2006 Spike TV Video Game Awards Recap

It’s that time of year again. Time for the annual Spike TV Video Game Awards show. Each year, I both look forward to this show, and actually dread that it will return. To be honest, the first time I see an ad promoting this for another year, I get sick to my stomach. Mostly because I use this show as a barometer for how gaming and the gaming community is viewed, and I know it’s not at a socially-acceptable point yet. But, more on that later. Here we go...

The show kicks off with Tenacious D performing a song about heavy metal surviving all genres of music. This would explain why you hear so much heavy metal on the radio. They also have a guy in a big gray, plastic knight suit that looks like something from GWAR. He dances around pretending to smite the mentioned genres. Keep in mind that during this, the audience is sitting completely still, like they’re at some bad motivational seminar. Tenacious D come out to dance with GWAR Guy and pyro goes off as fake cheering is added in.

Introduction. Tonight we are “live from the Gaming Center” (no location is given). The “celebs” in attendance tonight seem pretty scarce and fairly unknown (you’ll see as the night goes on). The announcer this year is Stewie Griffin, which further proves that Funkmaster Flex and his neglected turntables are long gone. And, as with last year, the host is Samuel L. Jackson.

Sam is actually sitting backstage, lighting a cigar with money and says “The Video Game Awards. Easiest money in show business.” Suddenly, a guy dressed like a kidney holding a fairy wand (?!) storms into his dressing room. He does an “All your base are” joke and dies. Not looking good so far. Sam goes into first-person mode and walks into the hall, basically running into the Game of the Year nominees. The GRAW soldiers got hurt waiting for a PS3. A guy in a bad wizard costume gives Sam the Okami paintbrush and gets humped by a “wolf” (actual husky dog). He gets a Gears of War gun, in name alone. And then a guy comes out of the bathroom telling him to kill the Gamers of Oblivion. Sam comes out on stage to discover these people are actually about 30 college kids playing “Wayward Son” on Guitar Hero guitars.
Sam: “Kansas? That’s the anthem of the Gamers of Oblivion?!”
Sam dispatches all the stuntman guitar players and zaps all the slackers with wires attached to them into the background. The best one is when Sam lobs a grenade into the audience and an obvious mannequin, surrounded by obvious cardboard cutouts in seats, explodes.

The audience goes mildly nuts, and Sam starts his monologue. Gamers-need-sex joke, gamers-jerk-off joke, cell phone game joke (tonight is the Night of the Cell Phone Game -- more later), Madden Curse joke (it came true this year), Hot Coffee joke (still?), and a Bully gay kissing joke. But Sam really wants to address gamer stereotypes. Chubby nerdy guy stands up and a hot girl wants him. The mayor from Spin City (?!) stands up and basically says he’s Terrorist Jackie Thompson. He says he only exploits video games to scare soccer moms for his own personal gain. Sam: “And that’s what America is all about!” Finally, Kidney Guy and Tony Hawk the Barbarian stand up. Apparently, they’re cosplayers and proud of it. The nerd’s hot girl wants them, so Sam picks them as the “trophy girls”. But...shouldn’t he have picked...oh, never mind.

50 Cent comes out to present the Best Performance by a Human Female. If you recall last year, he mumbled and stumbled his way through a Lara Croft joke so bad, I wondered why anyone would put him in a movie (which he was promoting at the time). This year was even better. So much better that I actually wrote down exactly what he said on stage.
50: “Yeah...whassup? I seen a little...a lotta women performance. A lotta sports and things this year. So I know things...are too about -- check this out -- this is what we’re gonna do, alright? We’re gonna get into the Best...Human Female...in a videogame.”
Winner: Vida Guerra for Scarface (which 50 pronounces Guerrera)
Vida come up and lets us know that she got changed in 2 minutes today. Oh, and thanks for the award. And you wonder why she’s mostly on the Internet.

It should also be noted that, once again, the award is a gold Monkeybone statue wearing a crown. I still don’t get that. It’s not even the Spike TV logo. But, changed this year, the winner’s envelope is in a spiked bracelet the presenter wears. A little weird, but I guess they didn’t want any more mildly-retarded boxers fumbling with DVD cases used as envelopes.

Commercials. Nothing of note (just yet).

Coming back from break, Stewie (always offscreen) talks shit about not wanting to see Snakes on a Plane. Sam: “I will hit a baby.”

