2011 Spike TV Video Game Awards recap

First, let’s look back at the year that was 2011 for video games. Sony’s network got hacked and Xbox’s dashboard severely changed. This, on top of Steam’s gargantuan presence among the now-superior-looking PC market, opened many gamers’ eyes to how outdated this console generation has become. Games are now much, much cheaper and much more spectacular through digital means than by buying physical discs for consoles that have terrible interfaces.

Disregarding the fact that smartphones and Steam are the future of games, how did the consoles handle this year? Xbox still thinks their next Kinect game will be the big killer app to validate its existence. Sony is content that its motion device isn’t in clearance aisles just yet, it has some exclusives to burn, and that its subscriptionless Blu-Ray-and-Netflix-playing device is still worth owning. And as for Nintendo, they held on by fingernails hoping that 3DS would sell and WiiU hype would catch fire, while comforting one of their worst years ever with exclusives like Zelda.

But that’s the Big Three, what about consoles in general? What’s going to shown on this show? Sequels, baby, sequels! This year saw many great games, but all sequels. Elder Scrolls V, Arkham Asylum 2, Gears 3, Modern Warfare 3, Portal 2 -- all sequels. Whether deserved or driven by sales, this year’s games stemmed from an impact made in the past. While I enjoyed many games this year (and many were very well received) none really grabbed me because I knew exactly what to expect. Speaking of knowing what to expect, let’s begin...

The show kicks off in a psychiatrist’s office with actor Zachary Levi (who will eternally be known as TV’s Chuck) lying on the couch. He tells the doctor he’s been losing sleep because he’s been chosen to host this year’s Video Game Awards show. As he explains the show, he keeps downgrading how much of an honor it is to host. The camera reveals his shrink as Dr. Hugo Strange from Arkham City, who sticks a syringe into Chuck’s head.

Chuck dreams he is different video game characters, meaning it’s Wacky Cosplay Time. Chuck dresses as a Modern Warfare 3 soldier. Chuck dresses as a Lego Jedi. Chuck dresses as a clown goon from Arkham City. I’m just thankful one of the costumes isn’t from the game Catherine. Finally Chuck is dressed like Ezio and told to take a giant leap of faith, like in Assassin’s Creed. Chuck pulls up various weapons from his inventory, derping all the way, until he picks the Portal gun and leaves through a hole in the wall.

The camera cuts back to the awards’ arena where Chuck is on a harness getting ziplined through an orange ring and onto the stage, causing the stage pyro to explode. Chuck’s goofy laugh haunts us, leading into the show’s introduction.

The intro’s line-up looks a little sparse, with very few presenters, acts, or premiere trailers listed. The only thing it makes a big deal of is the “exclusive” Metal Gear Rising trailer, which ironically was the only leak going into this award show. The announcer is just the standard echoed female voice used for most Spike TV promos and the location is never disclosed. As for the arena itself, it’s about as barebones as I’ve ever seen this show: standard stadium seating with a circular set at one end and rows of folding tables on the main floor where the audience is seated. This along with the untouched subs or sliders on each table just makes it look like a bad company picnic.

Chuck is unharnessed offscreen and now stands on stage dressed in an ugly plaid suit, looking like Pee-Wee Herman if he was a librarian. Although the crowd sounds like they’re going crazy, the camera shows the audience at the company picnic giving him only tepid applause. Hmmm. Interesting.

While Chuck starts his monologue, I anticipate lame video game jokes and start to fashion the noose around my neck. Thankfully, based on what I saw, Chuck likes video games so much, he has actually emulated Shang Tsung from Mortal Kombat and stolen the soul of Jimmy Fallon to be a overly-enthusiastic, yet mildly-abrasive host for this night. He starts by pointing out video game players are almost 43% women, which two random MILFs shown in the audience appreciate, and then he introduces Deadmau5 as tonight’s DJ. Deadmau5 is shown in a skybox DJ booth, taking the place of long-retired VGA DJ Funkmaster Flex and his neglected turntables.

Chuck also mentions that, on top of the exclusive trailers, this awards show will be using Augmented Reality. Basically 3D CGI cardboard cutouts will be floating around the screen, like the CGI overlay they had last year but with a bullet-time pan on them. At this point I think some markets are showing this in 3D, as Chuck takes 5 minutes showing off various 3D characters and items from the 5 Game of the Year nominees. The crowd cheers for this even though, to them, Chuck is just pointing around a huge empty stage.

But Chuck is not just a hired hand for this show. He actually knows about the game companies and development studios, and takes another 5 minutes to point them out in the audience. Which the producers undermine by never putting any of these people on camera, making Chuck look like he’s just rambling off familiar gaming studios and pointing at random people in the crowd. The camera does focus on the Activision table so Chuck can make a “hope Modern Warfare 3 breaks even LOL” joke, but no familiar faces are among them.

So besides all the 3D bullshit, this has been a pretty solid presentation, especially with Chuck looking enthusiastic and genuine about the show and video games as a whole. Time to fuck all that shit. Chuck says that, like the Oscars, there is a time limit to acceptance speeches. If a speech goes too long, you will hear a beeping noise and then be teabagged. Chuck then hears a beeping noise and is wrestled to the ground and teabagged by a man in a soldier’s outfit for five minutes. Simulated, not the man’s actual balls in Chuck’s mouth -- there are some standards on this show.

After the American Pie piefucker is shown yucking it up, Chuck loses his place and then remembers to back up a little bit so the 3D cutouts for Portal 2 can bounce around the screen. Chuck goes on and on about all the great things about Portal 2 and then officially nominated it for Game of the Year. A highlight video for the game is shown, but strangely another actor is heard as the voice of Wheatley. I think it was that mildly-retarded sounding guy they used for the early version of this game. This will make even less sense later in the night.

The announcer presents will.i.am from the alleged-popular Black Eyed Peas dance game. He nearly falls down the stairs of what looks like an empty DJ booth on his way to the stage. This, along with audience shots of Hulk Hogan and his creepy underage bride, is a really unsettling way to start the show. The will.i.am-bot robotically says that he eats, breathes, and shits games and that all sensors indicate we will love to see the premiere of this top-secret Playstation exclusive project.

The project turns out to be a Naughty Dog game – The Last of Us. The pre-rendered video looks, on the surface, like Left 4 Dead Island (a father and daughter running from zombies), especially if the island was New York from I Am Legend and the zombies had broccoli for heads.

Brooklyn Decker walks out onto the stage. Her only association to any type of game is announced as her starring in the upcoming Battleship movie. Or as I like to see it -- Hasbro’s experiment to see how loosely they can base a movie on one of their toy properties and still make money off of a Michael-Bay-inspired-geared-to-the-Maxim-magazine-crowd movie. Brooklyn, sounding like the perfect sex robot and looking like a 40-year-old soap opera actress, sweet-talks the crowd about waiting for and opening video games and then reveals the nominees for Best Action/Adventure Game. I don’t normally go over the nominees, but I need to point out how dry this year looks when they only have 4 games to nominate and one of them is Zelda: Skyward Sword.
Best Action/Adventure Game: Batman: Arkham City
Hold on a minute, the announcer is getting the rest of Batman’s awards out of the way. Remember, they have no time on this two hour show to recognize any game twice (except the Game of the Year).
Best Xbox 360 Game: Batman: Arkham City
Best Adapted Video Game: Batman: Arkham City
A bald guy and a club-scene guy accept for Rocksteady Studios. They are presented the trophy, which is still the deep blue Vector Monkey statue from last year. The clubster nervously thanks the production team and the fans, while the bald guy proves he isn’t mute.

Elsewhere on the stage, Chuck introduces Deadmau5 in the DJ booth once again. This time he mentions that Deadmau5 has a Playstation Vita game coming out. Wait, what? Think about it: if you were Sony (and you know they’re a part of this show), wouldn’t you use this advertisement of a show to...I don’t know...present your new system to all the uninformed bros and console kiddies, especially when this uneventful show points out how this console generation is coming to an end? Just a thought.

Commercials. Nothing of note just yet.

After the break, Chuck snerks to himself about a quick Alec Baldwin/Words with Friends joke before bringing up the topic of online gaming. Chuck pinballs and rambles through various jokes on the subject until he finally addresses a real problem: douchebags. What starts off as a play on “you might be a redneck” jokes quickly becomes Chuck seriously explaining how team-killing, exploiting glitches to get ahead, and using racial and homophobic slurs makes you an online piece-of-shit that ruins all the fun. The audiences applauds as Brooklyn Decker doesn’t get any of this and Seth Green looks uncomfortable. He must be one of those online racists Chuck was talking about.

Chuck then announces the Character of the Year award is up for voting on the VGA’s website (and thankfully Dane Cook will not be presenting the nominees this year). Chuck kicks it off by nominating The Joker from Arkham City. Like last year, personalized CGI videos of these characters will play for each of the nominees. In this one, Joker stalks around his hideout while Harley drops and breaks the award Rocksteady just won. The strangest thing about all this is that Mark Hamill did Joker’s voice for this quick video, even though he said he was retiring from the character after Arkham City.

LL Cool J walks onto the stage for the next presentation. The only connection he has to anything electronic, let alone video games, is announced is him being the founder of boomdizzle.com, whatever the hell that is. LL asks where the gamers are and the camera zooms in on the random MILFs again.
LL: “When Bioware came out with Mass Effect 1 and 2, I wondered where they could go from here, right?”
Audience:
LL: “Right?!”
After yelling at the crowd until they respond, LL explains that in this Mass Effect, Commander Shepard will save Earf from the robotic Reapers. Unlike the other two Mass Effects where you take on the Reapers. Oh, and I guess this means it wins an award:
Most Anticipated Game: Mass Effect 3
The video shows some exciting psuedo-gameplay of Shepard, Garrus, and some new guy running Gears-of-War-style from a giant Halo beetle-robot. The robot looks like it has the drop on them until a giant sandworm (Thrasher Maw?) takes it out.

LL screams about how great that video looked while Brooklyn Decker fake-claps in the audience. He also reveals a video for a new game that will “represent a new direction and genre from Bioware.” The video looks like a throwaway cutscene from Battlefield as tanks roll through a downtown Middle-Eastern city. Quickly the title is flashed: Command and Conquer Generals 2. Coming 2013. Looks like EA is finally sinking their claws into Bioware and making them do their dirty work.

Chuck introduces the self-proclaimed go-to female celebrity for online games herself, Felicia Day, who will be backstage all night to embarrass herself in support of Child’s Play, the charity designed by Penny Arcade to provide games for sick kids in hospitals. She’ll be doing this by playing vaguely-video-game-related Double Dare challenges for mostly unspecified amounts of money. Let the games begin...

