2008 Spike TV Video Game Awards Recap

It's December, and that can only mean one thing -- it's time for me to recap the 2008 Spike TV Video Game Awards. I realize that in a world that now has YouTube, DVR, and torrents, my yearly recaps become less and less necessary, but I just consider this my annual contribution to GAMERadio. Besides, as a lifelong gamer, I'm always curious to see how a “Guys Only” station like Spike TV portrays and appeals to gamers. Also, these shows are always gigantic pieces of shit and it's fun to watch as a train wreck. And “train wreck” is the right way to describe this year's VGAs. I usually don't like to sum up this show until the end, but I have to provide a word of warning -- this show was absolute garbage. The presenters didn't want to be there. The “world premieres” weren't much to talk about. But worst of all, Spike TV thinks the average gamer age is around 10 years old. There is stuff that will make you groan. There is stuff that will make you roll your eyes. But mostly, there is stuff that will make you embarrassed to be a gamer. Don't believe me? Let's get started...

The awards show starts with a warning that this show will be displaying M-Rated games, so viewer discretion is advised. Actually, viewer discretion should be advised for the following segment.

Jack Black is in a hotel room, coming out of the shower in a bathrobe, only to find an Xbox 360 lying on his bed. Jack then starts to make out with the 360. Then he sees a PS3. Now it's a three-way with Jack molesting the consoles and controllers and rubbing them all over his naked body. His wife (a Wii) and son (a DS Lite) appear in the doorway and Jack says he thought they were at church. The Wii now has a gun glued to the side of it and it fires at Jack. Jack's last words: “Why did they have to make them all so beautiful?” Because there's nothing as beautiful as a shrunken Dell tower molded into an hourglass shape, a giant Blu Ray drive disguised as a Foreman grill, an external DVD drive intentionally cocked on its side, and a portable system that looks like if Apple reinvented the Game & Watch.

The cameras shift to the award show stage and Jack shows up in an undershirt, whitey-tighties, and an Xbox 360 headset. Get ready for a musical number. Apparently Jack has died and has gone to Gamer Heaven (which is the theme of the show). Behind him are man-children also in their underwear on couches playing Xbox multiplayer. Video Game God comes out and it's the black guy from Zack and Miri Make a Porno with white hair. He says Jack will have to battle the devil and his 3 demons -- Reading, Exercise, and Relationship. This is where I almost threw in the towel. Can you imagine the Oscars doing a skit where the host has to defend the act of watching movies? Anyway, Jack disposes of Reading by giving a synopsis of the Grand Theft Auto IV plot (leaving out the part where it gets a little flat at the end). Jack disposes of Exercise by showing him a girl jiggling her ass to Wii Fit, like in that one viral video. Jack has trouble with Relationship, so he calls in the other guy from Tenacious D who puts up his “Intimacy Shield” to dispose of the demon. Wait, did they just imply that he shrugged off his relationship by getting intimate with the Tenacious D guy? Anyway, the devil comes out and is unbeatable, so Jack and Tenacious D Guy shoot fireworks out of their crotches to defeat him. Just like in every video game you've ever played. Video Game God is pleased and deems Jack the host of the 2008 Video Game Awards. The only audience reaction they show to all this is Tony Hawk cheering and sitting next to an embarrassed guy.

Jack then introduces “America's #1 Supermodel” Marisa Miller, who has nothing to do with video games. Cliffy B and people who look like Marisa's parents applaud. Marisa says that she is hot. Really hot. Seriously, really hot. Read those last three sentences like a robot and you sound like Marisa Miller. She is here because she's been programmed with some news about Gears of War 2. She sends it over to a video of Cole Train (from Gears 2) spouting enough ebonics to make Mr. T sound like Shakespeare. Back to Marisa, who tells us that she is psyched about Gears of War. And dead serious about it. Look up her gamertag. Once again, read those sentences like a robot for the full Marisa experience. She introduces the Combustible Map Pack for Gears 2. A video plays, narrated by Cole, about the 3 new maps: Flood, Gold Rush, and Fuel Station. Or, from the looks of them, a vacant lot with lava, an oil rig, and the gas station from the original Gears of War, respectively.

