Game Feature: The Video Game Awards 2011

Spike VGA Summary & Awards

It's that time of the year December is upon us award shows are coming out of our ears and the Video Game Awards (VGA) have come and gone. The wacky over the top award show that barely even focuses on the awards half the time is over. Did you completely forget it was on? Did you just have no idea it even existed? Well have no fear we have a write up of the whole show world exclusives, all the awards and all the weird and wacko things in-between

AWARDS

These are your 2011 Spike VGA's congratulation to Bethesda for winning Studio of the Year and for Skyrim winning Game of the Year. Portal 2 came out with the most awards with 5.

Here is the rest of the awards.


Game of the Year: The Elders Scrolls V: Skyrim


Studio of the Year: Bethesda (Skyrim)


Best Xbox 360 Game: Batman: Arkham City


Best PlayStation 3 Game: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception


Best Wii Game: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword


Best PC Game: Portal 2


Best Handheld/Mobile Game: Super Mario 3D Land


Best Shooter Game: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3


Best Action Adventure Game: Batman: Arkham City


Best Roll Playing Game (RPG): The Elders Scroll V: Skyrim


Best Multi-Player: Portal 2


Best Individual Sports Game: Fight Night Champion


Best Team Sports Game: NBA 2K12


Best Driving Game: Forza Motorsport 4


Best Fighting Game: Mortal Kombat (9)


Best Motion Game: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword


Best Independent Game: Minecraft


Best Adapted Video Game: Batman: Arkham City


Best Song in a Game: "Build That Wall (Zia's Theme)" By Darren Korb (Bastion)


Best Original Score: Bastion


Best Graphics: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception


Best Performance By a Human Male: Stephen Merchant as Wheatley (Portal 2)


Best Performance By a Human Female: Ellen McLain as Glados (Portal 2)


Best Downloadable Game: Bastion


Best DLC: Portal 2 

Character of the Year: The Joker


Most Anticipated Game: Mass Effect 3


Trailer of the Year: Assassin's Creed: Revelations


NFL Blitz Cover Winner: Ray Rice

The excitement started even before the show started with pro skater legend Tony Hawk announcing a new game during the pre show. It is a HD remake of the old Tony Hawk Pro Skater games. Tony mentioned that it was a Download only game and that there was no firm release date yet but he would like the game to come out earlier rather than later.

 Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD Debut Trailer VGA

Also during the pre show an exclusive Hitman Absolution just showing off things we already knew about the game.

 Exclusive Hitman Absolution Trailer VGA

And another world premiere trailer this time for Tekken Tag Tournament 2. The trailer doesn't show of any gameplay just a bunch of fighting. Also they've set a release date of Holidays 2012.

Tekken Tag Tournment 2 World Premiere Trailer VGA

Once the show finally started we were shown to a trailer of the PS3 exclusive The Last of Us. This world premiere trailer was one of the biggest announcements at the award show. Opening with the logo of Naughty Dog which received a great response by the crowd, the trailer then began to kick in showing off footage captured directly from a PlayStation 3. I won't spoil the trailer for you but I have linked the trailer below.

The Last of Us World Premiere Trailer VGA

Even though zombie games have been used so much, there’s no doubt this will be a game to keep an eye on, Naughty Dog have yet to make a bad game since signing on with Sony and that's not about to change. There is no set release date for this but there's sure to be some more details mention at E3 or even before hand.

The next trailer we were greeted with was a Mass Effect 3 game play trailer showing Commander Shepard try to get away from a huge robot alien.

Mass Effect 3 Gameplay Trailer VGA

 Bioware also announced their new game Command and Conquer: Generals 2. The game will be using the FrostByte 2 engine which is the same engine running Battlefield 3. This is also Bioware's first time making a C&C game.

Commander and Conquer: Generals 2 World Premiere Trailer VGA

Ubisoft showed off their brand new Tom Clancy's Rainbow 6: Patriots CGI trailer, explaining the core storyline of the game. The trailer follows a terrorist group kidnapping the president. The game is set to be released in 2013.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow 6: Patriots World Premiere Trailer VGA

The next game in the Alan Wake series Alan Wake's American Nightmare is exclusive to XBLA and should be out in 2012. 

Alan Wake's American Nightmare World Premiere Trailer VGA

 The Amazing Spider-Man trailer was premiered also at the VGA's. Nothing looks terribly different to any of the other Spiderman games, lets hope this is different.

The Amazing Spider-Man World Premiere Trailer VGA

Activision released a trailer for their upcoming game Transformers: Fall of Cybertron.

Tranfomers: Fall of Cybertron World Premiere Trailer VGA

Cliffy B came out on the floor and announced to the public that Epic Game (creators of Gears of Wars series) is making a new ip called Fortnite. Not much is known about what type of game this is but Cliffy B mentioned in an interview that "Epic Game is well known for their shooters and Fornite will have a shooting aspect but that's not its main aspect is the survival"

Fornite World Premiere Trailer VGA

Blizzard released the opening cinematic trailer for their upcoming game Diablo III. If you don't know what an opening cinematic is, it's the first cut scene in the game so there are spoilers.

Diablo III Opening Cinematic Trailer VGA

All you Bioshock fan boys/girls get excited there's a new CGI trailer waiting to be watched. Would have been nice to see some more gameplay but still it's Bioshock and it's looks amazing.

Bioshock Infinite Trailer VGA

The once called Metal Gear Solid: Rising has now had a face lift and has had their development team replaced with Platinum Games (developed Bayonetta). MGS:Rising is now known as Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance a bit of a mouthful. Hideo Kojima spoke at the VGA's saying that the game has now been remastered since 2010. (Our heart goes out to him as he did struggle to get his words out) We should finally be seeing this in 2012.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengance World Premiere Trailer VGA

Some Interesting Moments.

• Teabagging the Call of Duty Devs for spending more then 20 seconds on acceptance speech
• African American swearing at the CEO of Spike TV abusing him about the nominees
• Real Life Fruit Ninja
• Velcro wall (spiderman type game)
• A cupcake game where you you raced some to see how many you could pick up with your mouth in a certain amount of time
• The Legend of Zelda going on the Video Game Hall of Fame
• Host entering the stage through a portal (portal 2 style)
• Charlie Sheen talking about how he only does award shows for chicks and money

Most of these skits were stupid and uncalled for allot of people found the tea-bagging the call of duty development team for taking too long in the acceptance speech quite offensive it was uncalled for and not funny. The African American skit was just uncalled for and ruined the whole show as well. The silly games like fruit ninja and Spiderman velcro wall skit were alright and at least weren't rude. Overall I found the skits stupid and unnecessary the gaming industry is still not taken seriously these days and performances like this are not helping at all, it felt like a 12 yr old call of duty player that abuses everyone over Xbox live scripted the show.

-Michael Johnson

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