The Bafta Games Awards have definitely been reconstituted – after a mini-sabbatical which enabled them to be moved from a slot before Christmas, in which they tended to get a bit lost in the general Christmas mayhem, to March, which makes an awful lot more sense.
The last Baftas, to be honest, were a bit of a disgrace: they struggled to transcend a dire venue in Battersea park, and an even more dire parade of dull-eyed Z-list celebs presenting awards while giving the impression they'd never actually dream of doing anything so tawdry as play a videogame.
But this year, the Bafta Game Awards occupied the glitzy Park Lane Hilton, and had the sure, intelligent touch of Dara O'Briain at the helm. A man who is clearly a gamer, and has the jokes to prove it. O'Briain may or may not be a genius, but one thing is for sure: his cerebral approach makes him the perfect awards ceremony presenter. Consequently, the crowd was in a suitably receptive state when the aw-ard presentations began.
Biggest winner of the night was the much-loved Call Of Duty 4 – it scooped the Gameplay and Story and Character Awards, plus the big one: the GAME Award of 2008, which was voted for by the public. The public spoke, and what they said was reflected by two of the Bafta panels. Which speaks volumes. I've been on those Bafta panels in the past, and I know how rigorous they are. Bafta judging invariably involves heated debate (usually with several secret ballots) continuing deep into the night. Fuelled, admittedly, by copious volumes of alcohol.
Perhaps the biggest cheer of the night went to LittleBigPlanet, which won the Artistic Achievement award. There was plenty of cheer for underdogs, too: Valve's Left 4 Dead won the Multiplayer award, EA's Dead Space, which seemed to come from nowhere, won two Baftas, for Original Score and Use of Audio admittedly, but given the sheer, unexpected gaming pleasure it brought me, I would never begrudge it those. Codemasters' Race Driver GRiD left mega-budget efforts like FIFA 09 in its wake to win the Sports Bafta.
Super Mario Galaxy won the big one, Best Game, and Fable II was a popular winner of an Action 7 Adventure Bafta – Peter Molyneux isn't sure whether he now owns "Five or six" Baftas. Perhaps tomorrow, he can count them for us.
O'Briain hit the nail on the head in his summing-up by pointing out that 2008 must have been an incredible year for games given that the likes of Grand Theft Auto IV, Fallout 3 and Gears of War 2 didn't even win BAFTAs. He was right: it was. Although the makers of those games – and particularly Rockstar North – were entitled to feel somewhat aggrieved. Especially since there were a few eccentric awards, notably the interesting but grievously flawed Boom Blox, which won the Casual Bafta (from a shortlist including the far superior LittleBigPlanet) and CoD 4's Story and Character award. It's a great game, for sure, but story and character aren't its strong points, particularly when compared to games like GTA IV and Fallout 3.
All that remained was the big finale, and Nolan Bushnell, the Father of Videogames (as recently interviewed by Tewchnology Guardian) provided it, receiving his Fellowship with grace and wit from a presenters' dream team of Jonathan Ross and Dara O'Briain. Accorded a standing ovation before even reaching the stage, he spoke about the early days (working out that, when he wanted to get games into the arcades, computers were so weedy that he'd have to make the likes of Computer space work in hardware). He looked and sounded pretty well-preserved, given how long ago it was that he was getting the ball rolling. He paid lavish tribute to Steve Russell, vouchsafing that he first played Spacewar! Just a year after Russell had programmed it.
Last time out, we didn't feel that the Bafta Games Awards were the force that they had been in the past, but their slide has been well and truly arrested. This time around, there was no mistaking them for anything other than the games industry's equivalent of the Oscars. Roll on next year
Guardian
The last Baftas, to be honest, were a bit of a disgrace: they struggled to transcend a dire venue in Battersea park, and an even more dire parade of dull-eyed Z-list celebs presenting awards while giving the impression they'd never actually dream of doing anything so tawdry as play a videogame.
But this year, the Bafta Game Awards occupied the glitzy Park Lane Hilton, and had the sure, intelligent touch of Dara O'Briain at the helm. A man who is clearly a gamer, and has the jokes to prove it. O'Briain may or may not be a genius, but one thing is for sure: his cerebral approach makes him the perfect awards ceremony presenter. Consequently, the crowd was in a suitably receptive state when the aw-ard presentations began.
Biggest winner of the night was the much-loved Call Of Duty 4 – it scooped the Gameplay and Story and Character Awards, plus the big one: the GAME Award of 2008, which was voted for by the public. The public spoke, and what they said was reflected by two of the Bafta panels. Which speaks volumes. I've been on those Bafta panels in the past, and I know how rigorous they are. Bafta judging invariably involves heated debate (usually with several secret ballots) continuing deep into the night. Fuelled, admittedly, by copious volumes of alcohol.
Perhaps the biggest cheer of the night went to LittleBigPlanet, which won the Artistic Achievement award. There was plenty of cheer for underdogs, too: Valve's Left 4 Dead won the Multiplayer award, EA's Dead Space, which seemed to come from nowhere, won two Baftas, for Original Score and Use of Audio admittedly, but given the sheer, unexpected gaming pleasure it brought me, I would never begrudge it those. Codemasters' Race Driver GRiD left mega-budget efforts like FIFA 09 in its wake to win the Sports Bafta.
Super Mario Galaxy won the big one, Best Game, and Fable II was a popular winner of an Action 7 Adventure Bafta – Peter Molyneux isn't sure whether he now owns "Five or six" Baftas. Perhaps tomorrow, he can count them for us.
O'Briain hit the nail on the head in his summing-up by pointing out that 2008 must have been an incredible year for games given that the likes of Grand Theft Auto IV, Fallout 3 and Gears of War 2 didn't even win BAFTAs. He was right: it was. Although the makers of those games – and particularly Rockstar North – were entitled to feel somewhat aggrieved. Especially since there were a few eccentric awards, notably the interesting but grievously flawed Boom Blox, which won the Casual Bafta (from a shortlist including the far superior LittleBigPlanet) and CoD 4's Story and Character award. It's a great game, for sure, but story and character aren't its strong points, particularly when compared to games like GTA IV and Fallout 3.
All that remained was the big finale, and Nolan Bushnell, the Father of Videogames (as recently interviewed by Tewchnology Guardian) provided it, receiving his Fellowship with grace and wit from a presenters' dream team of Jonathan Ross and Dara O'Briain. Accorded a standing ovation before even reaching the stage, he spoke about the early days (working out that, when he wanted to get games into the arcades, computers were so weedy that he'd have to make the likes of Computer space work in hardware). He looked and sounded pretty well-preserved, given how long ago it was that he was getting the ball rolling. He paid lavish tribute to Steve Russell, vouchsafing that he first played Spacewar! Just a year after Russell had programmed it.
Last time out, we didn't feel that the Bafta Games Awards were the force that they had been in the past, but their slide has been well and truly arrested. This time around, there was no mistaking them for anything other than the games industry's equivalent of the Oscars. Roll on next year
Guardian
