BLOG VIEW | HEADLINE VIEW

ALL

GEEK

World’s Most Ironic Videogame Awards Announced

FRIDAY JULY 27 2007 4:00 PM

Submitted by Uncognitive. Edited By erin_broadley.

TAGS: Videogames, Sony, Nintendo, Playstation 3, Wii, Crackdown, snark

These days it takes a certain something to make an awards show stand out.

This is true when the awards are being given out for movies, television, music, and even videogames. Faced with what can only be described as a shit-ton of videogame awards to compete with, the fine folks at the UK-based Develop Magazine came up with their own unique spin on the tired awards show formula.

Irony.

Yes, when Develop assembled a panel of “industry experts” for it’s Develop Industry Excellence Awards, they must have taken them aside and advised them that the reaction they were hoping for was not just the usual fanboy ranting, but a slack-jawed look of absolute incomprehension from the gamers across the globe.

First stop on the Irony Express is the award for innovation.

The winner?

Crackdown.

Yes, the Xbox 360 game you got for free when you paid $60 for the Halo 3 Beta was apparently the most “thrillingly original” thing in videogames this past year.

For those of you who might not have played Crackdown, the main character is a bad-ass police officer looking to bring order to a dystopian city of the near future that’s been overrun with crime and gangs. The gameplay involves you roaming around the city, completing missions, collecting power-ups, competing in car races, or just blowing shit up.

You know, things that no videogame has ever featured before.

That dull roaring noise you’re hearing is the sound of every Nintendo fan reacting to this award by clutching their Wiimotes in their white-knuckled hands and gnashing their teeth in rage. Sorry, Wii Sports fans, no rocket launcher means no innovation. Better luck next year.

Then there’s their choice for “Publishing Hero.”

Sega.

The word “hero” is overused these days, but if cranking out endless, ever-crappier sequels to Sonic The Hedgehog isn’t heroic, what is? Sure, you may have rescued some orphans from a burning building, but did you publish Virtua Fighter 5 and Medieval 2?

On a side note, I’m starting a petition to have Activision create a game called “Publishing Hero,” in which gamers can use a manuscript-shaped controller to experience the thrilling world of professional book publishing. You thought playing “Freebird” on Expert was hard? Try proofreading the latest Thomas Pynchon novel on Erudite. It’ll be eye-straining fun for the whole family!

Since the videogame industry, unlike other forms of entertainment, is dominated with sequels and remakes, it’s good that Develop set aside an award for “Best New Intellectual Property” to help celebrate and encourage those brave developers who bring fresh, new ideas to gaming rather than repeating tired old formulas.

The winner?

The PlayStation 3 game MotorStorm.

Take a moment to join with me in saluting the sheer creative genius required to develop a videogame about off-road racing, not to mention the steely determination it must have taken the developers to convince Sony’s marketing team to approve such a radical new gaming concept.

Develop dropped the biggest irony bomb with their “Grand Prix” award for overall excellence.

The winner?

Sony.

Just in case you thought the last year has been a dismal parade of endless fuckups and missteps for Sony and their PlayStation 3, you obviously didn’t get the news that it’s really been

12 months which have seen the firm deliver a new hardware format that has inspired developers around the world to make cutting-edge next generation games and continue its tradition supporting great ideas devised by both its internal studios and external partners.

Quick, someone tell Sony to re-hire Ken Kutaragi!

What makes this even more ironic is that we’re talking about a bunch of European videogame experts touting how awesome Sony and the PlayStation 3 are. This is, of course, the same Sony that delayed the European launch of the PS3 after promising a world-wide launch. And the same Sony that removed the PS2 “Emotion Engine” chip from European launch PS3’s so that unlike North American and Japanese launch PS3’s they would lack 100% backwards compatibility with PS2 games, without reducing the price of the PS3 in Europe. And yes, the same Sony that recently announced that an upcoming version of the PS3 with a roomier 80GB hard drive would be sold pretty much everywhere but Europe.

So why would anyone in Europe think that Sony was overall the most excellent videogame company of last year?

I’m sure it has to do with Develop wanting to stand out from the videogame awards crowd by flaunting it’s new-found sense of irony, and nothing at all whatsoever with the fact that Sony was the “Platinum Sponsor” for the lavish conference during which Develop announced these awards.

Not to imply that money could influence something as sacrosanct as videogame awards, of course. I mean, if Sony sent me a free PlayStation 3, it would have absolutely no influence on my objective journalistic opinion of their creative or financial efforts.

Hint, hint.

31 Comments

PAGE:

1 | 2 | 3

flabajaba2213

Bristol, RI

July 2006

JUL 27, 2007 04:12 PM

I have only one response to this:

Is anyone surprised? Sorry to say, but it seems that, contrary to my fanboyisms, I have become jaded enough to not find this surprising.

