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BAFTA Video Game Awards Words // Dave Merritt
The Video game BAFTA’s are as prestigious as the film counterpart and last night’s affair was no exception with its fair share of shock winners and expected glory. The PS3 exclusive, and sheer brilliant, ‘Heavy Rain’ (SONY) was the biggest winner of the night, being the only title to take home multiple awards. Naturally, due to its cinematic and immersive experience, its greatest success was in picking up the award for best Story alongside gongs for Original Music and Technical Innovation. The only category to be voted for by the general public was the GAME Award of the Year 2011 which saw Call of Duty: Black Ops (Treyarch/ Activision) take home their only award of the night. The award everyone was after though of course, was for Best Game which was picked
up by the much anticipated sequel ‘Mass Effect 2’ (EA) which saw off shortlisted entries from Fifa 11, Xbox LIVE’s Limbo and Ubisoft’s Assassins Creed Brotherhood. The third title in the Assassins Creed saga didn’t walk away empty handed though, picking up the award for best Action. In recent years the video game industry has finally received the recognition it deserves in terms of artistic appreciation and commitment to the entertainment industry. Another PS3 exclusive, ‘God of War III’ won Artistic Achievement, whilst ‘Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was praised for its Use of Audio. The other main Technical categories were given to the already mentioned gritty ‘Heavy Rain’ The interesting winners of the night were those in the Handheld and Social Network Game categories. The handheld victor was none of the console based portables but the iPhone’s app