With the beginning skit and first advertisement out of the way, it's time for the intro to the 2008 Spike TV Video Game Awards. Coming to you live from an undisclosed location in Los Angeles. Tonight there will be ads for games, referred to as “exclusive footage”, including a Gears of War 2 surprise that they just showed. Since iPods and MP3 players are all the rage, tonight's performers are being called a “playlist” and are provided by Interscope Records, a record company that I hadn't heard from since Snoop Dogg's second album. Tonight's announcer refers to herself as “your gaming goddess”, and I start to wonder is Funkmaster Flex will ever return. The awards arena is shown and it is basically a large college auditorium with three large monitors, and a conveyor belt leading to the main circular stage. The audience is just a sea of white couches, but there is a three-row standing area next to the stage, full of planted college kids to give some reaction to the musical acts, since the audience has only reacted around three times throughout the last 6 years of musical presentations. Speaking of little reaction, the only crowd shot they get of the crowd after these announcements is four bored people sitting on a couch, looking disinterested.

Commercials. Burger King did a taste test on “whopper virgins”. No, not people who have never fucked a Whopper, but people in remote world locations who have never eaten fast food. They wanted these completely non-biased people to taste test the Whopper verses the Big Mac. Many uncomfortable foreigners are shown, and at least 3 of them said they liked the Whopper better. I would love to compare the medical condition of these people compared to the rest of the people in their village over time after being exposed to the garbage in an American fast food burger. And also a big “Fuck you” goes out to the people at Burger King for setting this up. Imagine this: you're walking around your neighborhood one day when a group of foreign people with a camera crew and a translator come up to you and demand your attention. They have two servings of monkey brains -- one sauted in a mystery brown liquid, and one fried to all hell and resembling a greasy turd. These people lead you to a room and insist you try both. Does that sound like fun? That's the Burger King international experience.

Coming back from break, the lights are out in the arena, except for the main stage which contains “UFC superfan” LL Cool J. Who cares about UFC? Spike TV, that's who! Ever since UFC and MMA got popular, Spike has been all about the UFC, so much so that there were about 5 hours of UFC specials leading up to this award show. LL raps about being a rap legend and that it's “time for war”. He introduces the UFC president and “ringmaster”, Dana White. He's here to announce that he stole my idea from last year and has created a UFC video game -- UFC 2009 Undisputed. A game so ambitious that it implies there will be a sequel every year. On top of the CGI intros of the fighters playing on the monitors, he presents a cage containing six of the UFC's baddest fighters looking badass and ready to kill each other. What comes next is the funniest thing on the entire show. Dana releases the fighters and LL runs over in front of them and begins to jump up and down and starts singing “Mama Said Knock You Out”. These badass fighters are now LL's backup dancers. The problem is they don't know what they're supposed to be doing. Some throw air punches. Some throw rap handsigns. And some are doing the two-step. The six fighters all look at each other, freeze up immediately, and start standing there trying not to look like dorks.

After LL is done acting like it's 1992, the UFC fighters disperse, leaving behind Rashad Evans who will announce the winner for Best Shooter. Rashad: “I don't know who gonna win, but I know it ain't gonna be Plaxico Burress.” Google says he shot himself, in case you didn't know who he was either.
Winner: Gears of War 2
The goddess announces that Gears 2 also won for Best Xbox 360 game. Cliff “Don't Call Me Cliffy B” Blezinsky and associates get the Vector Monkey, which is now inexplicably multi-colored like a bad bong from the 60's. A guy who isn't Cliffy B thanks the writer of Gears 2, which is like thanking the Easter Bunny for making Peeps.

It's been too long without an ad, so let's look at the world premiere of God of War 3. It about a 30 second CGI-fest of Kratos fighting the remaining mythological creatures that weren't in the other two God of War games, like centaurs and an army of skeletons. He even has some lion-head gauntlets on his hands at some point, which will probably act like guns. If this blows you away, you are reminded to reserve it at GameStop, which, as of writing this, is showing the game shipping in..oh...October 2009! How about this deal -- you give me $5 now and if you remember giving me it a year later, I'll give it back when you buy a game at full price.

