BAFTA Video Games Awards Winners 2009

About a month ago we brought you the nominations (Part one and Part two) for the 2009 BAFTA video games awards, and last night the biggest names in the business converged onto the London Hilton to see who would walk away with the awards this year.

As predicted all of the categories were closely fought for, but unlike last year there was no runaway winner with only Dead Space and Call of Duty 4 winning multiple awards. There were also quite a few surprises: especially that both Grand Theft Auto IV and Wii Fit walked away empty handed. So, on with the awards:

Action and Adventure

This award went to Fable 2, which managed to fight off Grand Theft Auto IV and COD 4 for this award: no mean feat.

Artistic Achievement

This was Little Big Planet’s only award of the ceremony, and it is no surprise that the lovable creation from Sony managed to beat the competition; however the fact that the game only won one award is a credit to the standard of the competition this year.

Casual

Boom Blox, a game created with the help of director Steven Spielberg, took this award and in doing so denied Wii Fit from perhaps their best chance of taking an award.

Gameplay

Despite my wayward prediction COD4 won ‘Best Gameplay’ award beating Left 4 Dead and the others to win the first of its two awards.

Handheld

This award went to Professor Layton and the Curious Village: the relatively little known DS that mixes exploration, logic puzzles and a good story into an awards winning game.

Multiplayer

This game went to Valve’s zombie infested creation Left 4 Dead for the wonderful way in which it truly unites random players from across the globe in the multiplayer action.

Original score

Music is becoming increasingly subtle and yet important in modern games, and Dead Space have done it very well and have rightly won the award for the best Original score.

Sports

The car racing title Race Driver: Grid managed to fight of the more light-hearted Wii Fit and popular FIFA 09 to take this award.

Strategy

Sid Meier can add another award to his collection with the award for ‘Best Strategy Game’ with the very impressive Sid Meier’s Civilisation Revolution.

Story and Character

This award went to the joint top winner of the night: COD4. This second award is well deserved as despite the fact that the story is short, it is well constructed and very immersive.

Technical Achievement

The only award that I guessed right before hand went to Spore: an award that I think is well deserved considering the originality of the title and the wide spectrum of gamers that it attracts.

Use of Sound

This was the second award for the Dead Space, and also the second for their audio department who have excelled them selves and managed to pick up two awards.

And finally we have the big award…

Best Game

This was probably the biggest surprise as most people (including me) would have had bets on COD4, Fallout 3 or Grand Theft Auto IV to win this, but it in fact went to the addictive Super Mario Galaxy. At least this gave Nintendo something to smile about as otherwise would have gone home empty handed.

There was also the GAME award which was voted by the public, and this went to COD4 – perhaps a truer reflection on what the public think was the best game this year.

So that about wraps it up, but what do you think? Should GTA have one won? Was Super Mario Galaxy really the best game? And should there be other categories to make the awards more open? Let us know what you think!

Via – BAFTA

Related Pages:

1. BAFTA Video Games Awards 2009 Nominations – Part 1
2. BAFTA Video Games Awards 2009 Nominations – Part 2
3. BAFTA Video Games Awards 2010 Nominations – Part 1
4. BAFTA Video Games Awards 2010 Nominations – Part 2
5. BAFTA Video Games Awards 2010 – Watch The Live Stream Online!

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