Felicia’s backstage (looking pretty damn hot in a tight Spiderman suit) along with the bloated son of Seth McFarlane. Wait, nevermind, it’s one of the Jonas Brothers. Representing this year’s annual Spiderman game, Felicia and Shemp Jonas will put on velcro suits and jump onto a wall covered in dollar amount signs. Both jump and are immediately immobilized against the wall. If the point of this skit was to show off how nice Felicia’s ass looks --mission accomplished! The skit awkwardly ends as everyone realizes there’s no graceful way to pry them both off the wall.

Commercials. End of the first quarter.

After the break, a video immediately plays for the next nominee for Character of the Year: Nathan Drake from Uncharted 3. Just like every Uncharted 3 video, Nathan is pissed standing next to that crashed plane in the desert. This is personalized by Nathan wearing a tuxedo and walking away, bitching about being late for the VGAs.

A grumbly voice welcomes us to Arkham City as the stage is now filled with 3D cutouts of Batman characters with Chuck hidden among them. He explains how the previous Batman game did the impossible by being both a great game and great representation of the source material, only to be outdone by the recent game. And then he nominates “Arkham Asylum” for Game of the Year.

After an impressive nomination video for Arkham City, Chuck calls Shemp Jonas out to the stage, talking about him like the Jonas Brothers are still big sex symbols and big game sellers (if you count Disney Sing It). Shemp nearly swallows his microphone describing the next game premiere as taking place in a corrupt and impoverished world. The game is Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Patriots and immediately I remember the old Rainbow Six games being great squad-based shooters. And the word “patriots” in the title implies your squad may be going rogue to take out corrupt government officials. Nope. In true Call of Duty viral marketing fashion, the video is a shock scene of suited badasses storming into the ivory tower of a 1%-er, strapping a bomb to him, throwing him out of his office window, and detonating him in the middle of traffic on a busy street. Truly tasteless.

Back on stage, Chuck reminds us that gamers are all about competition. Just like the voting competition on the VGA website to pick the cover athlete of the new NFL Blitz game (now an EA Sports title). The crowd gives absolutely no reaction to this announcement until the 4 athletes are shown. Whichever cover they use, all of them look like the shitty not-Blitz games you saw swimming in the PS2 Bargain Bins about 5 years ago.

Chuck again gets segue-flustered and then remembers to present a video for Activision’s Hire a Vet program. The video shows Call of Duty characters reminding everyone that when a veteran comes home, nobody wants to hire them. So Activision has set up a program to help vets get back into the workplace. I know I’m going to hell for thinking this, but Nintendo should’ve had a parody spot with the Mario Brothers reminding people to hire plumbers.

The show dies down to go to commercial, but not before airing the most unintentionally funny spot of the night: two bros are sitting on a couch talking shit and playing games until they are both killed in-game. Who did it? The camera turns to reveal Colonel Sanders sitting next to them dressed in his trademark plantation owner’s outfit. On the surface, this may not sound funny until you consider Chuck calling out bro-gamers as being insensitive racists and the commercial has two bros playing with the most offensive and racist company mascot next to Aunt Jemima.

Commercials. What does it say about the expanse of the Call of Duty franchise when Jeep makes an official Call of Duty Jeep?

Coming back from break, the camera pans through the audience while waiters are at most of the tables. Sorry guys, the sliders still haven’t been touched. On stage, a giant CGI cardboard cutout of a dragon looms overhead as Chuck gushes about Skyrim. After pointing out this came out last month (and nominated before it was available to the public), Chuck formally nominated Skyrim for Game of the Year. A video plays showing off many of the environments and trailer scenes while that one Skyrim song plays in the background. I must admit, I don’t give a shit about fantasy games, but this makes Skyrim look pretty cool. Actually, the video is so good, after it plays, the stage climaxes with little puffs of flames.

Comedy Central’s latest flavor-of-the-month, the cast of Workaholics, walk down from the empty DJ booth and will not stop whooping and shouting. They even drown out the announcer reading off each their names. They’re here to present the new Alan Wake game.
Glasses Workaholic: “It’s like playing a horror movie written by Steve King and directed by Albert HitchCOCK!”
Upon hearing “COCK!”, the rest of the Workaholics scream out in laughter until the premiere video plays. The game is called Alan Wake’s American Nightmare. It should also be noted that one of the guys called it an “Xbox Live” game before seeing the video. The video makes it look like an arcade version of Alan Wake, with the same areas, just scaled down and with greater firepower. Despite the game looking like more of the same Alan Wake nobody bought the first time, the title card gives it a grindhouse feel.

Seth Green walks out onstage and starts talking about it being the 25th anniversary of the Legend of Zelda. After mentioning all the fun he’s had with the series, he announces that Zelda is now the first game to be entered into the Video Game Hall of Fame. Wait, which Hall of Fame? Aren’t there like three different Halls of Fame for games?
Video Game Hall of Fame: The Legend of Zelda
Oh, I guess it must be the Spike TV one.

A montage video shows all the previous Zelda games (excluding the CD-I ones, of course) concluding with Skyward Sword. Back in the arena, the lights dim and the Godfather of Video Games himself, Shigeru Miyamoto comes out holding the award. In a nice touch, he holds it over his head like Link finding a new item. A much-deserved standing ovation erupts in the crowd. Surprising to me, Miyamoto breaks out the English and thanks everybody who loves the Zelda and Mario games and says Nintendo is humbled by the fans’ continued support.

After this amazing display (especially on a show like this), how do you follow it up? Felicia Day playing live-action Fruit Ninja with a samurai sword, while the Workaholics throw fruit at her. After realizing they have enough fruit to last for the next two hours, the camera just cuts back to the stage.

On stage is Carrie Keagan, who will be keeping track of all the Twitter bullshit for this show tonight. Carrie mentions that Alan Wake and Zelda are the latest VGA trends online. Maybe because they were the last two games shown. As the show goes to another commercial break, it should be noted that we’re an hour into the show and only two awards have been presented, including one that wasn’t up for voting.

Commercials, including an extended promo for Sherlock Holmes 2. End of 2nd quarter.

Coming back, the announcer says to check the VGA website for more info on the new Alan Wake game. After that, we go straight to another nominee for Character of the Year: Wheatley from Portal 2. The video spoils the end of Portal 2 by showing where Wheatley ended up. And depending on who you ask, clues are hidden throughout the video that hints at Half-Life 3, when at most it will probably be for Portal 2 DLC, like when they changed the ending of the first Portal. And speaking of Wheatley, if they used Stephen Merchant’s voice for the custom-made video, why couldn’t they get his voice for the GOTY nomination video?

The stage fills up with 3D cutouts of Tomb-Raider-style artifacts and items, which means Uncharted 3 is up next. Interestingly, Chuck doesn’t seem as enthusiastic like when he announced the other games tonight, meaning he probably hasn’t played it or doesn’t care. Chuck officially nominates Uncharted 3 for Game of the Year, showing a video of basically everything you’ve already seen in the last twenty Uncharted 3 commercials.

Old-ass Tony Hawk is wheeled out for his annual VGA appearance (as if this show needs traditions), while the announcer reveals they’re making a Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD game. Reset button -- that’s what the Tony Hawk franchise forgot to do. As he addresses the crowd, it looks like time has not been kind to Mr. Hawk -- looking bug-eyed and like he’s wearing a toupee.

Tony sets up the premiere of the 2012 Spiderman game, which incidentally will be a movie tie-in. But there’s the problem. As far as I’ve heard, the villain in the new movie will be The Lizard. But in the video, the game’s story is that Oscorp is making car-sized and giant-sized bug robots to destroy the city. The only thing that remotely looks related to the new movie is Spidey’s new outfit.

A sad realization washes over the show as Spike TV’s biggest star comes to the stage. You see, since UFC has now jumped networks to the Fox stations, the biggest name on the Spike TV banner is that of the 58-year-old face of Impact Wrestling, Hulk Hogan. Hogan staggers out looking like the nursing home version of whatever you think Hulk Hogan would look like today, while still trying to swagger like when he became a bad guy almost 15 years ago. The saddest part is when the camera catches his underage bride in the audience taking cellphone pictures, like this is the only thing he lives for.

Having Hogan up here makes sense, since time has forgot him and he is an afterthought. Just like the list of Non-Award Awards they couldn’t bother to present in person on the show. The announcer lumps them together for each winning game, but I’m going to list them individually so you get a sense of just how much they left off the show:
Best PS3 Game: Uncharted 3
Best Graphics: Uncharted 3
Best Wii Game: Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Best Motion Game: Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Best Fighting Game: Mortal Kombat
Best Independent Game: Minecraft
Best Handheld/Mobile Game: Super Mario 3D Land
Best Song: Bastion
Best Original Score: Bastion
Best Downloadable Game: Bastion
Best Individual Sports Game: Fight Night Champion
Best PC Game: Portal 2
Best Multi-Player: Portal 2
Best DLC: Portal 2
Best Performance by a Human Male: Stephen Merchant (Wheatly in Portal 2)
Best Performance by a Human Female: Ellen McClain (Glados in Portal 2)
Let’s examine this list for a second. 16 awards across 8 games and 2 individuals that they couldn’t bother to air in person. Not to mention, the list is terrible. How does Uncharted 3 win for best graphics when it’s not even on a PC (where every gamer knows the best graphics/framerates are these days)? Which song from Bastion won? What was the name of the Portal 2 DLC so I may purchase it? Who did Nintendo have to suck off to win Best Mobile Game in the era of the iPhone?

We cut to Felicia backstage, stationed at a conveyor belt in front of a Little Big Planet 2 sign. For this challenge Felicia and Brooklyn Decker will be taking cupcakes off the moving belt with their mouths -- a game everyone remembers from Little Big Planet 2. If the purpose of this skit was to show Felicia and Brooklyn perform vague fellatio and a bunch of moving cupcakes -- mission accomplished! The announcer tell us to check out more about Spiderman 2012 at the VGA website.

Commercials.

As we return, the announcer reminds everyone to vote on the VGA website for the NFL Blitz cover as well as Character of the Year. Speaking of which, another nomination video airs for Character of the Year: Marcus Fenix for Gears of War 3. Marcus is in the heat of battle, being the total badass he is. And then he sticks a grenade in a guy and says “Hope you’re having a blast!” Groan.

Chuck is now sitting on the steps of the stage and makes a quick joke about “social gamers” (meaning games like Mafia Wars on Facebook). The joke is they’re all on their phones and not being social to each other. Speaking of bullshit at a video game show, Chuck presents the band The Black Keys. As I’ve stated in the past, I don’t follow music, so I have no idea who these guys are. As far as this show is concerned, I’ve never even heard their stuff in any video games. The performance isn’t bad, and the band just looks and sounds as if Buddy Holly existed in the year 2011 and dressed like Weezer. As expected, the crowd is not jamming out to the song (as they never have in the past), but there must be something hypnotic about it if it can make Tony Hawk, Hulk Hogan, Seth Green, and even Shigeru Miyamoto bob their heads to the beat.