Back from break, the goddess reintroduces Jack. Except it's just a gay frat boy standing on stage singing and acting retarded. A flushing sound plays and Jack jumps up on stage to relieve the guy. He says it's his double for when he has to poop, and then acts retarded like the other guy. Keep in mind we're over 30 minutes into the show and only one award has been presented.

Jack introduces EA president Peter Moore, who must have spent some serious cash on this award show, as you'll see throughout the night. Peter's here to show the exclusive premiere for Fight Night Round 4. According to his cue cards, this game will feature boxing legends at their prime, just like every other boxing game in recent memory. Peter says that no one can beat Muhammad Ali. The stage opens up and I swear I was expecting a staggering, stumbling Ali to come out. Instead it's a dejected looking, out-of-shape Mike Tyson, whose cue cards say he would like to try and beat his idol. The footage is the intro CGI of the game, showing a dream match of Ali verses Tyson, with both in their prime. I wonder how all the present-day boxing champions feel about being so unknown in their own sport that the game makers have to constantly put fighters from 30 years ago in the games to sell them.

The goddess introduces Neil Patrick Harris to present the Best Independent Game Fueled By Dew. I guess Mountain Dew doesn't want to be associated with addiction anymore, so it's good to see them backing independent talent. Which is ironic for an extremely mainstream soda that's getting killed in the marketplace by independent energy drinks. NPH says that, like the nominees, he has independent integrity, like starring in both mainstream Harold and Kumar movies. A fat guy pretending to be an Italian Beastie Boy in the first row keeps calling Neil “Doogie”. Doogie takes out a gun and shoots him to promote his new unknown game “Eat Lead”.
The nominees are quite an independent lot: Audiosurf, Braid, World of Goo, and Pixeljunk Eden. You know, the games that look like Guitar Hero, Super Mario Bros., Loco Roco, and N+-meets-Linerider. The nominees are read and Doogie pretends to open an imaginary envelope. He then admit to the camera guys he doesn't have the winner.
Doogie: “Should I just say one of them?”
Goddess: “........................RON CARMEL!”
Doogie looking around: “What?!”
Winner: World of Goo
Ron Carmel is revealed as one of the co-creators of World of Goo. He has a cardboard head on a stick to represent the other guy. Ron says that 2008 was a great year for independent games. He pauses to try and name one that wasn't one of the nominees, draws a blank and just says “this is awesome” and leaves.

Backstage, Geoff Keighley is with Stacy Keibler, and reveals to her that Pearl Jam's album Ten will be available to download for Rock Band 2 coming this March. March?! Rock Band releases DLC every week and it's going to take them three months to convert an album that's over 15 years old into Rock Band?

Commercials. This commercial break has 3 commercials that will be shown throughout the entire award show.
1)A serious battery commercial -- if it's Duracell, they show kids in hospitals; if it's Energizer, they show them used in space. Weird for such a juvenile show.
2)A Diet Mountain Dew commercial where only men, not women, get hit by lightning. Dew must really be hurting if they're just focusing on their diet drink and gearing it towards women.
3)A serious medicine commercial -- this break, it's Nyquil for people going camping. Weird.

Back from commercial, the goddess introduces the actress with a “ridiculously funny” last name, Eliza Dushku for the Big Name in the Game award. Yes, after I praised them for not having name-dropping awards (mostly because there were no big stars in games), they brought it back. But this is no ordinary award. Since there are no nominees named, I'm assuming this is like a lifetime achievement award. Which is weird because all he did was voice the role of the commanding officer in the latest Call of Duty that everyone was too busy playing Call of Duty 4 to check out.
Winner: Keifer Sutherland for Call of Duty: World at War
Keifer seemed pretty pleased to get the award and enjoyed the video game process overall. Although he says that he truly believes that one day video games and movies will combine. Obviously, Keifer's never played a Square game.

Chris Evans, who has nothing to do with video games, is here to introduce a band he plays all the time in Rock Band, the All-American Rejects. Although he thinks they should be called “Electric Rock Gods from Awesometown”. No, you don't. No one has ever thought that. No one over the age of 10 even puts those words together in a sentence. Now, all I know about the All-American Rejects is that “Move Along” song. This isn't that song. Instead, it's a whiny emo song that might be called “Hope It Gives You Hell”. At least that's what the lead singer in the pink tank top from the 80's doing the Mick Jagger strut keeps saying.

