BAFTA Game Awards: LIVEBLOG

I mean. What were we expecting? Finally a games award ceremony that did games proud? An awards ceremony without cringey moments? We should know by now to temper our expectations.

Highlights: Notch gave an excellent speech that at least gave the impression somebody at the ceremony actually knew about games. The début games category was strong. Modern Warfare 3 not picking up any awards.  Also, at some points there were some attractive ladies on stage (and the Saturdays).

Lowlights: Little Big Planet 2 not only getting nominated but winning three awards! Dara 'O' Breen or whatever his name is misgauging quite a few jokes by either being too in-the-know or too off-the-peg-stereotypes. About six games getting nominated for most of the awards. Poor categories as ever. Proper Z-list celebrities presenting awards, at least poorly known games industry folk look liked they knew why they were there and what was going on. Rare people for being too a) American b) Arrogant c) winning an award for fucking Kinect Sports Season 2. Modern Warfare 3 getting nominated. A lot of truly deserving games missing out. Little Big Planet 2 winning an innovation award? We're not Skyrim fans at all but they completely missed out as did Naughty Dog and anything Nintendo (although perhaps they didn't want to stump up the £300-500 fee for registering and nominating a game). Media Molecule sure had money to burn it seems. We don't really care but Sports/Fitness isn't a sensible category. Adam from the Adam and Joe comedy act has been sniffing around games for a while despite how obviously he isn't interested (Adam and Joe were in some early awful Nintendo Channel programlets). 

In summary, if you didn't play L.A.Noire, Batman Arkham City, Portal 2, Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 exclusively last year you'd be none the fucking wiser as to what this ceremony was about. PC gamers can be slightly reassured but they'll still complain about the platform being dead anyway. MS and Nintendo can't be happy with their exclusive games barely getting a snuffter and a number of other big Publishers were notable for their absence (ummm Capcom anybody). 

Didn't even get mentioned: Ghost Trick, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, de Blob 2, Bulletstorm, Dawn of War II retribution, Pokemon Black and White, Dragon Age II, Okamiden, Crysis 2, Infamous 2, the Witcher 2, Red Faction Armageddon, Limbo, Catherine, Trackmania 2: Canyon, Rage, Kirby's Return to Dreamland, Saints Row: The Third and Star Wars the Old Republic.

Soooo then. Same time next year?