Rachel Leigh Cook and Seth Green come out to present the Best Game Based on a Movie or TV Show. As movie stars, they start to apologize for movies based on video games. You can tell that gamers don’t write for this show because the second movie they name is the original Mortal Kombat, which most gamers will tell you is about the best videogame movie that ever came out.
Winner: Lego Star Wars 2
A guy from Traveler’s Tales accepts with a list of ‘thank you’s. I argue that this was shown to prove that family games can win too. I mean, it’s not like they’re gonna acknowledge Nintendo any time soon. Nintendo’s just not cool enough.

Daniel Day Kim from Lost comes out to show a trailer for Bioshock. It looks like FEAR (creepy kids running around) mixed with Half-Life 2 (monsters and gravity gun) set in an underwater bunker.

Maria Menudos-or-whatever comes out, giggling and acting goofy like last year. She’s here to celebrate an unsung hero in the gaming industry -- the motion-capture actor. If you guessed this skit is about a fat guy acting stupid in a blue ping-pong suit, you’re absolutely right. As they go to commercial, they pan to show the dead crowd.
But before commercials, they show scenes from Rape King (aka Sneak King) and show a poll saying it’s a 50/50 split on who gamers would want to “wine and dine” between Cortana from Halo and Bloodrayne. Way to stay timely, Burger King. Actually, they show Rape King and ask a stupid question during all the breaks, so they just should have been rape questions. “Who would be a better rapist? Sam Fisher or Solid Snake? Go to BK.com now!”

Commercials. An ad shows for Black Christmas, a sorority slasher film that’s being released on Christmas Day. Since it’s a week and a half before Christmas, and this is the first I’m hearing about it, it’s gotta be good.

Brian the Dog presents Tila Tequila and Seth MacFarlane. Gee, how did they get him? Tila is deemed “the Queen of MySpace”, which to me is like saying you have the shiniest helmet on the short bus. They’re here to present the Best Wireless Game. Now, everyone knows cellphone games are shit if they aren’t like Snake, Tetris, or a card game. And this category has always been lumped in with other “who cares” awards in all the past years, so why is this being presented this year? Because it’s sponsored by Verizon Wireless. The same company that’s running those Chocolate phone ads that they’ve been showing every commercial break.
Anyway, Seth makes a good joke by asking if any these games would work on his phone, and then he pulls out the Saved By the Bell brick cell phone.
Winner: SWAT Force
A foreign-sounding lady, who I guess is from SWAT’s accounting department, accepts the award.

Sam comes out to address a very important subject -- video game violence. From your bitchy girlfriend LOL!! He got an email on his teleprompter from a guy who got his Xbox 360 smashed by a bitchy girlfriend. They accompany this with a picture of a fat guy holding a still intact 360 and hard drive (?!). Wait...is that the same guy as the fat motion-capture guy? I think it is. Anyway, Sam breaks it down in Operation-style terms -- guys have an Awesome Lobe in their brain, girls have a Complain-abellum. They then show a couple wired for brainwaves -- one’s a guy playing a game, and the other is his bitchy girlfriend. You can guess the rest.
Now, I’m no Dr. Flavin, but I’ll break it down as a gamer in a very stable relationship. Guys who are gamers relax by playing games. Girls like to relax by talking about stuff. Take this into consideration and play your cards right, or pick your battles. And seriously, “Awesome Lobe”? How old are we?

Emmanuel Vaugier and Tony Hawk come out to present the award for Best Supporting Male Performance. Is it by a human? Ooh, maybe not. They didn’t say. Tony botches another “All your base are belong to us” joke. I really think the writers just got back from 1996.
Winner: James Gandolfini for the Sopranos game
James is standing in his kitchen, and gives his acceptance speech like he’s leaving a message on an answering machine. It really sounds like “I can’t be there right now...thanks for the award...AndI’llseeyalaterbye.”

Commercials. Now I’m starting to notice a trend, and I see who’s really running the show. In order, the ads are for: Pontiac (an annual sponsor), Mountain Dew’s energy drink (they sponsor an award), the Air Force, Verizon’s Chocolate phone (cell phone award), Sony (Final Fantasy 12), and then local/Spike ads.

