It was another fun, entertaining night, capped by what may have been a surprise Game of the Year winner.
The Spike TV 2012 Video Game Awards are complete and the awards have been handed out. Telltale Studios had quite the showing, taking home Studio of the Year while their popular and well-received downloadable title, The Walking Dead: The Game , landed Game of the Year. It also won Best Downloadable Game.
Personally, I think the latter should've gone to Journey , but at least Thatgamecompany's masterpiece brought home three awards: Best Independent Game, Best PS3 Game, and Best Original Score. And considering that composer Austin Wintory has earned a Grammy nomination for Journey , Best Original Score should've been a given, yes? Halo 4 nabbed two awards (Best Xbox 360 Game, Best Graphics), and Borderlands 2 won Best Shooter and Best Multiplayer Game. Half-Life 2 was revealed as the Entertainment Weekly and Spike VGA Best Game of the Decade…which I don't agree with even slightly, but that's okay.
Feel free to check out the full list of winners . So what do you think of the awards this year?
Overall most of it seemed slightly off to me. I just don't get The Walking Dead slaying games like AC3, ME3, Dishonored and stuff but whatever. I think I'm going to think of these budget priced and produced short games as Giant Slayers from now on =p
It just seems way wierd that these hugely complex and technical beasts that raise the epic bar with each passing year are slain by games made out of basements in comparison. I guess it's all about how we feel in the end.
Game of the decade is just a silly notion to me. HL2 is a choice I can accept (not saying it would be my choice) because it was a major thing back during the PS2 and Xbox era. An era where PC had an unequivocal experience on its hands that made Halo 2 seem really underwhelming in contrast to it. I see infleuances of HL2's existence in many games these days.
Btw the reason I feel this decade thing is such a joke is because I feel it's so dependant on the block of time. For example, something like GTA3 a hugely infleuantial beast that redefined gaming entertainment released in 2001. So it's decade would end at 2011. HL2 released in 2004, comfortably allowing people to see the before and after effects some many years later and still be considered valid.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 12/8/2012 12:30:08 PM
HL did WAY more for gaming than what GTA3 did.
it was a brilliant game, but it did not change the genre like half life did.
half life proved you can have a amazing story in a shooter, and how to do it, it proved FPS should have amazing advanced physics effects, horror, and not to mention plenty of puzzles.
it was almost a mix of several genres mixed into one masterpiece.
NO game has ever done that, taken so many genres and not make them feel mashed together, but a whole new genre.
put simply we have never had a game that changed the industry as much as half life, hell not even goldeneye was as influential!
HL does not deserve game of the decade, it deserves game of the century!
and since valve are so hell bent on refusing to make HL3, ill put my hat down now and say it will probably be the best game EVER made!
i had to piss myself laughing when i saw gabes face in the crowd accepting the award, he did not look happy.
i could just see his brain saying oh great now im never going to be able to get away from this!
I recently had the opportunity to play Half-Life 2 for the first time and, I must say, the game just didn't do it for me. The quality of the game is unquestionable, but I just could not get into the story or gameplay. Game of the decade? I just don't see it. Then again, I thought Chrono Trigger was equally underwhelming, so maybe it's just me.
If you weren't there for HL2 with a PC ready relative to its time it would be hard to understand. The key is looking at what came before and then came after it collectively. And remember the game looked next-gen for its time too. It took until 360 and a crappier PS3 port to do it justice console side. By that time the infleuances of HL2 had already found its way into the minds of other creative teams producing content.
That's a good point. The same could be said of Chrono Trigger, which was pretty revolutionary in terms of on-screen enemies and freedom of choice.
I only watched my buddies playing it back when it was new. I did actually play some of it I guess. It was absolutely adored by my Square RPG friends at the time. Fans who liked their stuff even before mainstream FFVII hit the seen. Ironically a few of them were actually disappointed with FFVII. Strange world.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 12/8/2012 12:59:42 PM
Glad to see Dishonored took away one award at least, "Best Action Adventure Game"
This is a good example of why I don't bother with Spike VGAs. Sounds like Journey was thrown in for an illusion of a balanced critique.
Odd how Journey won best PS3 game even though PS3 also has Walking Dead. Are they implying that PS3 users are a snobby artsy bunch that get its own goty while all of the rest of us know Walking Dead is the true winner.
