Baffled About the BAFTA's?

For those of you not in the know, this year's Video Games BAFTA ceremony was held on Friday 16th March in the prestigious London Hilton. Host Dara O'Briain was joined by a host of celebrity presenters in what was probably an exciting and entertaining event that I didn't bother watching because I was too busy playing Minecraft. Now that's journalistic integrity.

In fairness I had no idea I would end up writing an article about it, I didn't know that until I read the list of results the following morning. In any case, that's what I wanted to talk about, the results - not the ceremony.

And what a list of winners and losers we have before us, with a fair few surprising results mixed into the bag too. I'll start with my biggest surprise, and one that lost me a bet. Skyrim didn't win the Best Game award..........

I'm not the only one surprised by this turn of events, even ceremony host Dara O'Briain himself had tipped Skyrim for potential success in the awards. But not only did Skyrim not emerge the victor of the Best Game category - it failed to pick up even a single award during the whole ceremony, despite being nominated in no less than six different categories!

Never mind though, I have it on good authority that Bethesda Game Studios are secretly pleased to have come home empty handed. Apparently they were running out of room in their trophy cabinet anyway. Nevermind Skyrim, you are still my favourite.

So who did win the Best Game award then? Be patient, there will be more on that later, I can't give away the best stuff right at the beginning of the article now can I?

Instead I'll briefly touch upon the Debut Game award, which was picked up by Shadow Planet Productions for Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet.

Now, I'll hold my hands up and admit that I've never played this , but I do find it odd that an Xbox Arcade game with a Metacritic score of 76% would snatch this particular crown, particularly when up against Team Bondi's L.A. Noire which is a much more prominent game, sold a bundle and has 89% on the same site.

Maybe it's a nod to the indie developer, but if you are going to follow this route perhaps a new category is needed as I think L.A. Noire was the pick of the nominations for this one.

However, I would have also liked to have seen RIFT take the title, but only because my name is very similar to that of Vice President of Trion Games, Russ Brown (only one letter out). Then I could have watched the clip of the winner being announced over and over and pretend I'd won a BAFTA........

Still, at least L.A. Noire didn't go away empty handed, Team Bondi were fortunate enough to pick up the award for Original Music, which incidentally was one of the awards Skyrim failed to win.

Let's talk about Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 now. It's no secret that DICE and EA's latest Battlefield title was directly marketed as the major competitor to the Call of Duty machine. EA put a lot of effort into that campaign to try and establish the franchise as a real contender.

It's also no secret that in the end Infinity Ward and Activision's Modern Warfare 3 trounced Battlefield 3 in terms of sales figures. It was hardly surprising; COD have been breaking first week sales records consistently for years.

It might come as a surprise then that Battlefield 3 beat Modern Warfare 3 in all three categories in which the went head to head, those being the Audio Achievement and Online Multiplayer categories and, most significantly, the GAME Award of 2011 (is this likely to be the HMV Award of 2012 next year?).

Obviously beating their main rival in the Online Multiplayer is a great achievement for DICE and EA since online play is the bread and butter of both titles, but the biggest boost to their ego must come from winning the GAME Award of 2011, as this is the only award which is voted for by the public.

So what does this mean when you break it down? Modern Warfare 3 outsold Battlefield 3 by some margin, yet less people voted for it when it came to decision time. Does this mean that DICE fans are simply more willing to take their vote to the poll? Or is this a sign that the COD fan base is shrinking on the back of disappointment at the latest instalment? I guess only time will tell, but it must be nice to be DICE right now.

Not only did Modern Warfare fail to beat Battlefield in the three categories they shared, but Infinity Ward and Activision's contender was also beaten in the Action category by Batman: Arkham City leaving them with a grand total of zero awards.

Still, keep your chin up Infinity Ward. When you get the same number of awards as Skyrim you must be doing something right.

I'm not surprised about Batman: Arkham City winning the Action award and that one is much deserved. I am a fan of the Assassin's Creed games but honestly, take ACII, Brotherhood and Revelations and play them back to back and you will find yourself playing pretty much the same for 20 hours straight, not exactly award winning material to me.