After the set, Chuck walks through the crowd (revealing an embarrassed girl taking cellphone pictures). He says that gamers are very passionate and some more than others. I know, just ask my wife...hello! But Chuck doesn’t mean that kind of passion, he’s talking about rage. Take the example of blogger Black Baron, or for the purposes of this show: The Angry Black Man.

Chuck plays a YouTube video Angry Black Man made in his car last year, bitching and cussing about the bullshit nominees for the 2010 show. Chuck reveals that Spike TV actually footed the bill and got The Angry Black Man there in person. And he’s sitting across from Neil Sherman, the slimy, Burn-Notice-villain-looking Spike executive in charge of the VGAs. Even though TABM just stares at Burn Notice guy, Chuck says he’s changed his tune and made a new video.

The new video plays and TABM has been satisfied. What was his big beef? He just wanted Skyward Sword nominated. What? WHAT?! Ok, fuck the rest of this skit, let’s look at this. You’re telling me that in the year when Nintendo’s credibility and stock is so low that they have to (and this is just my outlook) rig it so a 3DS game wins in the Mobile Game category, rig it so Zelda is nominated up and down the card and have Miyamoto win a lifetime achievement award to make Zelda look cool and relevant, and also have Miyamoto himself rocking out on camera to look hip with the kids -- on this year, Spike TV has to frame it that an irate gamer is what forced their hand into nominating this game? I can’t fucking believe this shit.

Anyway, Stacy Keibler is in the empty DJ booth to reveal her big crush. It’s Optimus Prime. So imagine she’s fingerbanging herself to this premiere of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. In case you don’t know, this game is a sequel to last year’s War for Cybertron, a Gears of War take on the original toyline. In what is actually one of the better trailers of the night, a sappy Madworld-type song plays as Optimus carries his severely damaged, implied lover Bumblebee through a battlefield while leading the fight against a robot I assume is Megatron. Old familiar faces pop up like Bruticus, Grimlock, and Starscream as nice touches. But I have to say this: I’m a child of the 80’s and I love Transformers. I loved them as a kid. But between the constant retread on my childhood memories, through the non-stop movies, games, toys, and cartoons, I think I’m about done with Transformers altogether.

An extended Chevy spot plays, which, by the way, mentions:
Best Driving Game: For(t)za Motorsport 4

Commercials. In an odd showing, there’s an ad for Google, explaining how it helped the winner of the $1 million Major League Baseball 2K11 no-hitter contest. End of third quarter.

Returning from break, a ring of CGI swords are thrust into the stage. Chuck tells us that after 15+ Zelda games, Skyward Sword is the most cinematic one yet and then presents a highlight video, formally nominating it for Game of the Year.

After the video is probably the most hilarious part of the night. Knowing how tired everything about this man has become, Chuck begrudgingly calls out Charlie Sheen, and then sticks his tongue squarely in his cheek before walking offstage. Charlie, not as insane as you’d expect, sets the scene of an intense FPS gunfight. Nope, that’s just Tuesday in the Sheen house! LOLOLOL! But seriously, Charlie took this gig after asking how much it paid and if there were women. The cameraman finds those two random MILFs again to prove women are there.
Best Shooter: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Three college-aged American-Pie-looking goons come up to accept. The main goon intentionally goes long so Sherminator, who keeps looking offstage for the soldier, can be teabagged.

Jerry Rice, whose last contribution to games was Jerry Rice and Nitus’ Dog Football, walks out to make an announcement. His batteries must be low because he slooowly, robotically, and then finally spits out who won the vote for NFL Blitz cover athlete. It was Ray Rice. Con...grat...u...la...tions.

We cut to backstage where Chuck is standing next to an actual cow. Because cows are in Farmville. And Farmville is a game. And this is a show about games. Moving on...

Clifford Bleszinski (announced as Cliffy B) is in the empty DJ booth. He says this year is the 20th anniversary of Epic Games and they’re going to try something new. Their new game will be one where you scavenge, build, and survive. Minecraft? Nope, the game is called Fortnite and the video is...yeah. It’s a very cartoony found-footage trailer where ghetto kids (ugh) grab a bunch of junk and fortify a building to defend it against (ugh) zombies. I think they should have just stuck to Minecraft.

Heading into the commercial break, Mac and Cheese replays all three of the award winners from over the past 1 hour and 37 minutes.

Commercials. Spike TV has kicked up ancient internet personality iJustine to cover their CES special. She should go to the event as if she’s still stuck in 2001 and that she’s scared of the new technology.

Coming back, Carrie Keagan updates us on all the Twitter bullshit again. Guess what, the last two games mentioned are trending. She also gives Verizon customers a number to text to see a trailer for an Android game. Now they make trailers for cellphone games. Still think Nintendo is #1 for handhelds?

Ready to feel old? Stifler and the piefucker from American Pie come out to promote the American Pie class reunion movie. They will be presenting the Gamer God award. This is interesting because the last time they awarded this, it went to Will Wright to promote Spore. So I guess it goes to Miyamoto? Wait, he just won the Hall of Fame award. Isn’t this the same thing? Well, no. Actually it’s just a glorified Studio of the Year award. (Spoiler: Blizzard wins)

The two American Pie guys are hilarious during this presentation. While both are singing the praises of the company that made Diablo, Starcraft, and World of Warcraft, Piefucker acts like he wouldn’t touch these games with a ten foot pole, while Stifler acts like these games are the gayest shit ever.
Gamer God Award: Blizzard Entertainment
This award is so prestigious that Stifler and Piefucker are laughing and trading nutshots as the 3 Blizzard founders are announced and come to the stage. The main oldie, looking like Art Garfunkle, acts very genuine with his thanks. And then, in complete coincidence, Garfunkle debuts the opening cinematic to Diablo 3. In it, a woman dreams of demons raining down on earth and raising a giant demon before she finally wakes up. Her old uncle is looking through tomes about hell on earth when suddenly he’s killed by raining hellfire.

In a funny bit, Chuck’s low health bar is displayed on the giant onstage monitor. Chuck walks around to various tables, picking up video game tropes to refill it: a turkey leg (real and cold), a blue potion (tastes like urine), and a medkit (Chuck: “How does this work? Do I rub it on myself? It works so fast in the games.”)

Chuck brings out Felicia Day from backstage to present a new trailer for Bioshock Infinite. This is where you can tell who the real gamers are on this show. Felicia seems tickled pink to be presenting it and gushes over what make the Bioshock games so great, before getting completely giddy as the video starts. The trailer shows off more setpieces from the game, set to the old spiritual song “May the Circle Be Unbroken”. Still looks good, but nothing really shocking compared to the previous trailers. Now I’ll admit, this is my most anticipated game of 2012, but I’m starting to get worried that it will just be a series of setpieces and not the insane haunted-house-world that you could explore in the last two games.

Commercials.

Back from the break, the announcer reminds us to see more about Diablo 3 at the VGA website, while two men walk onstage. They’re two fighters from the Bellator (note: not UFC) MMA fighting promotion and they’re dressed like two characters from Glee. Together they compose just enough English to say that they are revealing the winner of the people’s vote.
Character of the Year: Joker from Batman Arkham City
In the CGI acceptance video, Joker stalks dangerously around his lair before popping up behind a podium to accept the award. In the podium he finds a script for “Batman Arkham World” and pitches it saying he won’t need it. Joker: “Spoilers.”

Now this is what it’s all come down to -- the presentation for Game of the Year. To bring this baby home, Chuck himself decides to recap the nominees and announce the winner.
Game of the Year: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The announcer mentions the other two awards for this game:
Best RPG: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Studio of the Year: Bethesda Game Studios
I could complain about the Studio of the Year versus the Gamer God award, but fuck it, let’s keep moving. Three guys accept the award. Two guys thank their wives for putting up with their schedule and the third guy must really be a mute.

So that’s the show, right? Wrong. Don’t tell me you forgot about the HUGE exclusive reveal promised for the end of this show. The trailer so secret, it was the only VGA trailer to get leaked before the show aired. The announcer presents the creator of “Metal Gear.......”, Hideo Kojima. Kojima stands in the empty DJ booth next to the producer of his new game and attempts to talk to the crowd. Attempts. Because his English is horrible. He desperately tries to spit out the name of the game and apologizes about his English for so long, my DVR actually cuts out. I pick the show back up just in time to see Kojima give up and tag off to his associate, who knows at least enough English to kick off the video.

In case you missed it, the game is a Metal Gear game, but not a “Solid” game or featuring Snake. Instead it’s all about Raiden, who’s now a cyborg-ninja with an electric ninja sword. Sneaking and stealth are completely out the window, in exchange for Ninja Raiden. Actually, I didn’t mean that as a pun, but it fits perfectly. The whole game looks like Ninja Gaiden with Raiden walking on walls and cutting many things into many pieces. At the end of the trailer, you see why Kojima had such a tough time. The name of the game: Metal Gear Rising Revengeance. Explained as “Revenge with a Vengeance.” That’s ridiculous. That’s like saying something is relevantance -- relevant with relevance. I just don’t know what else to say about this one.

Anyway, Chuck thanks everyone, including new producer of this show, Survivor’s Mark Burnett. I also thank the guy because that at least means the show won’t end with the production logo flipping you off. And that’s a wrap.

So how about that show? I gotta admit it was a pretty good showing. Even if Zachary Levi and Felicia Day aren’t huge gamers or nerds in real life, you feel like they at least genuinely know what makes games great. I’ll always take this over Doogie or Samuel L. Jackson, who come off as master bullshitters, or people like Olivia Munn, who think geek cred is owed to them. And to be totally honest, all of the bullshit tonight was just to plug the website, satisfy the “everyone must Twitter” fad, or to help out a great, unsung gaming cause -- so you can’t really argue with that.

So the show itself wasn’t bad, and I’ve already addressed the awards, so let’s touch on why everyone really watched this -- for the games that were previewed. Let’s look back at the line-up: Command and Conquer Generals 2, NFL Blitz 2012, Alan Wake 1.5, Spiderman 2012, Gears of Transformers 2, Bioshock 3, and Diablo 3. In fact, the only original games were the resurrection of the Rainbow Six franchise, two zombie games, and Metal Gear game with a style and character nobody wanted. Don’t get me wrong, some of these games will be great, but just don’t be surprised if this show looks exactly the same next year. See ya then!

2010 Spike TV Video Game Awards Recap

It’s the first part of December, which means it’s time once again to uphold an annual tradition – recapping the 2010 Spike TV VGA Awards. Now this year was no slouch when it came to games, albeit sequels, that were incredibly solid. This year saw new games for the franchises of Halo, Mass Effect, Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, Super Mario Galaxy, God of War, Starcraft, Dead Rising, Fallout and even games for played-out titles like Need for Speed, Street Fighter, and Tomb Raider and most of these far exceeded expectations in quality. And that’s not even counting excellent unexpected titles like Red Dead Redemption and recognizable, but slightly below average titles like Metroid Other M and Bioshock 2. So you would imagine this year’s award show would be overflowing with an amount of deserving names throughout every category.