Commercials. Get ready for the new show “1000 Ways to Die”, coming in February to Spike. It would be great if there were some stupid deaths mixed in with the terrible ones, like falling out of a bunk bed.

The whoring isn't just in the world premieres. Coming back, the Energizer Bunny goes across the screen, as the goddess says “keeps going”. Speaking of animated toys, out comes Kim Kardashian, who I still have a theory about being an animated Barbie doll. Tonight's show doesn't negate that theory, as Kim is having problems reading, talking, and even walking down stairs. Kim is going to show the world premiere of the new game Dante's Inferno. Kim sounding ditzy: “It's based on a book. *giggle*” Kim says that no one knew this was being made into a game, which is why no one's ever heard of this game. The trailer plays, and of course it's an EA game. It basically shows a bunch of arcane symbols and talks about the nine circles of hell, which will probably be the levels. The video ends with one piece of CGI footage of a black knight thrusting a cross into a imp's skull. Since that wasn't impressive, the stage then erupts in fire. If I had to guess, this game will probably be a God of War knockoff with Hell references replacing the Greek mythology.

The goddess brings out Tony Hawk. Since he's been irrelevant to video games for the past couple of years, he's here to present the newly-made Gamer God award to Will Wright. Hopefully this becomes a new yearly lifetime achievement award, and not just a cheap way for EA to give some credibility to Spore, which has been pirated and humiliated into obscurity. But seriously, Will Wright is a pioneer in the field of god games and should be praised for all the work he has done. No, not by his peers and fellow game designers. This is the VGAs. Knowledge of game designers and creators have no place here. Instead he gets praise from three of his creations: a Sim-ant (developed in the Spore Creature Creator), a Sim guy, and a Spore monster that surprisingly doesn't look like genitals.
Winner: Will Wright
Will gets on stage and gives the obligatory “back in my day” speech and then talks about how he gets greater messages from today's video games then he does from books or movies. Considering that the winning games featured so far were Gears of War, Call of Duty, and World of Goo, that doesn't speak highly of today's books and movies.

Geoff Keighly, game journalist and host of Spike's GameTrailers.tv, is introduced. He is going to debut the trailer to the long awaited GTA IV DLC, named The Lost and Damned, coming in February. The trailer shows the Lost biker gang and identifies each member by name. Apparently, the game is not about Niko at all, but about the Lost gang and their rivals. Keep in mind that I am a huge GTA fan when I say this, but I don't give two shits about this DLC. The characters still look like plastic. The tone is still serious, so they didn't learn anything from Saint's Row 2. Not to mention that I was on board until they said it was about biker gangs, because the bike missions were the absolute worse missions in GTA IV. If you thought the cars handled like shit, the bike handled like a turd sliding on ice and you always had to cock the camera just to shoot the guy in front of you.

Commercials. This commercial break was the oddest line-up of commercials I think I've ever seen. Between the ads for things aimed at kids like that Call of Duty Wii ad with the psychopath it, and a Lebron James Nike ad that promotes cocaine use, there's also an ad for Prilosec heartburn medicine, starring a dancing 40-something woman, and Saturn cars. This confusion finishes up with an ad where a VGA stagehand is seduced by a near-naked Burger King, because of his “flamebroiled” smelling cologne. Very weird.

Back from commercials, Jack is dressed in a plaid suit (still wearing the 360 headset) and singing a vaudeville song. If it's all right with you we're just going to move on. The only thing worth mentioning in this skit is that Jerry Stiller (yes, he was on the show) gets bleeped for saying “hopped up on goofballs”, but Jack gets away with saying “shit” and “titty”.

Jerry brings out Kristin Kreuk and Chris Klein from the new Chun-Li Street Fighter movie that will either tank, go straight to DVD, or both. Even though both look embarrassed to be there, they both say they are super-excited to be there to present the Best RPG award because they both love video games. Kristin is so excited, her nipples are showing through her dress.
Winner: Fallout 3
Three Bethesda guys accept and seem genuinely thankful to get the award and that Bethesda got to make the Fallout sequel. One guy thanks his mom, and in a funny moment, one guy tells his kids to go to bed and stop playing Left 4 Dead.