It's a joke.
GOTY and exclusive for that specific platform are 2 different things, they did the same with the 360 giving it to halo 4.
GOTY is best game regardless of platform, best ps3, or best 360 game means exactly that, best game EXCLUSIVE to said system.
the walking dead is not exclusive.
Im really surprised by the Walking Dead goty! Absolutely nothing for AC3 whaat the Hell. SMH.
Last edited by bebestorm on 12/8/2012 12:57:33 PM
Ubisoft declined to be there to accept any awards to help sensationalize Spike's celebrity laden special. So Spike just said screw you. YOU ain't getting no prizes then!
(Not actually true…… I think =p )
Lol
AC3 dident win any awards, because sadly VGAs dont have a disappointment of the year award.
😉
Wow… I missed the vga's this year. Last night me and my girl went out for some dinner then a movie. Went home and played RE6. This is the first time in like 6 years that i've missed the event. Anyway im really happy the walking dead got GOTY. It really truly deserved it. It brought something new and inventive and its really well written. Some things could be fixed but its minor. As for journey, i never finished it. Didn't like it. My gf did though a lot. I think its boring. Im so used to having things trying to kill me that its awkard when somethings not.
I tried to watch the awards last night on my old rotten XP machine but all the trailers & commentary kept buffering all throughout show.
And the awards show ad that ahead of time on the 360 looked like it was just gonna be all about M$ games only, so I said the hell with it & figured I just check the news this morning.
Looks like I didn't waste any valuable gaming time either.
Its funny how people were jumping on heavy rain for being an interactive movie yet the walking dead does the same thing,only worse. Call of Duty wasn't on the list so at least they're doing something right
Last edited by karneli lll on 12/8/2012 1:49:01 PM
Worst? TWD is a point and click game with good characters and a good story. HR has a lot of QTE with characters I didn't care about and a story full of plot holes. But then again this just a opinion including yours.
Last edited by Pandacastro on 12/8/2012 2:57:06 PM
Yes worse, TWD plays the same way regardless of your choices, the same people die ,the same actions occur.At least Heavy Rain had scenarios that played out differently.
So wait just because HR does choices better its automatically the better game?
dude, heavy rain and TWD play NOTHING alike!
heavy rain is just pushing specific buttons in specific sequences, TWD actually makes you control your character.
the way it plays out is the point, its a point and click game just like all the other games teltale make.
im guessing youve never seen the genre, go play some of the old wallece games or even amnesia.
Personally I think it should have gone to dishonered but good to see the walking dead win game of the year with all the disappointment this year bought. I really thought there were going to give it to one of the big games. Good to see P4A win best fighter !!! Never thought that would happen.
they need two catagories for GOTY, one for downloadable
and another for disc based games.
the walking dead imo "is" deserving of goty, but to beat out
a game (for example) like ACIII just aint right.
The Walking Dead will be on disc this Tuesday.
I saw Angry Birds were on disc too, now. 😀
very happy to see the walking dead win. it was the right choice. best game of 2012 hands down. i'm a guy who's pretty hard pressed to find true emotion in any form of fiction but even i was almost shed a tear at the ending.
Walking Dead deserved it. Great effort from Telltale.
I was surprised by Walking Dead winning. I love the show and Graphic novels and because I havnt played the game, I assumed it was based on fan fare rather than being an accomplished game. But it won and now I want to play it! 😉
I certainly disagree with Half Life 2 winning game of the decade. Was it good, absolutely, probably one of the best FPS out there. But it didnt start there, I couldn't believe some of the games I seen that they were nominating. Now while I think HL2, Bioshock, Red Dead Redemption and only a couple others were deserving of being at least nominated… Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Little Big Planet, God Of War 2, and MGS 3: Snake Eater, and MGS4, didn't even get a mention.
There's other games worthy but any of those 5 I mentioned deserved it more than a few others on that lackluster list. Wii Sports? Really? Portal, no, portal 2, mmm maybe at best. I just have to say that was a terrible list all the way around and I just wonder even with CoD's success (and no nominations) Uncharted 2 and LBP' abundance of awards, and then seeing that nomination list what the heck and how the heck did they come up with this?
did you like Heavy Rain ? if you did you'll love the walking dead. they have alot of similarities. in fact i'd say the walking dead is the closes thing your gonna get to another Heavy Rain kind of experience.
Loved HR. So I guess that means I better get it! Thanks for the info. I really didn't know how it played, after Back to the Future I just wasn't interested only because of that. Not that it was a bad game but the pacing and gameplay just felt like it didn't mesh well.
Last edited by bigrailer19 on 12/9/2012 1:24:06 AM
no prob man. there is a demo of it to if you wanna try it first. that's how i found it originally i had no interest because i never seen the show but when i was playing the demo i got this feeling that only Heavy Rain has given me. so i immediately bought the season pass!
Last edited by TheCanadianGuy on 12/9/2012 10:40:39 AM
I knew Thatgamecompany would win Best Independent Game.
Ben – what do you think would be your game of the decade? It's a tough choice with all the great stuff out there. I do think HL2 was a phenomenal game at the time though and really had kept peoples interest to the point that we are still anxiously awaiting HL2 Ep3 and/or HL3. I personally still get excited when I see Gordon Freeman or hear the G-Man talk. (not that kind of excited). But I'm still waiting for Valve to finish their masterpiece. 😉
rigged, rigged!!!!!!!
i knew journey would win indie game of the year, i mean come on its SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BORING!
mark of the ninja totally should of won it, its such a artistic game and really roots back to the good old hardcore stealth games!
its what indie is all about, bringing something the big wigs would not dare to do!
best shooter borderlands 2.
seriously?
so its a better shooter than halo 4, max payne 3, black ops 2, spec ops the line, far cry 3, ect, ect?
yea, ill have what their smoking!
same goes for everything, i mean i LOVED TWD!
its such a amazing game, and some of the themes they cover in that game are quite, ummmmmmmmmmmm, sickening!
quite a few times the game would hint at what you have to do, and id be like nah no way there going to do that they wont have the balls!
then they do, it really makes you feel sick at times.
its so emotional, sickening, it is one of THE BEST games of making you feel like your actually in it.
this is not a game, i actually am lee putting up with all this sh*t!
but that said, there is NO freaking way its the best game this year!
that should of gone to ME3.
simply because, and i cant believe it did not win this category either.
the characters!
NO game makes me laugh, cry, and connect to the characters like mass effect does.
especially garus, his cocky attitude really puts a smile on your face.
ME3 did everything perfectly, especially the characters so its such a disgrace it did not win at least best character!
i mean come on how does claptrap even get nominated?
yea hes funny, but hes really childish and stupid, in fact the whole game i feel like putting a shotgun shell through his face!
not spend the whole game with him and connect with him.
eh, ive always said the VGAs are rigged, this year just put more belief to that.
Did HALO 4 really deserve Best Graphics? I don't really recall hearing anybody boast about how impressive it is graphically. And does Best Graphics include cutscenes (pre-rendered or pre-calculated) or only live gameplay?
no one?
you obviously havent read any reviews then, because reviewers was spewing themselves about it!
and yes it did deserve best graphics, there is NO game out there that has such a grand massive scale and looks as good.
the space scenes are just jaw dropping, and the jungle scene where until dawn crashes oh my god!
Halo 4's graphics are good but they are not as great a you're making them out to be. Is it the best looking game on 360? Absolutely, so that in itself would mean yea it's got great graphics and based on the games we seen this year, yea, maybe it did deserve it. But you're acting like its the new standard and it's just not even close. Crysis 2 looked and ran better, and it was a multiplat game, BF3 the same.
Honestly AC3 should have won best graphics. There's nothing better this year than being up on a viewpoint and looking out across the plains, seeing the sun setting and the reflection off a nearby lake. It has a few hiccups but the scale of the game largely makes up for any thing that seldomly happens.
Last edited by bigrailer19 on 12/9/2012 3:59:51 PM
That's what I was getting at, bigrailer19…it sorta seems like there could still be a 360 preference/bias in some of the judging.
oh hogswash crysis 2 and BF3 look NO WHERE NEAR as good as halo 4!
plus they dont have the massive scale it has either.
especially BF3 at least in the SP campaign its mostly a corridoor shooter so of course its going to have good graphics!
I'm glad to see The Walking Dead getting love. I don't see the issue with it getting GOTY.