Nope. If you were stranded on a desert island for a year, starting in January and swam ashore in December and watched this show, you’d think that only about five games came out that were worth a shit.

Oh, and a quick word of warning – all the bullshit is back. After last year’s lack of host and a simple “award”-trailer-“award”-trailer setup, we’re back to a host who hates himself for hosting the show, bad jokes, and overall non-game-related bullshit. So fasten your seatbelts and let’s get this started.

As expected, the show begins with a viewer discretion warning for the M-Rated footage about to be shown. Or maybe the viewer discretion is for the opening number. The dark stage opens up to a lit-up staircase and a troupe of male Broadway dancers in white top hats and tuxedos. They’re dancing a simple number and belting out generic lyrics. What are you saying Captain Obvious? They’re going to have someone pretend to kill them onstage? Captain Obvious, that’s a terrible closed-minded, bloodthirsty stereotype of the common gamer. It’s also the lamest, unfunny way to end this skit.

The dancers climb the staircase and introduce the host of tonight’s presentation: Neil Patrick Harris. This guy can be in all the stoner movies and cornball sitcoms until the end of time, he’ll always be Doogie Howser to me. Anyway, you guessed it, this was a big riff on some over-the-top number Doogie did at the Tony Awards. Doogie pulls out two AK-47s and guns down the entire dance team. Captain Obvious says I owe him $20 now.

The intro plays and all the games with trailers being shown are listed off. All of these games were spoiled earlier in the week with the exception of the Thor movie tie-in and SSX. Really? SSX?! Also, don’t be fooled by thinking since Tony Hawk got top-billing in the list of presenters, he’s the only guy here. He’s just one of the only guys here tonight that’s halfway related to the damn games industry.

Neither the location, nor the arena is revealed and neither is the announcer. She’s just a non-descript Spike-style voiceover with a little echo added. The venue is basically an opening stage with two platforms about twenty feet from the stage. Surrounding these platforms is a sea of people. No, not a bunch of fake enthusiastic people in a mosh pit, like at most MTV award shows. These are people at round tables, like at the Daytime Emmys.

Who are these people? You’ll see in a minute, but they sure aren’t the guys in the industry. Come to think of it, they might not even be mostly real people. Because the crowd is Duh-ead tonight. Morituary Dead. Cemetary Dead. Dead as a Fucking Doornail Dead.

Getting back to the show, Doogie is in the middle of the set and he’s out to monologue. He starts by showing some love to the programmers and creators of the games we love. The cameraman focuses on industry giants Rick Fox and Eliza Dushku. And then he goes into the video game jokes. The fifth level of Hell is composed of stacks upon stacks of video game jokebooks.

After Doogie finishes his “LOL imagine a TSA inspector Kinect game” joke, I take my head out of the gas oven and walk back into the room. Doogie then goes on for about twenty minutes on how, at home, we’ll see an overlay of extra video projected on the stage, but the developers like Nathan Fillion in the audience will not. It’s ok, Doogie. Sporting events have been adding fake lines and arrows to the field for at least five years now.

Doogie announces that throughout the night they will be presenting the Game of the Year nominees, starting with Call of Duty Black Ops. We cut to a video of a woman reading numbers into a PA microphone (I’m guessing this happened in Black Ops. Didn’t play it.). After the video Doogie is still on stage, but now he’s rigged to an interrogation chair. I guess that was part of the Black Ops intro. Doogie then says the saddest thing I’ve heard in a long time – Black Ops sold more copies in its first week of sales than any other entertainment media ever ever EVER. As I pick myself up off the floor, a video plays, showcasing the game.

Maria Meh-whats-her-name from a couple of years back comes onscreen to announce that she’ll be backstage to waste time on this show. At no point in the evening does Maria contribute a single thing. No developers are interviewed. No secret projects are revealed. Just dumb questions for B-to-C level celebrities. She sends it back to the stage for an anticipated announcement.

Projected onto the two stage platforms are CGI villains from the Arkham Asylum sequel, Batman: Arkham City. One platform has the main villains like Joker, Harley, and Catwoman, while the other one shows two generic inmate thugs. They must not be done with the main villains yet, because while an announcement about the villains plays on the speakers, we’re stuck looking at a post-apocalyptic inmate version of Rufus from Street Fighter 4 for about five minutes before the trailer kicks in.

This trailer fills in the blanks of the teaser that was realized about a week before this award show. In case you didn’t see it, the teaser was of pre-rendered footage of Batman beating down a small police attack squad. In this video, the squad’s commander is being cruelly injected with syringes and interrogated by his boss. His boss is revealed as looong-time Batman villain Hugo Strange. I’m assuming if you don’t know who Hugo Strange is, use that as your barometer on what to expect from Arkham City.

G4 survivor Olivia Munn walks out to the stage to present Studio of the Year. Olivia’s in super-serious mode and almost seems like she’s scolding the crowd for not realizing real gamers appreciate the studios behind the games above all else. In a weird twist, the nominated studios are listed off, but not the games these companies made.
Winner: Bioware (Mass Effect 2)
Two well-dressed guys accept the award, which is still the bizarre Vector Monkey just translucent and blue. The first guy assures fans that more good stuff is coming. Before they’re dragged offstage, the second guy quickly and awkwardly thanks the developers’ families. Totally not suspicious of another EA Wives situation at Bioware.

A curse falls upon the crowd and Dane Cook walks out to the stage. He’ll be coming out throughout the show to present the nominees for the never-before-seen Character of the Year award. His shtick is that he knows these guys personally, like the Hollywood jetsetter he is. Keep in mind, the last Hollywood thing he did was a Kate Hudson chick flick almost three years ago that scored a 15% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Dane’s first buddy he’s nominating is “Easy” Ezio from Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. Apparently he’s quite the love machine. You can almost hear the echo from every word falling flat against the audience. Dane sends it to a custom-made CGI video of Ezio accepting the nomination. He seriously points out that we should be vigilant against the oppressive Templars. At first, I thought they were heading for a shrewd WikiLeaks joke, but no, just Assassin’s Creed bullshit.

Commercials. By far the creepiest Burger King commercial I’ve seen in a while airs during this break. It’s the one where the guy and girl are dancing and the chicken sandwich guy behind the guy is making rape-eyes with the girl.

Fun fact: I got this image by typing “bk chicken sandwich rapist” into Youtube.

Back from the break, the stage is showing a snowy mountain range. Chanting hooded druids are flooding the stage. Actually, only about four of the druids are pretending to chant, if you watch their lips. The announcer calls out Todd Howard, whoever the hell that is. He explains that he’s from Bethesda and he thanks Spike TV for cashing their check and showing lots of love to Fallout 3 and Oblivion, which was even named GOTY a few years ago. Todd says now is the right time and unveils the teaser for their latest game. The teaser basically shows a pewter mosaic coming to life explaining that the Gates of Oblivion will unleash some dragon and one man will fight it. The game is announced as Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I think C4 just filled the cup.

Even though the crowd got hot during the trailer, cutting back to the stage, the audience just gives a polite golf clap and Doogie rolls his eyes and says “yeah, that looked cool.” Or maybe Doggie’s just mad because he has to tell terrible video-games-as-porn-titles jokes. After explaining David Carradine died of autoerotic asphyxiation and saying the dirtiest title is Tiger Woods 11, Doogie acknowledges that skit sucked and moves onto a video to clear up rumors about the new Mortal Kombat game. You mean the screenshots earlier this week of Kratos in the PS3 game? Well, this video dispels those rumors by showing a pre-rendered cutscene of Scorpion going to finish off Sub-Zero, but Kratos comes in and kills him instead. I’m saving my money for the Wii version with Link in it.

This segues to Dane Cook coming back onstage to nominate his buddy Kratos for Character of the Year. Did you know Kratos is a terrible wingman? Every word Dane says sucks more and more energy out of the audience. The audience succumbs just as a nice-looking CGI video plays of Kratos in Aphrodite’s Chamber surrounded by women, leading to him beating up the camera.

90210’s AnnaLynne McCord, who has nothing to do with video games, is activated and walks to the middle of the stage. She’s here to reveal a never-before-seen trailer. Strangely, Annalynne starts by reading the teleprompter like a sex phone operator and finishing like a whore working for the Home Shopping Network. But how can you sound like a whore when you’re plugging a tie-in movie based on a movie people are still pretty indifferent about: Thor: God of Thunder? In a surprise to no one, the game is a last-gen looking third-person action game that looks suspiciously like another “God of” game. The weird thing is, for a movie whose selling point so far is Ordinary Guy + Hammer = Thor, all the game locations seem to take place in Mount Olympus, Paradise, or Hell.

Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth, comes onstage and says how honored he is to be in a Marvel movie like Thor. Because, let’s face it, the worst-case-scenario is that they sucker the audience the first week, make #1 at the box office, and get an easy sequel out of it. That and this guy being guaranteed to be in the Avengers movie. Thor is out to present Best Action/Adventure Game. To everyone’s surprise, Spike actually acknowledged Super Mario Galaxy 2 as one of the nominees.
Winner: Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
The Bullshit-o-meter goes off as AssCreedBro wins, beating Mario Galaxy, God of War, and Red Dead, despite coming out less than a month ago. A guy in a jacket and a guy in an Assassin’s Creed logo shirt come up to accept. The jacketed guy with a vaguely-foreign accent honestly thanks the development team and fans. I thought the guy in the Assassin’s Creed shirt was going to act goofy, like he’s pretending to be one of the future assassins in the game, but luckily I was wrong.

Now in the past there have always been hints of Armed Forces advertisements on this show. Well, never has it been more pronounced than this year. They had a poll on Spike TV’s website to have people vote for Strongest Hero in Video Games. Who won? I DON”T GIVE A GOOD GOD DAMN WHO WON, YOU PIECE OF SHIT! Sergeant Major Kickass appears onscreen to tell you these fake heroes are pussies compared to a real hero – the Army Ranger! Footage is shown of the 2010 Best Ranger Competition, which looks exciting if you’ve never seen listless, exhausted soldiers filing through an obstacle course, and occasionally falling on their head. The rest is on the Army’s website is you want to see the rest and watch your eyes glaze over from boredom.

Commercials. Hilariously, that “badass” segment is immediately followed by an ad where children make chocolate milk.

We return to see Denise Richards, about 15 years and two kids past whatever hotness you remember her having in Wild Things, approach the stage. She robotically presents the band My Chemical Romance who will perform “Planetary Go”, the Gran Turismo 5 intro song. Because people play Gran Turismo for the soundtrack. Actually the song is a catchy, upbeat pop-punk song, if maybe a little on the generic side. Thankfully a VGA tradition is upheld as the crowd is completely silent and motionless during this performance.