Suddenly confetti rains down from the ceiling and the goddess introduces Busta Rhymes. Remember him? He must not think so because he immediately plugs his album coming in March to validate his existence. Busta asks the audience if they hate seeing game previews with bullshit CG in them. The cameraman nods. Well, here's a bullshit CG trailer for Uncharted 2 that allegedly uses the in-game engine. Also, Busta cannot say the words “in-game engine”. But he does say “NATHAN DRAKE IS BACK, BAY-BAAAAY!” The scene that is shown is Nathan falling out of a train car that hangs over a cliff. At no point does this look like gameplay footage, so I still call bullshit CG.

Marisa-bot is backstage. “It's amazing in Gamer's Heaven. All your favorite old school characters are here.” End of Line. Fittingly, she tells us the world premiere of the Terminator Salvation video game is up next.

Commercials.

Back from break, the goddess introduces Odette Yustman from Fallout 3 and Stacy Keibler, who has nothing to do with video games. They are going to present the new Terminator game trailer. Both look like they can't believe the shit they're reading and are about to crack up at any moment. Odette says she bought a T-1000 but it broke. And then pours a bucket of silver paint into an empty fishtank. Wow. Really? Anyway, the Terminator footage looks like what you'd imagine a licensed Gears of War knockoff would look like. The environment is still a devastated city, but the characters and enemies all look dull and the cover system looks sloppy.

It's a double-shot of ads as the goddess presents the non-awaited sequel, Mafia 2. It's a bullshit CG trailer with a Mafia guy confessing in church to doing a bunch of crazy shit in the 50's, like crashing cars and smoking cigarettes with women. Overall, this just looks like Vice City, cleaned up and set in the 50's.

Now is it time for an award to be presented? Nope, here's Tony Hawk to kick off a performance by 50 Cent. 50 will be performing his “Get Up” song that's all over the radio. You know, the song that's desperately trying to get his rap credibility back. 50 mumbles his way through the song, and the censors must have pulled up the lyrics to this thing, since stuff is getting censored right and left, but I can't make out a damn thing he's saying. It should also be noted that footage of his next game Blood in the Sand is playing behind him, but since, last I heard, Activision had dropped it and it was stuck in limbo, no mention is made of this game.

Going to break, the goddess says she will give us a “Front Line First Look”. What the hell is that? Is it like Front Line the recent game, or a new game, or that Front Line flea medicine? You'll have to wait until after Spike TV shows an ad for a Manswers marathon. Apparently, this Manswers show is like an “Ask Mr. Wizard” show for idiots and wifebeaters who ask questions like “can beer make your girlfriend's boobs bigger?” Oh, and that Front Line segment? It was just an army-sponsored Nvidia ad for their 3D glasses for video games.

And this concludes our third part. If you look, this award show just presented only one award in the past 30 minutes.

Coming back, the goddess presents a world premiere of the video game Watchmen: The End is Nigh. Now, I'll admit I'm not the biggest Watchmen fan so I don't get off on all the environments and characters, but this game looks like just another licensed third-person action game with different Watchmen characters doing brawler moves. Basically, without the environments and characters, this game could just be another Iron Man game or Lego Batman game.

The drought passes as two guys from Weezer who aren't the lead singer come out to present the Best Music Game award. Last year, this was called the Best Rhythm Game and I predicted that it wouldn't be around the next year after Rock Band and Guitar Hero 3 came out. Well, I forgot about sequels and that Activision is now a big whore about their IPs. Also, I'm guessing people have come to their senses about these games and that “rhythm” isn't really necessary for karaoke games and games about matching colors to different classic rock songs. Anyway, the Weezer guys come off as offended by the whole plastic guitar trend and then deadpan their lines like they're auditioning for the Daily Show.
Winner: Rock Band 2
Unfortunately, Mega-Boobs chick from Harmonix is not there this year, but instead some random guy accepts and then goes out of his way to kiss the asses of MTV and Weezer. You don't want to piss off Weezer. What if they take their four hit songs out of Rock Band?

