The Game BAFTA's

As it is currently award season, I thought I had better post about an award ceremony, but as we know, there is only one that really matters.

The Game BAFTA's, designed to honour a years gaming achievements are fast approaching, which means its only appropriate for me to dish out some opinions. Firstly, this is very important. Not only does it show that the creative community is honouring games as part of our modern society, and thus the part they play in our economy etc, but it also highlight some of the greatest games released in the year past, and gives them the recognition they deserve. 

The big one is the GAME award, which is voted for by the public. The nominations are as such.

Batman: Arkham City -Rocksteady studios

Battlefield 3 -Dice

CoD: Modern warfare 3 -Infinity ward and sledgehammer

Fifa 12 -EA

LA Noire -Rockstar

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword -Nintendo

Minecraft -Mojang

Portal 2 -Valve

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim -Bethesda

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception -Naughty Dog

This award is the equivalent of best film or best album, but with public voting. The list of nominees for best game is remarkably similar, if shorter, missing out the likes of Minecraft, CoD, Battlefield and Uncharted. This means that there are no conventional shooters in the shortlist for best game, possibly due to a crowding of the market with a slew of M rated shooters.

As far as I can see, the odds are all fairly similar. The few exceptions are CoD, which only made the list due to sheer number of sales as opposed to gaming innovation, Zelda, the token Nintendo game, and Uncharted, The token PS3 exclusive. 

Minecraft may also be seen as an underdog because of its indie developer status, but despite this it has managed to be one of the most popular games of 2011, showing true innovation and keeping players engrossed in crafting for hours with regular updates and a fantastic server based online system. Mojang has made a tremendous achievement to come this far, lets hope its success doesn't stop here, especially with the expected release of Scrolls and Cobalt this year, things can only look get better for Mojang.

Portal 2 is the sequel to the cult game Portal, and is one of many great games from Valve, one of the most innovative game companies active today. The story is similar for batman, whose predecessor, Arkham City,  won the game award last year. The odds are looking good for Batman, which was a truly good game, one of the gems of the year.

If pushed, I would name the top 5, in no particular order, as Skyrim, Portal 2, LA Noire, Batman, and Minecraft.

Notable other nominees are:

Assassins Creed: Revelations for best action game, Rayman Origins for Artistic Achievement (A clear winner), Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet for best debut game, Super Mario 3D Land for Design, Kinect Sports 2 in Family, Little Big Planet 2 in Innovation, Dead Space IOS in Handheld, Skylannders in Online, and Revelations/Gears 3 in Multiplayer.

Individual performers are also getting a chance to compete, with the front runners being Stephem Fru for his narration in Little Big Planet 2, Mark Hamill as the Joker in Batman, and Stephen Merchant as Wheatley in Portal 2.

This promises to be a big night for games, with some fantastic achievements gaining the recognition the deserve.

Source BAFTA

Kyle