Maria is backstage with Comedy Central’s flavor-of-the-month Nick Swardson. Maria asks Nick about trash-talking in games. If he’s to be believed, Nick has had two Xbox Live accounts banned for TOS violations. His latest offence? Telling some guy he was going to cut off his mother’s head. No homophobic slurs. No racial slurs. No sexual slurs. Literally, cutting her head off. Maria just smiles and says that family members are off-limits in trash-talking. Nick puts on his hardass face and scowls “no.” Maria perkily says “yes,” and the camera awkwardly cuts away.

Jason Ritter from NBC’s terminally-ill show THE EV3NT arrives onstage, surrounded by video from Mass Effect 2. He quotes the game and gets absolutely no reaction from the crowd. Nevertheless, he enthusiastically sets up the story of the game and nominates Mass Effect 2 for GOTY as a blurry overlay hangs on the screen before the promo video airs.

After the promo video, a still excited Jason presents the trailer for Mass Effect 3, another game announcement that was spoiled either this week. The trailer shows an injured man inside the clock tower of Big Ben, picking off bad guys. He talks about millions dying from an invasion of Earth and he’s desperately waiting for Shephard to arrive. The camera pulls back to show Shephard onboard a ship in orbit. Looks as good as a pre-rendered trailer can, but isn’t Mass Effect all about the colorful team and their interactions? I’m holding out until I see the crew.

Commercials.

The entire cast of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, who have absolutely no reason to be on a video game awards show, walk onstage to present the Best Shooter Award. All five actors start reading the telepromter at once, stop and argue about it, and then all finish reading it together. Being the comic veteran he is, Danny Devito is able to say “fuck” twice without the censors catching it.
Winner: Call of Duty: Black Ops
A douchebag and his bald buddy accept the award. Trying to be cool like Devito, the douchebag tries and fails to get away with saying there are a “fuckton” of BLOPS fans. He finishes by promising to keep BLOPS “hot and in your box.” Stay classy, Treyarch.

The announcer reintroduces Doogie, but it’s actually Olivia Munn onstage. Doogie walks out from the back and the two do a skit about how Olivia thinks she’s much more fitting to host this show because she was putting up with nerd shit for the past five years on G4. Sadly, she never throws it up to Doogie that the only time he was ever on this show was to promote the Eat Lead/Matt Hazard game that’s currently collecting dust in the clearance bin. Olivia tells him he can keep the hosting job and walks off, but not before turning around to kiss his ass before she leaves. All this gets a mild audience reaction, proving nobody gives a shit about Olivia Munn.

Doogie says it’s time for another premiere. The stage is made up like a wasteland and Doogie sets up the “what if aliens invaded in the 50’s” story of the next game – Resistance 3. Sony, you’re still making those games? Anyway, the trailer is some crazy live-action/bad-game-footage you might remember from the days of the first couple of Mortal Kombats. Check this out: it starts with a live-action soldier sketching aliens in a diary. And then it changes to the typical “hand holding a gun” from every FPS ever and he’s shooting various sizes of generic robot-aliens, almost like the game is on rails. All this finishes with the live-action guy picking up a weightless fake sledgehammer and going into an arena to kill multiple SciFi-Movie-of-the-Week-CGI-quality aliens. Maybe Sony’s leaving these bad cutscenes in the game, hoping people will buy it just to check out the terrible and hilarious video clips. Kinda like that recent Command and Conquer game.

Dane Cook curses the stage yet again to nominate John Marston from Red Dead Redemption for Character of the Year. Dane goes on about how John once shot him at 10 paces. Now realizing nobody’s paying attention, Dane quickly goes from the story to the nomination reel. Thankfully, Rockstar shows they had better things to do than to supply Spike with a custom-made character trailer of Marston talking. Instead, a typical highlight reel plays about the game.

Before going to break, Spike mentions a giveaway on their website to win a BLOPS Jeep tricked out with every current console out there. Sadly, Xhibit isn’t shown to complete the “Yo dawg” meme.

Commercials.

We come back to Nick Swardson (the cut-off-the-mom’s-head guy) onstage to nominate God of War 3 for GOTY. Nick starts to bullshit about the game being based on real events. But his bullshit/storytelling/comic routine is a little bizarre. Let me give you an example. So, yeah, I caught Nick Swardson eating a giant turd. Shoved it right in his mouth. That was a true story. He was chewing it up. He was like, “Hey man, this..uh..this is great.” That was a true story. Then he shat it out and ate it again. Yeah. That was a true story.

The show then goes on to freak the shit out of all the stoners watching by having the stage fill up with CGI chains and floating souls, like this should be in 3-D. In the background, projected on the stage, are Kratos and Hades fighting (which you can’t see through the CGI crap). After this goes on for about 20 minutes, THEN they go on to show the promo video for the nomination.

Speaking of souls from Hell, Dane Cook is back to nominate one last buddy for Character of the Year – Sgt. Frank Woods. Who the fuck is Sgt. Frank Woods?! Nobody must know because Dane gets the worst reaction of the evening. It’s like he’s talk to an empty arena. The crowd doesn’t make a sound until the pre-rendered video plays, showing he was a character in Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Certified block of wood Rachel Bilson walks out to present the award for Best Performance by a Human Male. Jesus Christ, not this shit again. This is a bit of a spoiler, but neither sports award, no individual console awards, and neither downloadable content award are even mentioned tonight, while this award gets a presentation. Rachel finishes early line from the teleprompter by saying “that’s what she said.” This falls flat against the audience, while she keeps giggling like a madwoman. The nominees are named and – holy shit! – there are eight people nominated? Why?
Winner: Neil Patrick Harris for Spiderman: Shattered Dimensions
Now I get why they had eight nominees. So they can explain picking the bottom of the barrel, meaning Doogie, because no one else was available. Doogie comes back out, acting sarcastically surprised, and teasing Rachel for being so loopy she pronounced “heroes” as “herry-ohs.” Doogie thanks Spiderman himself by doing the old Conan skit of having a picture of the guy with someone’s lips talking in the picture. Spidey just keeping talking shit to Doogie. This goes on way too long, ending with the picture calling Doogie a “fruitloop.” After insulting his sexual preference, Doogie kills the feed, says a quick thanks, and walks off.

Annual fossil Tony Hawk is here to reveal a new trailer. He says the “young people” are always bitching about his games, saying you don’t have bazookas and you can’t throw cars in them. But you can in the new game – Prototype 2. No mention is made of Tony Hawk: Shred.

As for the trailer itself, let me first address the first Prototype game. I always looked at it and though it wasn’t Assassin’s Creed, it wasn’t Crackdown, and it wasn’t Infamous, but some weird bastardization of all three. Well, this time the bastard grows larger with some Resident Evil bio-stuff, some Spiderman symbiote shit, and some God of War chainplay thrown in.

Before the commercial, Verizon has to put its little stamp on the event. I will say one thing about Verizon: these ads are abrasive, but recently they’ve been quick and dirty. In case your wondering how Verizon is progressing with cellphone games, they show Pac-Man, racing, and football. In an iPhone app/Angry Birds world. Almost there, Verizon.

Commercials.

Returning from break, Doogie proposes something to the audience. He wants to play a live version of his new favorite game – Angry Birds. He walks a live rooster over to a giant slingshot and proceeds to aim it at a small house filled with green-painted live pigs. Director Haymich tells Doogie to shut it down for PETA’s sake. He keeps shouting at Doogie to shut it down until Doogie finally walks offstage. Ok.

Maria is backstage with Olivia Munn. They compare Spike-related jewelry and then Maria asks Olivia who she would get with, Ezio or John Marston. She picks Marston because he smells like horses. We’ve gone almost twenty minutes and the only trailer shown was to an unwanted sequel, and the only award has gone to the fucking host.

Going back to the stage, director Guillermo del Toro is ready to address the audience. He admits video games have always been portrayed as platforms for violence, and in the entertainment market, as an ancillary product. He continues that as a life-long gamer at heart, he is going to push the envelope with a crazy new game with stunning worlds and unforgettable characters. The trailer plays and it’s filled with black-and-white pictures of hair, teeth, hand prints and other creepy stuff. Apparently this will be a horror game made by THQ/Volition Studios. Most commonly known for groundbreaking games like the forgettable Red Faction series and the GTA-wannabe Saints Row. Guillermo’s game will is titled Insane and is set to come out…in 2013?! Three years from now?! Will del Toro, THQ, or Volition even be around/relevant in three years?

Guillermo remains onstage to present the award for Best Independent Game. It should be noted that this award is now longer “fueled by Dew.” I think it’s funny that all the ad companies have stayed the same since Day One, but Mountain Dew finally backed out to stop looking like a joke. Especially considering they sponsored another Halo game this fall.
Winner: Limbo
A guy looking like an insurance agent version of John Waters accepts the award. He proudly accepts the award and is serious about indy games. And then he looks down at the award and he realizes he doesn’t need to lay it on too thick with this show.

Stop everything! Breaking news has just come in. The Deadliest Warrior: The Game game is getting three new fighters, chosen by votes on the Spike TV website. These are three of the most famed, notorious warriors in history – the Shaolin Monk, the Zande, and the Rajput. Or, judging by the footage, monk with a knife, stereotypical African tribesman in a grass skirt, and a Hun warrior respectively.

Speaking of Deadliest Warrior, three of that show’s hosts walk onto the stage. It takes about five minutes for the announcer to get through the introduction and their names, so the guys just keep standing there, starting to crack up. Sadly, they didn’t come dressed as the three DLC warrior types.

These guys are here to present the award for Most Anticipated Game. As bullshit as this award is, it is nice to see them recognize it. If only to show new footage for the people anticipating the game. Getting back to the presenters, one promises that Season 3 of Deadliest Warrior will have a matchup people have been waiting for since the show began…”Jinghis Khan vs. Hannbal!” Well hell, why put generic warriors in that stupid game when you can use real people from history?
Winner: Portal 2
Accepting for the award is a video showing us extended footage of the orange-eyed and blue-eyed co-op robots being built and meeting each other. I’m hesitant about these two characters, almost as much as I am about co-op Portal. They just have too much of a Red and Yellow M&M vibe going on for my liking. But I’m sure some forced meme will come out of these two, just like the damn Companion Cube and the cake thing.

After the video, we see Doogie back onstage, this time sitting at a white piano. He starts playing Sarah McLaughlin’s “Angel”, in a parody of the In Memoriam segment they always do at the Academy Awards. It starts somewhat funny by mentioning pointless bosses and character’s family members, but then it says Q-Bert died three years ago as a manic depressive, and lists the death of Grunt #4017 (lived from 2484 – 2597AD) in Halo. By the time the skit ends you’re expecting the punchline to be a Halo character getting teabagged, complete with the epitaph: Your Bitch Ass (Bong O’Clock – Headshot Time).