Yellowcard comes out to present the award for Studio of the Year. This used to be the Best Game Designer award in the past, so I guess a bunch of level editors pouted until they changed it. “How did only Jason win for Halo 2? I designed the repetitive Library level.” One Yellowcard guy says he should make a game, and then describes Minesweeper. I bet the accounting lady from SWAT Force was rolling in the aisles over that one.
Winner: Epic Games for Gears of War
Cliffy B. (announced by his full name) and 2 other guys come up to accept. They seem genuinely thankful, and point out that they make these killer Unreal engines with a staff of only 80 people. A dig at EA? You decide.

UFC President Dana White and Joe Rogan (who announces for UFC) come out to show the trailer for GRAW 2. Joe cracks up Dana by reading his cue cards like a bad infomercial. “Why yes...I do, Dana.” Overall, the trailer is all CGI, so it’s impossible to tell what the game is like, except that it looks like it’s in a Black Hawk Down-type setting.

Two cops from the upcoming Reno 911 movie (they’re making a movie?!) come out to talk about a GTA-style game that is pro-cops. The funniest part is that it looks like one guy is yelling at a tape measurer, but I guess they’re supposed to be playing the game on a cell phone. They’re here to show the winners of the awards that they don’t want to present to actual people. Keep in mind, these are sponsored by Blahblahblah Gum, the gum that blahblahblahblahblah.
Favorite Classic Game presented by Blah Blah Gum: Pac-Man
Must have been some poll on their website.
Critic’s Choice: Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
This is one of the bones they’re throwing to Nintendo. Obviously, because most critics actually didn’t rate it too high.
Best Fighting Game: Mortal Kombat Armageddon
Arm-a-getting’ it when it hits the clearance bin.
Best Shooter Game: Gears of War
Best Graphics: Gears of War
Best Handheld Game: New Super Mario Bros.
It’s a sad day when a cell phone game gets more attention than this new portable classic.
Best Role Playing Game: Oblivion
Best PC Game: Company of Heroes
I’m glad they won something, since they were nominated for everything.
Best Multiplayer Game: Gears of War
I’ll talk more about this list at the end, but I’ll just say that most of these categories are more deserving of public attention than most I’ve seen presented so far.

Commercials. Coming Soon: Rocky 2006 - Let’s Kill Off Rocky

Sam comes back talking about online multiplayer games like “WOW Xbox Live.” In fact, he’s hooked up with someone special he’s meeting for the first time tonight. Yep, it’s a dude. In fact, I think it’s the fat motion-capture guy again. What is he, the producer or something? The skit is saved, although, when Sam asks the guys in the booth to edit out what happened, but they say it’s already on YouTube. A picture comes up, looking like the video is actually on YouTube, entitled “SAM JACKSON PWNED!”

Eva Mendes comes out to present the award for Best Cast. This is what awards like Best RPG are getting snubbed for?! She says some games have bad casts like the new Mortal Kombat game -- she shows a picture of the 4 women from The View’s heads on MK fighters. The audience groans, so Eva just barrels through the joke and moves along.
Winner: Family Guy the Game
Obviously. Between Seth MacFarlane and Seth Green, we’ve seen 90% of the cast so far tonight. Both Seths accept, and MacFarlane goes through some voices, including the dog’s voice. Oh wait, that’s his real voice.

Michael Irvin and Xhibit come out carrying Wiimotes. If this leads to a joke about “my black Wii remote is five times bigger”, I’m turning this show off. Instead, Irvin acts like he’s going to play Wii Golf and just chucks the remote at the camera. And still it looked more believable than most of the videos on YouTube. They’re here to present the award for Best Individual Sports Game.
Winner: Tony Hawk Project 8
I’m renaming this the Tony Hawk Award, because he gives essentially the same damn speech from last year. “New consoles, new games.” “You keep buyin’ ‘em, we’ll keep makin’ ‘em.”

Sam shows up to preview his new cartoon on Spike named “Afro Samurai”. Basically, it looks like the makers of The Boondocks and Aeon Flux got together and made an anime.

Commercials. Coming up, some of the stars from “Heros”. Guys, even my spell-check picked up on that one. Or you could just look it up in any TV listing.

Coming back, AFI performs a song that sounds like a whinier version of “Move Along”. If this is emo, I want no part of it. Seriously, what’s the appeal of dressing gay-goth and whining like a bitch?

