit surprisingly beat out the much more realistic racing sim Gran Turismo 5. I was utterly shocked by this pick. I mean, I can see and sort of agree with the other pics the IAA had, but I had no idea that this latest Need for Speed was this good? I guess I need to go check it out and read up on it more before I lump it into the same category as other Need for Speed games like the lackluster NfS: Carbon game.
The reason the Interactive Achievement Awards get the Oscar comparison is because in typical Hollywood fashion, the over-the-top war action game Call of Duty: Black Ops got zero awards. As in none. Think of the game in comparision to the retarded, mindless popcorn action movie over the summer. Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie and the like won’t get any award nominations, so it’s only fitting that COD: Black Ops gets nothing either at the IAA ceremony. I guess the game is just not up to to caliber the IAA are looking for? Now when the People’s Choice Awards or the VGA’s comes around? Yeah. Completely different story. Expect every 13 year old boy to text in his votes.
The casual game of the year went to Angry Birds HD, while the Facebook title CityVille won social networking game of the year. Now is it just me, or does the inclusion of these titles dilute the talent of the bigger games? If I was putting together these awards shows, these type of awards for CityVille and Mafia Wars would be the awards that were handed out BEFORE the big show at the Howard Johnson or something. That’s just silly that in this prestigious setting they include CityVille in something like this…..
Getting back on track, God Of War: Ghost of Sparta won portable game of the year, while Super Street Fighter IV won fighting game of the year. Also in the sports genre there was another upset, FIFA 11 won out over NBA 2K11 with Michael Jordan.
Any of these awards you feel were given out wrong? Of course there are. Do you agree with their Game of the Year pick in Mass Effect 2? Even though it doesn’t have multi-player like the other games in the category? Let me know what you think in the comments.
Curious that you mention that “I’m not going to sit here and say that RDR should have won…”, then make a significant portion of this article part of your argument as to why it should have won. You need not consider it a “big upset”, seeing as major review sites such as IGN gave GOTY to ME2. Fairly, ME2 and RDR came head-to-head in many debates as to GOTY, so it wasn’t an Uncharted 2 style rout, but remember, just because there are choices you disagree with, does not mean you should rail against the IAA or DICE as a whole. After the VGAs, you should be thankful.
Game of the year is tough. I loved the shit out of both of them. It’s like someone asking which of your kids are you favorite. You act like you can’t decide and you wisper slyly to them “RDR”
As for NFS I read really great reviews for it and I liked one of the older ones (don’t remember which) I saw an amazon deal and bought it. I wasn’t blown away. It was like most racers where you wanna get the gold medal but you keep finishing 3 seconds shy so you keep replaying over and over again getting fucking furious. I did however really enjoy the levels where you try to lose the cops or take down the racers so I wouldn’t completely rule out it out for racing game of the year