UPDATE: Now I have to choose between Mark Hamill as the Joker and Jack Black as Eddie Riggs for Best Voice! This is terrible!
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I hate you, Spike.
That’s right, you heard me. I hate you. How DARE you make me pick between The Beatles: Rock Band and Brütal Legend for best soundtrack! This is the hardest decision I have been faced with to date and all I can do is stare at my screen in utter shock. How dare you make me choose! Both have such awesome soundtracks… I mean, you can’t beat the Beatles. But Brütal‘s soundtrack was so… so good!
Oh, did I mention that the Spike Video Game Awards (or, VGA as they’re trying to promote it) nominees are now up and ready for voting? If you have a minute, you should head on over to their site and put down some votes. Preferably for Demon’s Souls, since I have to agree with Jim Sterling that that game really deserves to get an award. Yay for underdogs!
The actual awards will take place on December 12th at 8pm on Spike.
Meanwhile, I will still be staring at my screen, trying to decide between The Beatles: Rock Band and Brütal Legend for Best Soundtrack. Curse you, VGAs. Curse you.
I’m two inches away from not voting for anything. Assassins Creed 2 for GoTY? Its been out for what… 2 days? How the hell are we supposed to validate that
I’m playing it, and the game definitely deserves the consideration. It blindsided me, actually, because I hated AC1.
I think I have to agree with V. Steele, Games like Assassin’s Creed II and Left 4 Dead 2 may very well deserve to win a Game of the Year award but it’s pretty clear they were nominated based solely on the hype leading up to their release and not on the impact they made after release.
For me, if the VGAs, or any other industry’s annual award show, want to be taken seriously they should take a more retrospective approach and wait until January and then look at the year as a whole instead of trying to capitalize on the all the marketing hype by holding the ceremony during the height of holiday release season and nominating games on the basis that they know they are going to sell well. It just gives the (almost certainly correct) impression that the VGAs are only about raking in as much ad revenue as possible and really has nothing to do with honoring the craftsmanship that goes into making really impactful games.
Not that I’m trying to throw AC2 or L4D under the bus or anything, I think they probably do deserve to be nominated; I just wish Spike, or whoever decided on the nominees, had given them a chance to prove it.
Whew…Sorry. I kind of got off on a rant there…
“It just gives the (almost certainly correct) impression that the VGAs are only about raking in as much ad revenue as possible and really has nothing to do with honoring the craftsmanship that goes into making really impactful games.”
I remember the year GTA Vice City came out. Jenna Jameson won for Best Voice Acting. Since then I’ve refused to dignify the VGA’s existence with anything other than scorn.
Im not putting it down. I liked the first one for its story (It got too repetitive gameplay wise) and have AC2 on reserve, and are waiting for funds to go pick it up. As Steven said below, it’s honestly only got such a good chance because of the hype surrounding it. It also doesn’t help that in my opinion, one of the BEST games this year that I HAVE gotten my hands on (Borderlands), wasn’t even considered
I know I’m not the foremost expert on games, and I personally don’t see much beating out MW2 (Both because of the hype, and because its just a fricking sweet game) but still, how much do you want to bet that this list was compiled BEFORE AC2 was even released?
Beatles RockBand should have been nominated for video game of the year and should have won!