As Sam presents the next award presenters, people have started to throw around the standups from the mannequin skit. This isn’t looking good.

TNA wrestler Kurt Angle and the host of Spike’s Game Head show come out to show some previews. First of all, if you’re wondering why Angle is in TNA, it’s because he’s a mentally, physically, and emotionally broken man who’s addicted to pain killers, and TNA just wants to get ex-WWE guys, no matter what their condition. And also, Game Head is a fairly decent show, and least compared to G4’s general lack of game coverage. Anyway, here are the games and my opinions on them:
TNA Impact (wrestling game) -- just CGI entrances so far
John Woo Presents Stranglehold -- imagine Max Payne 2006
Metal Gear Solid 4 -- same CGI clips you’ve seen before
EA’s Army of Two -- looks like Gears of War (using cover and teamwork), minus the good and fun stuff.

The Reno 911 cops are back out to present more non-award awards. One cop “peed a little” when the other draws a Nerf gun at her. If stuff like this is in the movie, it should be high-larious.
Cybervixen of the Year: Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2: Episode 1
They show all non-sexy shots of her, so it makes sense.
Best Original Score: Oblivion
Best Military Game: Company of Heroes
Best Driving Game: Xbox 360 Burnout Revenge
No longer presented by Pontiac, although they’re a sponsor. Curious.
Best Performance by a Human Male: Patrick Stewart for Oblivion
Guess they couldn’t get him, or anyone else to accept the award.
Best Supporting Female Performance: Rachel Leigh Cook for Kingdom Hearts 2
OK, she’s in attendance so give her the award. On second though, don’t. She played Tifa in the game and, including if you beat Sephiroth, she has like 6 lines in the whole game. Four being “Grrr. Where’s Cloud?!!”
Best Soundtrack: Guitar Hero 2
Breakthrough Technology: the Nintendo Wii
The last of Nintendo’s thrown bones tonight.
Best Action Game: Dead Rising

Commercials. Stewie says to go to Gametrailers.com to see the previews they’ve shown tonight. As if the people who’ve wanted to see those certain trailers haven’t been there already.

When we return, Sam wants to talk about what to do with your old consoles. You could give them to a third-world country. A picture is shown of a mildly-Asian child eating a giant Atari cartridge. Oh-kay. Or you could do this...and out comes the Genesis equivalent of SNES Chick. Actually, she’s just got a red bikini on with two controllers glued on the top, and a slim-lined Genesis glued to the bottom. Sadly, Sam doesn’t do a humping or blowing into her slot joke. Instead it’s Token Fat Guy running up in a speedo with controllers on it. Thankfully, there is no erect joystick or Wiimote glued to the front. The best part is, as the girl is leaving, Sam genuinely looks like he’s trying to regain his concentration.

Tyrese and Method Man present the Best Song award. As usual, Method Man doesn’t want to be there.
Tyrese: “And the winner is...(tries to get off bracelet)
Method Man: “.....deez nuts.”
LOLOLOLOL!!! (Run around stage)
Winner: Yellowcard - Lights and Sound for 360 Burnout Revenge
Thankfully, one tradition remains intact as Yellowcard does not get to perform their winning song. Come on. It’s can’t be any worse than AFI whining for 5 minutes.

Hayden Panatasomething (she plays Wolverine on Heroes) is out to present the award for the Most Addictive Game Fueled by Mountain Dew game. She must also have the power to suck the life out of a crowd, because even her adjusting her mid-pubescent boobs can’t draw a reaction from this crowd.
Winner: Oblivion
Two guys from Bethesda, who look like they would work on a game like Oblivion, come up to accept the award. You know, I just got to thinking...are they saying Mountain Dew is addicting, based on the award name? Is that a good thing?

Commercials. Coming up next is the WOW Burning Crusade preview they’ve been teasing all night. And yes, another sexless nerd joke is made. And yes, it’s being directed at the players of one of the most successful mainstream games in history.