Before the commercials start, it’s time for the Non-Award Awards. The announcer says these are innovative winners presented by Blahblah Gum, but let’s see who they picked.
And the winners are…
Best Driving Game: Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
Best Adapted Video Game: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Most Anticipated Game: Portal 2
Best RPG: Mass Effect 2
Best Music Game: Rock Band 3
Best Soundtrack: DJ Hero 2
OK, let’s get one thing out of the way. As for “innovation,” all of these games were either sequels or a video game based on a movie based on a comic book, ripping off River City Ransom. Now let’s address the winners. Need for Speed and Mass Effect should have gotten more exposure, but I don’t think EA bothered to show up tonight and Mass Effect can’t win twice (remember last year’s “a game can only get an award once” rule?). As for Portal 2, WTF? You just presented that award. Pay attention, Spike. As for the music games, go away. Go away and stop making them fuck up all the aisles in Best Buy to showcase this dead genre.

Commercials. Blue Mountain State is still on? I’m guessing because it’s so edgy. What’s on the show this week? Based on the commercial, someone steals a badger and Boomer Esiason guest stars. I give up. I have no idea why this show is still on.

Michael Chiklis, star of Disney Presents Heroes, comes onstage to nominate Red Dead Redemption for GOTY. Mike really makes Red Dead sound simple but epic. And then he casually mentions that the game won two extra awards. Really? We just had a non-award segment where they had to re-mention award winners. Why weren’t these included?
Best Original Score: Red Dead Redemption
Best Original Game: Red Dead Redemption
But while he’s casually dropping awards, guess what has two thumbs and won for Best Song? That game.
Best Song: “Far Away” by Jose Gonzales for Red Dead Redemption
In a complete surprise, almost unfounded in the VGAs’ history, Jose is actually there to perform the winning song! Although it just sounds like Willie Nelson singing the theme to the show Firefly. And the game scenes playing in the background are echoing through Jose’s microphone.

After the set, a still giggly Maria asks Michael Chiklis to lift her up backstage. He does and Maria quickly grabs her crotch so her skirt won’t lift up. The two discuss this. This was neither about video games nor awards, yet it was on the Video Games Award show.

Dominic Monaghan, who has nothing to do with video game or TV now that Lost is over, takes the stage. The next part happens exactly like this:
Dominic says he wanted to do a big car stunt for the Spike awards, but he can’t because he “drives a Hybrid.”
Audience:
Dominic: Because I’m green.
Audience:
Dominic: Chicks dig it.
Audience:
Awkwardly, Dominic admits that was all untrue and he was just reading it. He quickly sends it to a video of the Top Gear guys to do the stunt instead. And, holy shit! I don’t watch Top Gear, but if these are the American Top Gear guys, mercy-kill the show before it even airs.

The alleged hosts, Joe Douchebag and Skinnier Kevin Smith, are sitting in a sports car. SKS is reading warnings about the car from the manual. Joe gets bored and starts driving the car like a maniac, jumping over things and doing donuts. When the car finally stops, SKS gets out and tries desperately to throw up on camera while Joe says this was all to present the trailer for For(t)za 4. And what a trailer it is. Live-action shots of race teams, mixed with dumb pictures like of rattlesnakes, and a single pre-rendered shot of a CGI car showing off its parts. Absolutely no gameplay footage is shown. Coming Fall 2011.

Commercials.

We return and we’re greeted by the new tradition of the Energizer Bunny moving across the screen, just like it used to about fifteen years ago during Fresh Prince episodes. Although we’re looking at the stage, the scene quickly changes to a clip of the TMZ crew talking about video game gossip. The gossip jokes are stupid and they miss the most obvious joke about TMZ, the retarded questions the camera guys shout at the celebrities to get a reaction. If you’ve ever seen the show before (I have the misfortune of always catching this before going to bed), you’ll know that TMZ has about twenty people on the show and all got paid for doing jokes about Pac-Man’s foul-mouthed voicemail (“wakka wakka bleep bleep wakka”).

Nathan Fillion, who actually has something to do with video games, is out to nominate his game, Halo Reach, for GOTY. He’s surrounded by overlay videos of the game and images of the Reach team. Halfway through, his microphone cuts out, but it doesn’t matter because he just kept spewing bullshit about the game. The camera then pans over to the other stage platform where a solo violinist is playing a variation of The Halo Song. This would have been better if Microsoft didn’t try to make Halo sound epic every damn year for the past 3-4 years on this show.

Maria’s still wasting time backstage and this time she’s with Jason Ritter. Did you know he’s a kickboxer? Yes, I know this is a video game show. Maria asks what attack move he would use on a zombie. Jason drops to the floor and start to feverishly scamper away from Maria like his crack has violently kicked in. Video game show. Keep telling yourself that.

Doogie starts rambling off more video game porn titles, but a stagehand says the show’s running over and tells him to drop it. Sorry, Doogie. You would’ve had time, but Maria had to aggravate a crackhead.

Two actors from True Blood that aren’t Anna Paquin or her old-ass boyfriend from the show come onstage with video of an ominous helicopter behind them. The female actress abruptly says she loves sex. The male actor corrects her – it’s SSX. Then he presents the trailer for “SSX: Deadly Ascent.” Now I remember SSX very fondly. In fact SSX Tricky was one of the games I bought a PS2 for. I loved the crazy tricks, over-the-top characters, and thrilling racing down some wild and beautiful environment. Well fuck all that. Now you’re getting tossed onto every major mountaintop in the world in the dead of night like a fucking Navy Seal. And bad guy Navy Seals are hot on your tail. The character, looking like an extra from Call of Duty, screams down a mountainside while being pursued. He suddenly falls off a cliff and pops his flying-squirrel wings. The game is actually titled SSX: Deadly Descents. And you can’t do it any more wrong than that.

Commercials. While I fast-forward, I notice the Asian guy from Community is in a crazy-ass Pepto commercial. You’ve been warned.

Dane Cook talks care of one last obligation before returning to his self-dug, culturally-forgotten tomb. He’s finally going to present the damn Character of the Year award.
Winner: Sgt. Woods from Call of Duty Black Ops
To accept the award is Sgt. Woods desperately trying to get out of playing Russian Roulette with a terrible 1950’s Asian stereotype.

Coming back, the stage is made up like a Mayan tomb and credited game developer Eliza Dushku walks out to address the “guys and kyles”(?) and sexily talk about the treasures searched for in the first two Uncharted games. This leads us to our final trailer: Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. The trailer shows Drake walking through a desert, away from a wrecked plane. It’s revealed the game comes out on 11-1-11. While I’ve only played the first and not the second so far, I’ll trust this third game will be quality. I’m just afraid they’re rushing these out a little too fast. Also, from what I saw, Uncharted is all about cover-shooting and wall-climbing. What the hell can he do in a desert?

Doogie comments that he’s dying to play that game and also ready to get this hosting gig over with. With that, he finally presents the Game of the Year award.
Winner: Red Dead Redemption
A handful of other awards Red Dead won are mentioned, but I believe they were already covered by Michael Chiklis. Alanis Morrisette, a slacker, and a pedophile come up to accept the award. Alanis gives props to the gamemakers crazy enough to make an original game, like a sequel to an underwhelming game with a GTA spin on it. She also thanks everyone involved, but her voice is so sleepy and sarcastic that it just sounds hollow and forced.

And that’s it. The show’s over. I should know because my DVR cut off at this point. But going back and watching one of the many replays on Spike that evening, I can say that Doogie said “good night” and the audience all staggered sluggishly to the doors. Also the CGI Ezio and Kratos won bogus awards so they could use the footage of those characters winning awards, in case the online Character of the Year poll would have picked them instead. Oh, and in a classy move, the production company’s logo flips you off as the final scene of the show.

So what thoughts do I have on this show? Well, I’ll stick to last year’s assessment, with a twist. Bad points: a game cannot be formally awarded more than once (GOTY is the exception), the focus is hardly on the video games being awarded, and the show is two hours long and they still can’t cover a whole fifteen-some awards. However, this year was also cursed with a guest host once again (and one that slowly started to regret being there) and some hot title reveals and secrets that were spoiled no less than a week before the show. Other than that, I could go into more detail on where improvements can be made, but fuck it. Spike guys, are you listening? I have a proposal for a show to replace the VGAs and make the most of your time. Here goes.

The new show is called The Annual Video Game Cocktease. I can tell you’re still paying attention, Spike -- I put “cock” in the title. Get Geoff Keighly, or Olivia Munn, or a fucking sock puppet to host the thing. Make it like the old MTV TRL show (Viacom, I know you still have that set somewhere). Fill the audience with the biggest bro and nerd stereotypes you can. The show is only a half-hour long. The entire show is the host teasing the audience about playing video games and then sticking the microphone up to their ass and farting. Every five minutes, a 30 second game trailer will play for a game coming out now sooner than two years from that point. At the end of the show, take off the sock puppet to reveal a giant middle finger pointed at the crowd. And then show them that these trailers have been on Youtube for the past week while they were stuck listening to farts for a half-hour. And then fart one more time into the mic for good measure. So will I cover this again next year? Yes. At this point, I’m just waiting for the host to fart too hard into the mic and die of a heart attack on live television. Happy gaming in 2011, y’all!

2009 Spike TV Video Game Awards Recap

In what has now become a December tradition, Spike TV is airing their annual Video Game Awards show, and once again I am along for the ride. What started as a gamer’s curious transcript of how the medium is portrayed, especially on a “Guy’s Only” channel, has now turned into me describing the CGI-ness of trailers, people receiving pointless awards (if only to add any sort of notoriety to the back of game boxes), or to gnash my teeth and tolerate the stupid skits. Well, there is an improvement this year. No host. And no stupid host skits. So let’s see how the 2009 Spike TV Video Game Awards fared with these out of the equation.

The show starts with a giant present in the middle of the stage, with Mark Hamill’s Joker doing the voiceover welcoming us to the VGAs. Joker asks if we’re ready for the big surprise and the present comes apart to reveal two big goons in gas masks. The stage starts blowing smoke and the goons run around the audience, acting like they’re going to gas the crowd to death. About the funniest unintentional part happens here when the camera lingers too long on a stone-faced guy in the audience, looking around concerned like he’s waiting for the goons to come and steal his wallet.

Turns out this is just the set-up to show the World Premiere of the new Batman: Arkham Asylum trailer. Wow, that was quick. Of course, it’s the Batman franchise, and there are still plenty of villains and scenarios you can play out for at least a couple of sequels, so I can’t say I blame them for capitalizing while the first game is fresh in everyone’s mind and on all the Best of 2009 lists. Unfortunately, there isn’t much to talk about in the trailer. Apparently, Joker and Harley Quinn have gotten out of Arkham and are now operating out of a make-shift, dangerous fun house. Harley is shown wearing the same outfit from the first game, but now Joker looks more like the Heath Ledger version from The Dark Knight, with black circles around his eyes and acting in poor health.