Up next is one of the most prestigious awards of the night -- Studio of the Year. An award to identify and salute the individuals responsible for their company's success. So who does Spike get to present this award. It's the King of Queens guy riding a segway and in character to promote a new movie where he plays a bumbling mall cop. You have got to be shitting me. But Spike is not shitting. Soon, King of Queens Mall Cop is joined by his apparent nemesis in the movie -- a grungier version of the lead singer of Nickelback. Nickelback is a skater and says no mall cop can stop him. So he challenges King of Queens to a trick-off. Actually, the mall cop has no jurisdiction outside of the mall, so Nickleback could do whatever he wanted. Wait a minute, this is the fucking Studio of the Year award! What the fuck is this shit? Anyway, the skit ends when the mall cop calls in backup and the MadTV version of Terry Tate howls at Nickelback until he leaves.
Winner: Media Molecule for Little Big Planet
It is also mentioned that Little Big Planet won for Best PS3 Game. A British man and woman accept and are very genuinely thankful, like they won a real legit award. They say that they are honored to be nominated with the likes of Rockstar North, Bethesda, and Harmonix, and then proceed to thank everyone they ever crossed paths with, like Peter Molyneux and Valve. Unfortunately, this all seems a little unceremonious as you see the two mall cops still posing in character behind them.

A graphic then comes up reading “And the Winners Are”. It must be time for the Non-Award Awards. These are all the awards that they can't be bothered to present, or else they would be cutting into the amount of time given to the world premiere advertisements.
Best Driving Game: Burnout Paradise
Best Game Based on a Movie or TV Show: Lego Indiana Jones
Best Fighting Game: Soul Calibur IV
Best PC Game and Best Multiplayer Game: Left 4 Dead
Best Handheld Game: Professor Layton and the Curious Village
Best Wii Game: Boom Blox
Best Individual Sports Game (aka the Tony Hawk Award): Shaun White Snowboarding
Big Name in the Game Female: Jenny McCarthy as Tanya in C&C: Red Alert 3
Best Performance by a Human Male: Michael Hollick as Niko Bellic in GTA IV
Best Performance by a Human Female: Debi Mae West as Meryl Silverburgh in MGS4
Best Graphics and Best Original Score: Metal Gear Solid 4
Hideo Kojima and 3 other people are shown holding awards for MGS4. Wait, you had fucking Hideo Kojima there and you can't present him an award on stage, or ask him to comment on Will Wright's award. But let's look at these awards. As usual, Nintendo and the PC get the shaft, but what about the individual awards? They bring them back out of nowhere, and when unknown people win for giving voices to very memorable characters, they can't present awards to them in person. Not to mention that some of these awards have almost never been presented live, or are now unnecessary (does there need to be a Tony Hawk Award anymore?), so why even bother mentioning them?

Phew! That was a lot of awards, so let's get back to the shilling. And what better time for the mandatory Verizon Wireless spot. Melaina Scanton from VCast (who looks like if Tara Reid worked for QVC) is backstage to present cell phone games that wish they were Game Boy games. No, not like iPhone app games, but regular cell phone games. The camera man gets bored and puts some bikini models in the shot. Melaina says she's showing the hottest new mobile games, which from the looks of them are Peter Griffin fighting a giant chicken, a skeleton patting its groin and then exploding, and a sniper scope looking down a gray hallway.

Melaina is replaced by Geoff Keighly with Tony Hawk. Tony confesses he's been to all 6 VGAs and then pimps the Gears 2 DLC. Geoff points out that there was no Tony Hawk game nominated this year and Tony admits the game took a year off. But he says that the Tony Hawk franchise will be back next year with a “revolutionary” game and that “people aren't ready for what they have in store.” Is there still even a market for skateboarding games? I haven't heard anyone excited about any type of __boarding games, whether it's Tony Hawk, skate, Shaun White, or SSX, in a really long time.

Commercials.