Sam brings out Sarah Silverman, who is here to berate gamers as being nerdy, sexless, and wasting their time. At about the point where she says the government should ship Playstations to Africa because “if it can stop you guys from getting laid, we’ll wipe out the AIDS epidemic over there”, she starts to get boos. The set ends rather backhandedly, and you can tell there’s a feeling of disdain in the air.
Now I’m not taking this personally (my son will prove I’ve probably seen a woman before), and I know she’s there because she’s popular and likes to stir up shit, but I find it interesting that they make her the icing on the “You guys are dorks” cake. I mean, you never see them making fun of those statistic-spewing fantasy football fucks on the ESPY Awards. And you’ll never see Oprah making fun of those 300lb. Peg Bundy-wildebeests during the Daytime Emmys for watching her show instead of their kids. I’m just saying, it takes real stones to make a show promoting shitty games and stupid phones named after candy, and then laugh at the target audience for buying them.

Stewie presents Samuel L. (who’s still standing in the same spot when he announced Sarah Silverman) and asks him what the ‘L’ stands for.
Stewie: “I bet it stands for ‘Likes to kiss dudes’”.
Sam: “You’re pretty mouthy for a cartoon that didn’t get funny until Season 4, muthafucka.”

Sam presents Masi Oka (Nightcrawler on Heroes) by saying the “save the cheerleader, save the world” catchphrase. Am I the only one who thinks that sounds stupid? Like her cheerleading ability is what holds the key to whatever danger there is. Or you’re expecting someone to say “Oh shit! Juggernaut’s on his way to the pep rally! Let’s move, people!!” Just say “save the girl, save the world.” It’s more mysterious, and it rhymes.
But actually, Nightcrawler is funny as he presents the award for Best Team Sports Game (aka The Madden Award). He says some sports weren’t eligible, like “Team Bum Hunt: Bum vs. Tiger” and “the (air-quotes) WNBA.” But, just to piss me off he says the “cheerleader” line before announcing...
Winner: NBA2K7
OMFG! Madden did not win! Some Take-Two guys come up to accept, but really they could have made this real funny. They should have shown a black guy and a frat boy with a single tear in their eye, and John Madden shaking his fist, going “Next time, Take-Two. Next time!”

Brandon Roush (the new Superman) comes out to premiere the preview for the World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade expansion. To show how out-of-touch this show is, I actually get surprised when he uses the term “MMO.” And then he stumbles through the rest of his cue cards. Superman, my ass.
The trailer is your usual CGI fantasy stuff (a guy turns someone into a sheep, though), so no real game preview is shown. The odd thing is that, as the trailer plays on the stage, a choir of hooded druids is chanting along to the trailer’s music. Between the trailer and the druids, this in no way makes WOW look like some evil fantasy cult.

Commercials. Once again, take note of the ads: Mountain Dew’s energy drink, Chocolate phone, Xbox 360, Blah Blah Gum (actually “Stride”), Pontiac, Burger King Games, and then Spike ads.

We come back and Sam is going to announce the Game of the Year. But first, Sam’s going to open up a magazine and read fake reviews off the teleprompter. Not once do his eyes glance at the magazine.
Winner: Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
The same two Bethesda guys come up, but now they’re shadowed by their creepy, white-haired boss. Just sayin’.

And with that, the show is over. To all the game haters out there, Sam says “I’m in your muthafuckin’ base, killin’ your muthafuckin’ dudes.” And then a giant skeleton Monkeybone sign explodes. It should also be noted that during the credits, there are no longer any extreme close-ups of girls’ asses. But in the 45 seconds it takes the credits to roll, 90% of the crowd has filed out and emptied the arena.

So overall, it was a pretty uneventful year. Maybe because only six actual games were presented as award winners, and one of them was a cell phone game. And, even though Samuel L. Jackson appeared to genuinely be having a good time, they couldn’t get anyone else to be on the show. Not that it’s a bad thing, but this show isn’t designed for showcasing games. 11 out of 29 awards were actually presented on the show this year, and 4 of those 11 were actors doing voice-overs, or a song. Add to that all the gamer bashing, and it doesn’t make for a very positive showing. As a gamer, you get the feeling as you watch this that you are seen as nothing but a socially-inept dork that does nothing but buy what is presented to you, like the tech-obsessed sheep you are. But, if I were watching this show as someone trying to understand gaming and what’s good in gaming, I would have no idea what the appeal is and I’d feel like I'd probably be wasting my time anyway. So, once again, the question arises -- will there be another Spike TV Video Games Award show next year? Wholeheartedly, I can say yes. I can rest assure that as long as there are energy drinks, overpriced cars, and poorly-named cell phones to sell, I will be watching and reporting on this show for many years to come.