The show is formally introduced and, as mentioned earlier, there is no host named. It is said that the show is airing in 180 countries and there are only six presenters named. Two musical acts are named, but obviously, if you’ve paid any attention to the hype of this show, it is all about the surprise World Premiere trailers. Some surprises are so big, they are just teased as “the next Star Wars game” or “the next Rock Band game.”

Speaking of surprises this year’s announcers are not named, except that they will be an older sounding British woman, and a slightly younger sounding British woman. The location of the event is not named, but it just looks like a pavilion tent with a monitor in the back and a big round stage to obscure most of the audience from the main stage view. There is also an awkward looking catwalk at the end of the stage for reasons unknown.

The first person out is Zachary Quinto, the guy who plays The Bad Guy on Heroes. But more importantly these days is that he was Spock in the new Star Trek movie. Because of that, Zachary announces he will be the voice of Atari’s new Star Trek online game. I heard two things to make me think this isn’t going to turn out well – Atari and online. Zachary is also here to present the award for Best Voice in a Video Game.
Winner: Jack Black as Eddie Riggs in Brutal Legend
Jack comes up with a crown and a cape reading “Game of the Year” and rubs his award in the other games’ faces by making poo jokes. After five minutes, a stagehand tells him that the award is actually for Best Voice and Jack says it doesn’t matter because he’ll be back in an hour to receive Game of the Year. The stagehand tells him that Brutal Legend wasn’t even nominated and Jack smashes the award against the podium, breaking it in the process and gets taken away by security. Overall, this was about the funniest intentional bit on the show all night, but from this start you can’t help but call bullshit on the entire proceedings. Especially since Jack beat out Mark Hamill’s Joker, who they started the show with, and Nolan North, the new voice of gaming. But hey, who am I to accuse Spike of having Jack win so that he’ll act crazy to keep people tuned in at the beginning of the show.

Next is the World Premiere of the trailer for True Crime. Yes, THAT True Crime. The GTA knockoff that failed twice on the last-generation systems. Looks like they’re trying to reboot the franchise (with new people making it), but it still looks like it’s a few steps behind. Basically, it looks like if GTA4 was about a kung-fu cop in Tokyo, but using a last-generation engine and last-gen graphics.

Commercials. The only commercial of note is one that plays at every commercial break – Burger King wants you to send someone you don’t really care about a coupon for a free double cheeseburger. I’ll let that one speak for itself.

The show returns will a video of a light-cycle race from Tron. After the video, a partition moves away, revealing a replica light-cycle and Olivia Wilde from House. The reason she’s on stage is because she’s in the new Tron movie and also in the video game of said movie. She must have really gotten into her role in the movie, because she’s reading the teleprompter just like a robot. This leads us to the World Premiere of Tron Evolution: The Video Game. It’s marked as a Disney Interactive movie game, and boy does it show. The parts of the game that are actual shown are a generic, low detailed third-person fighting part and CGI of a light-cycle match. Somehow I doubt that, if Square couldn’t create a good light-cycle part in Kingdom Hearts 2, Disney Games won’t be able to pull it off either.

Like the Ghost of Video Games Past, Tony Hawk gets on stage to present the award for Best Action/Adventure Game. According to Tony, Action/Adventure is like kissing a girl at a bar…and her boyfriend is in the bathroom…and you run down the street in your boxers while he’s trying to kill you. Or something. No mention is made of Tony Hawk: Ride.
Winner: Assassin’s Creed 2
Once again, the Bullshit Meter spikes considering it was up against Arkham Asylum and Uncharted 2. Two guys from UbiSoft accept, thanking French people, speaking French, and then unintentionally backhanding all the other games nominated by congratulating them for not winning.

The British announcer says that we’ve loved the Spike show Deadliest Warrior, so here is the First Look at the new season and the World Premiere of the video game. In case you’ve never seen Deadliest Warrior (I’d never even heard of the show), it’s a MythBusters-type show that breaks down who really would win in a fight between two warriors, like a ninja and a knight, based on the weapons used. I’m guessing the game will just be fighting and no science, since it’s announced as a downloadable game. Which would be funny because science seems to be the reason for this show to exist.

Commercials. Actually this “commercial break” is just a quick time-out for the annual pimp of Verizon Wireless cellphone games. Yes, they have moved up to iPhone-style games, since almost every commercial break, including this one, has ads for Verizon’s iPhone-killer, the Droid. But the only games shown are a Rock Band game and a side-scrolling Assassin’s Creed 2 game. Nothing that uses the accelerometers, like in the iPhone. Don’t worry, Verizon. You’ll be up to speed with games someday.

Kimbo Slice comes out to show the World Premiere of the game everyone saw coming – UFC Undisputed 2010. Spike TV especially saw this one coming, considering they were showing 6 hours of UFC shows before the VGAs aired. Kimbo presents it because he says the only thing missing in the last game was him. It’s at this point where you start to realize what’s happening. This game will just be the 2009 game, but with a roster update. Just like the WWE Smackdown games THQ also makes. And the trailer doesn’t do much to change that feeling, showing new guys, but doing the same basic stuff and with questionable collision detection. I wonder how long THQ can get away with this because, unlike the WWE games, you can’t just add match types to the thing. They’re all just going to be roster updates by definition.

Zack Braff gets on stage to present the Studio of the Year Award. Zack either has a cold, or he’s gotten a job as a football coach, because instead of his usual nerdy voice, he’s shouting at the audience. I know I leave the nominations out to save time, but the ones in this category are interesting in their nomination package. Rocksteady Studios (Arkham Asylum) and Naughty Dog (Uncharted 2) are shown doing mocap work and busting their ass, where Infinity Ward (Modern Warfare 2) and Valve (Left 4 Dead 2) are just a bunch of guys sitting at computers.
Winner: Rocksteady Studios for Batman: Arkham Asylum
I’d say Naughty Dog should get this, but Rocksteady really deserved it for going above and beyond the call of duty with a Batman game. Two British guys from Rocksteady come up and seem genuinely grateful for winning. They thank all the studios that believed in them even though they were nobodies and thanked all the people involved.

Samuel L. Jackson is here to present the newest Star Wars game. What could it be? To be totally honest, the Star Wars games are such a mixed bag, this could be anything. Sam talks about choosing your destiny in Star Wars. He may look like he would be a Sith badass, but he will always be a Jedi master. The trailer is revealed to be…wait for it…The Force Unleashed 2. Um, ok. Kinda a little disappointing, but whatever. Anyway, the trailer shows the Apprentice walking down a hallway, force-crushing the walkway behind him while the voices of Yoda and Darth Vader are insulting him in his mind. The hallway leads him to an arena where a dead rancor comes flying at him and the thing that killed the rancor, a monster three times the rancor’s size, is soon shocked and stabbed in the head with the two lightsabers of the Apprentice. This trailer really hits the “meh” territory, considering the first game didn’t set the world on fire and the surprise got everybody’s hopes too high.

Commercials. 1000 Ways to Die must be scraping the bottom of the 1000 ways barrel if they’re advertising someone falling off a motorcycle.

Coming back, the announcer calls out Jake Gyllenhaal, who is here to promote the new Prince of Persia movie. Jake says that when he heard that Jordan Mechner and Jerry Bruckheimer were making a Prince of Persia movie, he was in. Of course, that’s because they cast him. Jake shows the First Look at the Prince movie, which is actually like a fifth look, because plus or minus a couple of shots, it ‘s basically the same as all the rest of the Prince of Persia trailers on YouTube.

Instead of going straight into the new Prince of Persia game trailer, a big floppy mascot runs out on stage followed by some cheerleaders and three guys who look like characters from a direct-to-DVD American Pie movie. They announce themselves as being the cast of the new Spike show Blue Mountain State. Judging by the scenes playing behind them, it looks like a show about a college football team, made by those direct-to-DVD American Pie guys. Yeah, good luck with them. You know, sometimes I think the UFC gives Spike bad ideas like this just so they’ll fail and have to put more UFC shows on. Anyway, they are here to present the Best Team Sports Award aka the Madden Award.
Winner: NHL 10
Huh, what? Well, it doesn’t matter if Madden didn’t win or not, because two EA guys accept just the same. They give the standard acceptance speech of thanking the staff, their families, the fans, and the nominees for not winning. One of them also says that the NHL is back-to-back with NHL 09 winning last year’s award. The funniest thing about this is that the Madden Award wasn’t even mentioned on last year’s VGAs, so maybe the NHL guys are just fucking with Spike and made that up.

Now it’s finally time for the World Premiere of Prince of Persia: the Forgotten Sands. Now I love Prince of Persia and Sands of Time is one of my favorite games of all time, but this trailer does little to impress. It looks like last-gen CGI and the kicker is the Prince himself. He looks exactly like Jake Gyllenhaal’s Prince, except…he has the face of Default Create-A-Character #5. This, on top of the fact it will come out the same time as the movie, tells me this was supposed to be a movie game, but Jake pulled out, and UbiSoft figured they couldn’t just call it Sands of Time: The Game Based on the Movie Based on the Game.

Commercials. Are you ready? Monday, January 4th Hulk Hogan debuts on TNA Wrestling. Yes, that Hulk Hogan. That 56-year-old Hulk Hogan. In a sport where most guys don’t live to see 40. Have fun playing rasslin’ with grandpa, TNA.

Coming back the Energizer bunny goes across the screen, even though kids today don’t even recognize that character. The announcer presents Best Performance by a Human Male.
Winner: Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in X-Men Origins: Wolverine
A video of Hugh holding two awards is shown. He explains the second award is for Best Cast. Even though one of the nominees in this category was the original cast from the movie Ghostbusters. Anyway, Hugh seemed actually thankful for the awards and that the game developers actually pulled of a better than average game based on the property.

Olivia Wilde is brought back out to present the Best Independent Game Fueled By Dew. After getting derailed by catcalls, Olivia says that this award is dedicated to the indy games that take risks and shape the future of gaming.
Winner: Flower
Yep, after all that, the nominated game least like a video game won for being a groundbreaking game. Two men and a woman accept the award. The Asian man thanks Sony for backing them even though their game was just about “flowers and love,” and the woman asks the thousands of programmers that were laid off this year to join them. What, like the company, or join the indy game scene, or…you know what, I’m guessing it was just a recruitment thing.

The British announcer brings out “The Doggfather” himself, Snoop Dogg. Snoop has nothing to do with video games, but he’s here to perform just the same. And the title of his new rap song must be “Generic”, because this is about the blandest rap song I’ve ever heard. It doesn’t help that the guys and girls dancing on the stage are performing like they’re jacked up on cold medicine. And as usual the crowd is completely dead, except for a couple of people.