Goodbye, naive childhood where I simply enjoyed games and turned a blind eye to the politics.

Goodbye.

Metaverse

Portland, OR

March 2005

JUL 27, 2007 04:21 PM

As far as PC games go...this has been a very dull year for releases. Console has had some good ones...but not many. Those guys have no fucking clue for sure when it comes to those awards..pretty funny.

Trahern

United Kingdom

March 2003

JUL 27, 2007 04:45 PM

Irony, or sarcasm?

Spaceboy

Dallas, TX

October 2004

JUL 27, 2007 04:48 PM

Are you sure this wasn't originally an Onion article?

Synthiviper

Chicago, IL

June 2004

JUL 27, 2007 04:48 PM

Hey, you know, Crackdown was a lot of fun... Albeit a little limited in what you could do, but I spent hours tracking down orbs and jumping from rooftop to rooftop after I had finished the game. And the new downloadable content is great stuff.

Now, do I think it was the most innovative and original thing out this year? No, not by quite a bit, but to refer to it as the "Xbox 360 game you got for free when you paid $60 for the Halo 3 Beta" isn't giving it a whole lot of credit. I know I definitely didn't buy my copy for the beta, and I had loads more fun with Crackdown than I did with the brief time I spent playing Halo 3.

ankiel66

Seattle, WA

June 2003

JUL 27, 2007 05:02 PM

Trahern said:
Irony, or sarcasm?

As my AP British Lit. teacher used to say in high school, "Sarcasm is the simplest form of irony."

ogichida30

Concord, CA

September 2004

JUL 27, 2007 06:02 PM

Medieval 2 wasnt that bad.....

KingPink

Clemons, NY

October 2006

JUL 27, 2007 06:19 PM

Meh most games now a days suck but i guess you have to make it have tons of explosions for the A.D.D ridden children.

Rabidnid

Australia

May 2004

JUL 27, 2007 06:52 PM

Medieval 2 is potentially wonderful. It however does sit on my shelf awaiting another 2 years or so of patches so that it at least equals RTW in play balance and functionality.

wenis

Brentwood, CA

July 2006

JUL 27, 2007 07:06 PM

those money hats must have weighed a ton!
video game journalism can never be taken seriously with this kind of bs going on.

BlastProcessing

USA

OLD SKOOL

JUL 27, 2007 08:14 PM

...I like Crackdown.

Ravnos

Edmonton, AB

OLD SKOOL

JUL 27, 2007 08:27 PM

Everyone saying how much they liked Crackdown needs to re-read this article. The writer isn't disputing whether or not it's a good game, and the award it was given has nothing to do with how good the game was. It was given an award for innovation, and it sure as shit didn't reinvent the wheel or even provide a substantially different interpretation of its design. And while you may have liked it, you have to admit that the main reason most people bought it was the Halo 3 Beta, that there was a decent game along with it was an added bonus.

Gillionaire

Manchester, NH

February 2007

JUL 27, 2007 09:02 PM

I bought Crackdown for Crackdown. Because Crackdown is a really damn well made game. Sure, the inclusion of the Halo 3 Beta does nothing but help sales, but I honestly believe a lot of people bought the game because the game was good and got solid reviews, and a lot of doubters were put to rest when the demo was made public on Xbox Live.

As for innovative, well, we can focus all we want on the fact that it has shooting in it and go "Ha ha, not innovative at all." The big difference, though, is the gameplay structure is actually quite a bit different from a lot of other action titles out there. It actually takes the idea of "open world" action games and actually, truly allowed the player to control the mission structure instead of being forced to complete the game under pre-determined circumstances, which is actually pretty different from other games. Most wildly original game ever, hardly. But it does actually bring something a bit different to the table as well.

As for the Wii Sports thing. Wii Sports is three mini-games of sports games that have been made over and over again since the Atari days. Sure, the motion movement is new for a home console, but arcade games have been using that technology for years, too (games like MoCap Boxing). So while it also brings something new to the table, it's also not massively innovative in it's own right. Making it really no better of a choice then Crackdown, really.

As for the rest of their choices, I've got nothing.

aphexplotz

Arlington, VA

July 2004

JUL 27, 2007 09:17 PM

When, as a game developer, I don't even hear about something like this until the postmortem... thats a telling sign.

Gillionaire

Manchester, NH

February 2007

JUL 27, 2007 10:01 PM

Honestly, the worst videogame awards thing I've ever seen was hardly this, but the first Spike TV Video Game Awards that gave True Crime best game of the year, despite the fact that it was out for all of two weeks and was most definitely not one of the best games of the year, either.

PAGE:

1 | 2 | 3