I wish it were all a dream brought on by excessive amounts of sugar and kool-aid, but when I awoke this morning and saw the news, I knew that Spike’s Video Game Awards had happened, and I sat through it all. Of course, that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy a reveal or two, but for a few years now the VGAs have just been a big advertising scheme with little emphasis on games. Last night, however, was just pretty bad.
The jokes were flat, and that musical number at the beginning was way out of place. I could go on about Dane Cook and all, but, well, you get the point. The whole VGAs, instead of being an actual award show, felt like a 2-hour made-for-tv movie with an hour of advertisements and 30 minutes of bad humor filling in for most of it, keeping what everyone really wanted far away. Games. I can tell you the best part from the VGAs (for me) were when 11/11/11 were spotted on the same screen as “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.” And that only took 10 seconds to show. But there was also the trailer and the announcing of the trailer, all great to, but nothing quite beats the excitement of seeing a release date and then preparing.
However, that doesn’t mean every game there was a fantastic reveal, most were actually, Mass Effect 3 looks to be sweet and I’ll be on the fence about Prototype 2, but MY biggest disappointment wasn’t the show or that the award for Best Performance by a Human Male went to Neil Patrick Harris (when it really should have gone to Martin Sheen, or even better, John Marston. I mean Rob Wiethoff, who should just change his name to John Marston.) it was a little reveal for a game called SSX: Black Ops Deadly Descents. Remember SSX: Tricky or SSX3? EA sure as hell doesn’t! All the color, outrageous characters, and great fun seem to be gone from the newest game in the SSX series and all we’re left with is a great sadness. Oh well, next year’s holiday will be busy with TES V and ME3, and the GDC Awards in March, where I don’t feel as disappointed by some of the winners. I’m looking at you, Sgt. Woods for Character of the Year.