Coming back, we are again reminded that tonight's playlist is provided by Interscope Records. We will not be forgotten! Anyway, Jack is on stage with a giant plastic flamethrower, looking like he just stole it from that one obstacle course on American Gladiators. Jack tells us to get ready to be launched into the air and land on our skulls. Then he brings out the super-duper-mega-ultra angel of video games, Tim Schafer. Tim comes out in a rickshaw pulled by those bikini models from earlier, while Jack stomps around stage trying to get a “Tim-Freaking-Schafer” chant started in the audience. The crowd looks on disinterested, because a sea of Guitar Hero players doesn't know who the creator of Grim Fandango and Psychonauts is. Tim is here to present Brutal Legend. Jack is spazzing out with the flamethrower, while Tim tries to calm him down.
Tim: “Are you just doing this because you're in the game?”
Jack bring out Rob Halford from Judas Priest, who is also in the game. Rob has a sword for Tim to martyr himself in the name of Brutal Legend, but Tim just wants to show the trailer.
Jack: “We were gonna kill you.”
Tim: “Roll the trailer!”
The trailer is mostly vehicle and animal driving, but looks very funny. Supposedly this is a third-person action game like God of War, but this trailer doesn't really focus on that. For me, as a huge Psychonauts fan, this is a day-one purchase, if anything to support DoubleFine Studios, even though I'm not a heavy metal fan. And I will actually congratulate EA for putting such a focus on a crapshoot like Brutal Legend, even if it was handled kind of childishly.

Megan Fox, who has absolutely nothing to do with video games, is here to present the Game of the Year. Megan looks like she has no idea why she's there.
Winner: Grand Theft Auto IV
It is mentioned that GTA IV also won the Best Action/Adventure Game award. A suburban-looking couple accepts the award and, for some reason, Megan pinky-shakes the guy's hand. The two look genuinely thankful, and say that the rest of the people at Rockstar are busy working on the next chapter of GTA IV. Great. How long is that DLC gonna take?

Jack is lowered from the ceiling on a swing and he is getting slap-happy. He stumbles over the year and calls the Video Game God by his real name, pointing out he has a sore throat. As Jack is reeled up to “Gamer Heaven Heaven” (don't ask), he presents Weezer to end the show. I apologize for the lack of total coverage, but this is 2008 and I came to watch video game content, so fuck the Weezer act. If you care about what Weezer sang, go find the video online. All I got from fast-forwarding through the thing is that it sounded like a typical Weezer song, the lead singer had a white suit on and a choir was singing along.

The crowd waits until after the performance to begin the mass exodus, so that's an improvement. And then I quickly turn the VCR off before the immediate encore shows me Jack Black fucking an Xbox again.

So what is there to say about the 2008 VGAs? Well, last year I used the term “eventommercial” to describe that award show because of all the obvious whoring, and that term applies more than ever this year. There were 12 trailers, as opposed to only 8 presented awards, and 2 of those had no nominees. As much as I like EA for what they've been doing lately with new franchises (ex. Dead Space and Mirror's Edge), they sure had their hands in this thing all over the place. And the skits were downright embarrassing. With last year's low-key ceremony based around fantastic games, I had figured all the “sexless nerd” crap was behind us. But something worse happened -- games like Gears and Guitar Hero went mainstream. Now instead of backhanded asides to nerds, they are trying to win over Beavis and Butthead. Not to mention that with mainstream acceptance comes mainstream attention. Many of the presenters had hardly anything to do with video games, including the presenter of the biggest award of the night. I suppose I shouldn't be too harsh on the VGAs. If you consider the MTV Movie Awards, their format is the same thing (or it was last time I watched it long ago) -- each presenter has a new movie coming out and the award winners are based on a popularity contest. I have no problem if that's the way they want to go with it -- as a fun time for gamers (and ad space for companies), but the MTV Movie Awards seem pointless compared to the Oscars. But, video games have no Oscars. To be honest, I think certain people consider this show the Oscars of video games because it gets the most viewers (as opposed to something like X-Play's Year-End Award Show). So I guess what I am asking for is a better showing of the best of a year's video games. Get knowledgeable people involved (I still have no idea who picks the damn VGA winners), put the designers, creators and voice actors all over the show, and keep the bullshit to a minimum. Or at least within reason. If Jack Black does a “I'm dancing like on vaudeville” joke, fuck you. If Jack Black does a joke that the nominees where posted on the NXE, but he couldn't find the fucking things, that's ok. I guess what it all boils down to is that, as much as I love recapping train wreck shit, as a gamer, I wish Spike would either cut the shit and make a real awards show (I'm sure real gamers wouldn't mind and the mainstream would learn something), or just cut out the “awards” and make a trailer premiere show. Oh well, see ya next year!