BAFTA Video Games Awards 2010 Nominations – Part 1

Hailed as the Oscar’s smaller and slightly less impressive sibling the BAFTAs are still growing in stature, and whilst the TV and Film awards (which not coincidentally were just on the other night) still draw the biggest crowds as far as I’m concerned the gaming ones are the most important and I’m sure you’ll be thrilled to know they’re back!

If you can’t remember last year (although we did cover the BAFTA Video Games Awards Winners 2009, so you have no excuse!) a brief synopsis: the awards were fairly well distributed with Dead Space and COD4 sharing the top spots with two awards apiece, the latter of which also won the ‘GAME’ public vote award. Surprisingly Super Mario Galaxy took the most prestigious title of ‘Best Game’, which saved Nintendo from an otherwise fruitless evening in which both Wii Fit and Grand Theft Auto IV failed to pick up anything.

But that was last year, and we’ll move on and have a look at half of what this year has to offer – seems sense to break it up as there are over 90 nominations to go through! Yet again this year has given us a shed load of great games, the most successful seem to be Uncharted 2: Among Thieves with nine nominations followed by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 with eight (including ‘most morally bankrupt level’) and then Batman: Arkham Asylum (7) and Assassins Creed 2 (6).

Action

The slightly renamed award (apparently adventures have fallen out of fashion) which last year went to Fable 2 will yet again be fiercely contested with inFAMOUS surely being the insider as it sits up against not only the big four of Uncharted 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Batman and Assassins Creed 2 but also Left 4 Dead 2 all of which look equally likely to win it! If you were to force me to recommend one I would hedge my bets with Uncharted 2, but this really will be close!

Artistic Achievement

With Little Big Planet winning the award last year with its colourful and friendly world of challenges the precedent is pretty high, but with all the big four as well as Streetfighter 4 and Flower in the running the winner will again be of high calibre. I will stop saying that it will be close as it will get somewhat tiresome by the last award so take it as said that each award will be, but in this case I feel that it should either go to Flower for its ingenuity and beauty, or Assassins Creed 2 for pure attention to detail!

Best Game

Easily the most sought after award for obvious reasons, and there are really no surprises in the line up with both Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Assassins Creed II hoping to make up for their predecessors shortcomings, joined by Uncharted 2, Batman, FIFA 10 and Left 4 Dead 2. All of these are definitely in for a chance, but I would expect to see it go to either Assassins Creed II, Call of Duty or Uncharted judging by their success in the market as a whole.

Family and Social

Another award to be rebranded, this time it has been changed from Casual presumably based on the fact that some people take family games very seriously! There is no surprise to see two Nintendo offerings here with Wii Sports Resort and New Super Mario Bros Wii (although remember they were pipped to the title last year by Boom Blox) as well as The Beatles Rock Band and Guitar Hero 5 with Buzz! Quiz World and EyePet making up the rest of the nominees.

Gameplay

With COD4 winning this last year Activision and Infinity Ward will be hoping to make it two in a row with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, although with Assassins Creed 2, Batman, Uncharted 2, New Super Mario Bros Wii and the relative outsider PixelJunkShooter it won’t be easy for them! If this award reflected improvements on previous games then you would assume this would go to Assassins Creed 2, but with all the other three big games there who knows!

Handheld

This was a new category last year with the first winner being Professor Layton and the Curious Village, and the Professor is back with Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box, along with another Nintendo game in the form of Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story. They are joined by three Sony offerings including Little Big planet (PSP), Grand Turismo and LocoRoco Midnight Carnival, and finally Scribblenauts.

So that’s the first half of the list, and in the BAFTA Video Games Awards 2010 Nominations – Part 2 they will include the confusingly named public vote award: the GAME 2009 award, confusing as it means ‘GAME’ the retail outlet and ‘2009’ because it reflects the year the games were released as opposed to the date of the awards! The awards ceremony will be on 19th March, and will be hosted again by Dara O’Briain.

Via – BAFTAs

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