THOUGHTS ON BAFTA AWARDS

Well I made it through the near two hours.  That is probably the best review I could give the BAFTA Awards for Video Games, or whatever it was called.

The actual show itself was surprisingly OK.  Instead of going down the path of trying to be hip and happening they went for the traditional awards show style which worked for me. Dara O'Briain hosted the awards and he was great.  He has a genuine wit and is also an avid gamer and it shows.  He made some funny observations and was not afraid to go down the path of making some nerdy jokes.

Where the show fell on it's arse was when it actually came to the awards themselves.  I am not going go through each award and nomination because I frankly have neither the inclination or the actual energy to do so.  There were some worthy winners such as Battlefield Bad Company 2 picking up an award for best sound and some downright shocking ones such as Need For Speed Hot Pursuit picking up the best multiplayer award.

However there was one glaring error that stood out.  Some bright spark at the BAFTA's decided that Fallout New Vegas was a strategy game.  This was nominated alongside the likes of Civilization 5, Starcraft 2, Napoleon Total War etc.  Fallout New Vegas is an RPG.  It was conceived as an RPG.  It plays like an RPG, it is an RPG.  There is no way that this should have been included in this category.  However it turns out that the BAFTA's for Video Games does not have an award for best RPG.  In a year that saw the likes of Fable 3, Fallout New Vegas, Final Fantasy XIII, Demons Souls (only came out in Europe in the last 12 months) and Mass Effect 2 and these are just the main ones off the top of my head - there will be countless more released on the PC as well, no one saw fit to include a best RPG category?

The most glaring omission from the nominations was Enslaved Odyssey To The West.  This was one of the most stunning games I played all year.  It also has the most believable characters I have come across in a game with the digital performances living up to the brilliant voice talent behind them.  Andy Serkis and Lindsey Shaw provided the main voice cast and the story is a re-telling of the classic Chinese tale of Journey To The West.  Quite how it was overlooked for even a nomination speaks volumes of how these type of award shows are flawed and ultimately have little in the way of importance.

So to sum up, they have managed to sort out the actual presentation of these shows, now all they need to do is actually embrace the whole of gaming and not just the ones that hog the top of the charts for weeks on end.  That way, some credibility might follow.