Commercials. One game shown during this break wasn’t even mentioned, but its ad looked very good. The ad was for a game called Split Second. Basically it’s a racing game that looks like Burnout 3, but with crash scenarios to escape.

Coming back from commercials, the set now has a bunker and a Jeep on it. This is for the World Premiere of Spec Ops: The Line. According to the British announcer, in this game you will lead a crack team of soldiers through Dubai while it’s being assaulted by massive sandstorms. The trailer starts with shock scenes of an upside-down US flag and dead tortured soldiers, and then the real game scenes start. Basically it’s Gears of War Iraq with terraforming in it, meaning you’ll be in cover fighting and the sand will suddenly shift out from under you.

Sportscaster Steven A. Smith comes out to present the Best Individual Sports Game Award. But first, he wants to air his grievances with sports and the players today compared to video games. He asks how he can win in Madden with the sucky Detroit Lions, but a pro coach can’t.
Stage director over the loudspeaker: “Uh, Steven? Finish up, will you?”
Steven: “Oh please, I ain’t got time for that.”
Steven then proceeds to talk about how the Nets are having a losing streak due to their starters having girls’ names.
Stage director: “Uh, forget this. Go to the package.”
Steven says not to interrupt him, but is cut off by the nominees anyway.
After the nominees are aired, we see that Steven is still in his own little world talking up a storm. After a few played-out Tiger Woods jokes the stage director ends it.
Stage director: “Uh, Steven, would you please just announce the winner?”
Winner: UFC 2009 Undisputed
UFC fighter Forrest Griffin and a THQ developer accept. Forrest stands bowlegged for some reason and yells at everyone to leave and order the next UFC pay-per-view. Forrest also mentions that the first UFC game sucked balls, and he’s happy that THQ, the company that has been making stale Smackdown games for about the last 6 years, has picked up the license. Oh, and in case you’re keeping track, I will no longer be calling this the Tony Hawk Award for obvious reasons – like the fact that Tony Hawk: Ride wasn’t nominated and is already being clearanced out at stores. I think I’ll rename this the UFC Award given which channel this show airs on. You know, the channel that will probably fix this award to go to Undisputed each year until Spike drops UFC.

Up next is the World Premiere for Crackdown 2. Now, I must admit, I have little faith going into this game. Especially since the first Crackdown went from being a loser game you had to buy for entrance into the Halo 3 Beta to one of most everybody’s favorite 360 game with its over-the-top physics and atmosphere. Now a sequel has come out of nowhere with a new developer and little by the way of details. Well, the trailer isn’t very reassuring, looking nuttier than the Saints Row series with goofy weapons, goofy music, and a tagline of “Would you like to blow *#%! up with me?”

Commercials. Nothing to mention.

Back from commercials, the announcer re-introduces “The Doggfather”, who thankfully isn’t here to tranquilize the crowd again. He’s here to present the Best RPG Award. Snoop says RPGs are great because, in real life, you can’t walk into a hardware store with a wizard hat and ask for their best axe. What do you want to bet that Snoop got high and actually tried that once?
Winner: Dragon Age: Origins
A designer of the game accepts two awards (the second for Best PC Game), while, for some reason, Me So Horny plays in the background.

A video message from an aged-looking Green Day is played and they say they have a World Premiere to announce. They’re making a video game. And it’s called Green Day: Rock Band. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! So let me get this straight, Harmonix go from one of the most generation-spanning musical acts in the Beatles to one that peaked in the mid-90’s. I truly believe, if they make bundle packs of instruments for this game, it will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for most retailers making shelf space for these games.

Next the announcer presents “And the Winners Are”, or the Non-Award Awards. In case you forgot, this is the segment where they just name award winners that either refused to show up or weren’t cool enough to be presented an award.
Best Performance by a Human Female: Megan Fox as Mikaela Banes in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Best Downloadable Game: Shadow Complex
Best Wii Game: New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Best DLC: Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony
Most Anticipated Game: God of War III
A few notes: I don’t care if she was reading off the cure for cancer in the Transformers game, Megan Fox should never win any award ever. The Wii gets dismissed, but that’s standard. But how embarrassing is it that God of War III wins for Most Anticipated, but has nothing new to show to keep the fans going?

Commercials. This break shows ads for Entourage on Spike, Prilosec OTC, an auto dealer website, and Oral-B toothbrushes. It’s funny how the ad guys know the average age of gamers, but the VGAs themselves don’t seem to get it yet.

Back from break, Joel McHale, who has nothing to do with games, tells us that FPSes are coming close to simulating real war and that FPS players spill energy drinks on their balls. Joel then reveals the World Premiere of the new Medal of Honor game called…just Medal of Honor. I don’t even need to go into detail on this one – this game is just EA’s attempt to cash in on the Modern Warfare crowd. And what better time than now when it’s starting to cool off.

An old, out-of-shape Mike Tyson comes to the stage along with four over-tanned people from the MTV show Jersey Shore. You know, that show that got famous by a guy full-force punching a girl in the face. Mike’s teleprompter tells him to ask who they are, but Mike honestly asks them, like he can’t believe people like this exist. One guy introduces Mike to his killer abs while he creepily strokes his shirt open. Mike stammers out retardedly that his fists are named “Cracked Rib” and “Concussion”. Everyone on stage is there to present the Best Shooter Award, because if all five of these people were shot dead, they probably wouldn’t be missed.
Winner: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Two developers accept and receive an extra award for Best Multiplayer Game. The short-haired developer gives the usual thanks. The developer that looks like he works in a bowling alley just yells “Thanks!” and looks at the Jersey Shore kids to get the hell off stage.

More Non-Award Awards come up next.
Best Fighting Game: Street Fighter IV
Best Handheld Game: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
Best Driving Game: Forza Motorsport 3
Best Soundtrack: DJ Hero
Best Xbox 360 Game: Left 4 Dead 2
Best Original Score: Halo 3: ODST
Best Game Based on a Movie or TV Show: South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play
Some of these are odd winners, considering the massive licensed metal soundtrack of Brutal Legend, and the fact that you wouldn’t expect a Halo game to have an impressive score. But the real crime is that these more interesting categories weren’t formally presented.

Commercials. Nothing new, except more adult-based ads.

After the commercials, Stevie Wonder has found his way to the stage to present the Best Music Game Award. The audience gives him a standing ovation for still being alive. Awkwardly, someone is feeding Stevie stats about the VGAs and handicapped people through his earpiece, so Stevie sounds like he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Stevie points out that, as a handicapped individual, he’d like to see more handicapped-accessible music games. But then again, Stevie would just like to see anything. BA-DUM-BUM!
Winner: The Beatles: Rock Band
A developer from Harmonix comes up to accept and gives Stevie a look of “what’s a famous person like you doing here?” Also, this guy must be the smallest writer in the world because he reads off his entire acceptance speech from a paper the size of two fortune cookie fortunes taped on top of each other.

The British announcer introduces musical act The Bravery. Who are The Bravery? Well, I’ll never know because after seeing a guy play an electric guitar with a violin bow and hearing the lead singer sleepily mumbling into the microphone, I said “fuck it” and fast-forwarded. Sorry Bravery fans, this is a video game show, not the Music Video Awards. Anyway, I’m happy I fast-forwarded. Even sped up, this act takes fucking forever.

Commercials. Still doing the adult thing with ads for razors and eHarmony.

Next up to the stage is Tricia Helfer from the recent Halo 3: ODST game. Tricia asks which game is well-orchestrated and has such an “artfully-complete” story line? Halo, of course. Even Tricia cracks herself up over that one. After building up Halo as the greatest FPS experience ever EVER, they show the World Premiere of Halo Reach. There’s really not much to say about this trailer. It’s set long before the first Halo game with a group of Spartan armored soldiers who all look different than Master Chief – for example, one guy has a skull painted on his helmet and a woman has a robot arm. They are quickly briefed by their commander and then take off in helicopters. None of the game was shown, so it’s hard to judge what to expect, but it will be curious to see if Halo can win back interest in a Modern Warfare world.

Jake Gyllenhaal is back to put an end to this with the Game of the Year Award. Jake implies that “Game of the Year” means gamers have been playing nothing but this game all year, although of the five games nominated, the earliest (Arkham Asylum) came out less than four months ago.
Winner: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Four developers from Naughty Dog accept and seem really grateful to win. They also pick up two other awards for Best PS3 Game and Best Graphics. One of the developers identifies Nolan North, the voice of Nathan Drake (the camera still won’t show him) as well as one of the British announcers from tonight as Claudia Black, which is more than Spike could do. After their thanks, the trophy girl herds them off-stage so that Jake can re-introduce The Bravery to play out the show. This set is a little better than the last one, going from drunk mumbling to incomprehensible British mumbling. After they perform, there is no mass exodus from the arena, mostly because I think the audience is now comatose.

Well, that does it for the 2009 VGAs. All-in-all, not really much to write home about. Sure, the lack of a host and all the terrible skits kept the bullshit down to an absolute minimum, but what’s the fun in that? I came for a train wreck, people. All you got instead was a bunch of “surprise” trailers and a bunch of mostly questionable awards. Let’s start with the trailers. They were either obvious titles that didn’t show much to get excited about (ie. Arkham 2 and UFC 2010) or they were unexpected properties that nobody asked for. Are you really going to try and reboot True Crime and Medal of Honor to try to take down GTA and Call of Duty? That ship already sailed with Saints Row 2 and Killzone 2/ODST.

Now about the awards. If you’re going to bust their balls over disregarding awards, they had about as many awards presented as there were trailers. But this year proved that the awards just need to go. Overall, a lot of the winners were questionable, considering many of the game journalists on other podcasts said they got different categories to vote for than on the website – such as the Megan Fox award. Second, how does Assassin’s Creed 2 win for Best Action/Adventure Game and Uncharted 2 wins for G.O.T.Y.? Could it be because UbiSoft got Jake Gyllenhaal there to show off the new Prince of Persia game and he was about the biggest star of the night? Or was it because, in presented awards, no winner won twice. This was evident by a game winning one award and the devs walking back with a handful. This would be like if, when Titanic won for Best Picture at the Oscars, they wheel out a giant cart with all the rest if that movie’s Oscars on it. So obviously, recognition isn’t the big deal of this show either.

So the bullshit was mostly gone, the trailers were lackluster, and the awards were questionable. And sadly, I do see this as being as good as it gets, in its current condition. But I think I need to talk to the producers at Spike. Come closer, I want to tell you something. First, thank you for killing the bullshit and treating me like this at least isn’t on Nickelodeon. But these awards. You don’t want to give them and I understand that. And that’s ok. They don’t hold any value or prestige anyway. Look, just make it a trailer premiere show. You know you want to. Quit lying to yourself. Now go back to showing more UFC, you guys. We’ll talk again next year.