By contrast, Arkham City didn't just give you another dose of Arkham Asylum – which was brilliant enough – but it expanded and developed on the ideas of the first game to create a brilliant new vision. Well done to Rocksteady.

This wasn't Batman's only victory, actor Mark Hamill picked up the award for Best Performer for his role as the Joker, beating Nolan 'I'm in every single game ever' North (just kidding Nolan, love ya really!) for Drake in Uncharted 3 and Stephen Merchant for his excellent work as Wheatley in Portal 2.

Stephen Merchant might be gutted that he lost out on that one, but I think the Portal 2 team as a whole will be more than happy with their performance on the night given that they picked up the Design award and the Story award.

They also picked up one further minor award, not really worth mentioning really. After all, it was only the BEST GAME AWARD!!!! WOOOOOO!!!! GO VALVE!!!!

It's worth noting that Skyrim was also nominated for the Design, Story and Best Game awards, so Valve really beat the pants off Bethesda with this showing.

Portal 2 is a brilliant game. It's challenging, it dares to be different, it's funny and frankly it is just brilliantly fun to play. Maybe I can't honestly say that it would by my choice for Best Game, but I'm glad to see the award go to a developer that cares about their fans, isn't afraid to think outside the box and at the end of the day makes brilliant games. So well done to Valve.

Here is the full list of categories, winners and nominees for this year's awards: -

Special Award
Winner – Markus Persson (AKA Notch)

Action

Winner – Batman: Arkham City
Nominees – Assassin's Creed Revelations, Modern Warfare 3, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Portal 2, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

Artistic Achievement

Winner – Rayman Origins
Nominees – Batman: Arkham City, L.A. Noire, LittleBigPlanet 2, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

Audio Achievement

Winner – Battlefield 3
Nominees – Batman: Arkham City, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Dead Space 2, The Nightjar, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

Best Game

Winner – Portal 2
Nominees – Batman: Arkham City, FIFA 2012, L.A. Noire, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Debut Game

Winner – Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet
Nominees – Monstermind, Bastion, Eufloria, L.A. Noire, RIFT

Design

Winner – Portal 2
Nominees – Batman: Arkham City, L.A. Noire, LittleBigPlanet 2, Super Mario 3D Land, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Family

Winner – LittleBigPlanet 2
Nominees – Dance Central 2, Kinect Sports 2, LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, Mario Kart 7

Game Innovation

Winner – LittleBigPlanet 2
Nominees – Bastion, Child of Eden, From Dust, L.A. Noire, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Mobile & Handheld

Winner – Peggle HD
Nominees – Dead Space iOS, Magnetic Billiards: Blueprint, Quarrel, Super Mario 3D Land, The Nightjar

Online Browser

Winner – Monstermind
Nominees – Gardens of Time, I Am Playr, Global Resistance, Skylanders: Spyro's Universe, The Sims Social

Online Multiplayer

Winner – Battlefield 3
Nominees – Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Dark Souls, Gears of War 3, LittleBigPlanet 2

Original Music

Winner – L.A. Noire
Nominees – Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Batman: Arkham City, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

Performer

Winner – Mark Hamill (The Joker) – Batman: Arkham City
Nominees – Aaron Staton (Cole Phelps in L.A. Noire), Nolan North (Nathan Drake in Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception), Stephen Fry (Narrator in LittleBigPlanet) Stephen Merchant (Wheatley in Portal 2), Togo Igawa (Diplomat, Advisor and Military General in Total War: SHOGUN 2)

Sports/Fitness

Winner – Kinect Sports 2
Nominees – Dance Central 2, DiRT 3, F1 2011, FIFA 2012, Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012

Story

Winner – Portal 2
Nominees – Batman: Arkham City, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, L.A. Noire, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

Strategy

Winner – Total War: SHOGUN 2
Nominees – Dark Souls, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Football Manager 2012, From Dust, Ghost Recon Shadow Wars

BAFTA Ones To Watch Award in association with Dare to Be Digital

Winner – Tick Tock Toys
Nominees – Joust, Dreamweaver

GAME Award of 2011

Winner – Battlefield 3
Nominees – Batman: Arkham City, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, FIFA 2012, L.A Noire, Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Minecraft, Portal 2, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception