The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences announced its 2011 winners for its annual Interactive Achievement Awards last night at the DICE Summit. Mass Effect 2 took home top honors, winning Game of the Year, as well as Outstanding Achievement in Story, and RPG/Massively Multiplayer Game of the Year.
Red Dead Redemption didn’t do too shabby either, winning five awards. Red Dead’s honors included Action Game of the Year, Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction, Outstanding Achievement in Game Play Engineering, Outstanding Character Performance (Rob Weithoff as John Marston), and Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction. Also honored was Heavy Rain for Visual Engineering, Original Musical Composition, and Outstanding Innovation in Gaming.
For a complete list of all of the winners and nominees, check out the AIAS website right here. Any thoughts on the Academy’s choices?
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*Sees ME2 as GOTY”
Makes sense.
“Sees Angry Birds HD as one of the nominations”
…the fuck??
And while we’re on it the description between the action and adventure GOTY seems arguable,
“real-time action activities where timing, skill and accuracy are necessary to succeed. Puzzle-solving, resource management and exploration often drive the quest oriented narrative”
I don’t remember any resource management in Limbo, there was 0 narrative, i think Limbo’s good but it’s not the adventure GOTY, nor do i think i would i even class it as an adventure game full stop, not sure what i would to be honest, the best way i can think to describe Limbo would be it’s Braid if it were made by Robert Smith of The Cure.
Red Dead should have taken the award in question.
i love masseffect so much, i would definitely force my kids to play it even if they say its not as good as their games in 10 years from now.
ME goes beyond being “just a game” its a work of art!
I would contest two of those:
1 Outstanding Achievement in Online Game Play
Yes Starcraft 2 delivers on all accounts everything that was demanded of it as so it wouldn’t fail, effectively making it HD Starcraft with a little shake up, but that’s all it really did.
I would have Assassins Creed Brotherhood here in lieu, as its multi player attempted something far more difficult in turning the single player franchises’ stealth based game play in to a viable competitive action experience, and they succeeded.. (well save for the match making system that can take up to 10 minutes… but I’m still of the mind that that is my connection)
2 Portable Game of the Year
Ghosts of Sparta, great something is actually selling on the PSP, all for that, but in terms of wanting innovative games it really didn’t do it for me.
This one instead goes to Infinity Blade for its achievements in truly widening the range of portable devices for the non-casual gamer, while delivering a fantastic aesthetic and interactive experience.
But even having said all of that I can understand why it went the way it did, and to me the awards were awarded fairly and aptly.