All Articles: God of War: Ghost of Sparta

The 2010-2011 Video Game Awards Season

Posted on March 17, 2011 by John Scalzo

Beginning with the Spike TV Video Game Awards in early December and culminating with last night’s BAFTA Games Awards, the 2010-2011 “video game awards season” has come to a close. And after four months of awards, acceptance speeches and arguments, we have a clearer picture of what really were the best games of the year.

The snobbier segments of the game community love to decry the Spike TV Video Game Awards as an embarrassment and not representative of the feelings of “real” gamers. Typically, the show’s world premiere trailers overshadow the actual awards themselves. But the event is spearheaded by Geoff Keighley of GameTrailers TV and the winners are voted on by a well-respected contingent of game journalists, so I guess it could be worse.

That said, this year’s Spike TV Video Game Awards “Game of the Year” was awarded to Rockstar’s epic western Red Dead Redemption. Keighley and company spread the love as the remaining major awards all went to other games: “Best PC Game” StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty; “Best PS3 Game” God of War III; “Best Wii Game” Super Mario Galaxy 2; “Best Xbox 360 Game” Halo: Reach; “Best Handheld Game” God of War: Ghost of Sparta; and “Best Downloadable Game” Costume Quest.

If Spike TV’s annual awards attempt to reach the mainstream, Time Magazine‘s top ten is the polar opposite, reaching into corners of the gaming world that are often ignored. This year’s selections are no different, including Alan Wake being awarded the #1 spot with iOS phenomenon Angry Birds at #2. The rest of the list was pretty typical, but the lack of Alan Wake’s spiritual twin, Heavy Rain, was the baffling part. Also, Limbo received its first love of the year-end awards with a sixth-place selection. (more…)

Posted in DS, Features, Mobile, PC, PS3, PSP, Wii, Xbox 360 | Tagged , , , , , , , ,

PSN Gamers Choice winners announced

Posted on March 7, 2011 by John Scalzo

The votes have been tallied and the winners of the first annual PlayStation Network Gamers’ Choice Awards have been announced:

Even though it appeared on the PSN a year after its Xbox Live Arcade debut, Castle Crashers took the award for Best PS3 Downloadable Game.

A lot of games let you kill zombies, but Dead Nation is the only zombie game awesome enough to be honored as the Best PlayStation Network Exclusive Game.

And speaking of zombies, Age of Zombies was chosen as the Best PSP Mini.

Finally, Kratos and God of War: Ghost of Sparta stand tall as the Best PSP Downloadable Game.

The PSN Gamers’ Choice Awards are more than just a chance to let gamers vote on their favorite PS3/PSP games of 2010. Sony plans to discount all four of these titles for a week beginning tomorrow. As part of the PSN’s Spring Fever event, each game will be 50% for PlayStation Plus subscribers and 30% off for all other users.

We’ll have more on the rest of the Spring Fever discounts tomorrow.

Posted in News, PS3, PSP | Tagged , ,

PlayStation announces first ever PSN Gamers Choice Awards

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Mike Gutierrez

From February 22 to March 1, you can vote for your picks for best downloadable titles of 2010 on the PSN. By downloading a free XMB theme for the game, you can vote for each of the four categories: Best PS3 Downloadable Game, Best PSP Downloadable Game, Best PS3/PSP Mini and Best PSN Exclusive Game. The winner in each character will go on sale for 30% off for regular PSN users and an ill 50% off for PSN Plus subscribers. It seems they want to keep every category mutually exclusive, or else I have no idea why Dead Nation and Soldner-X2 are not up for Best PS3 Downloadable Game.

While most Game of the Year awards have been done for a long time now, it’s pretty awesome for PSN users to have one with free themes and big discounts all along the way, and for some of the best games at that.

Hit the break for the full list of nominees. (more…)

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