By Jim Rossignol on March 31st, 2009 at 7:35 am.
Tim Schafer hosted the Game Developers Choice Awards this year and he made funnies while distributing awards to the best and brightest in the industry. You can watch an hour of the proceedings below, courtesy of Gamespot. Go World Of Goo! Full winners list is here.
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Funny how the normal game media is covering this now, i remember someone from GDC saying last year that they wanted to limit the amount of press at the GDC because this event is meant for gamedesigners to network and lobby and get to know eachother, and they didnt want this to turn into a new E3 press event thingy.
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Fallout 3 won best writing? I’m braced for some apocalyptic internet rage.
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Fallout 3 is awesome, but the amount of bad writing is fairly high.
BUt what I dislike even more is Pagliarulo’s belief in telling the story via gameplay and not writing – I wish they would finally start using better engine (one that does not have the limit on the amount of words in a dialogue) and reconsider this.
Although if there was just more bad writing, maybe this is for the best.
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Oh wow, Fallout 3 got best writing.
That shows you that apparently the standard in game-writing is incredibly low.
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Fallout 3 won Best Writing and Game of the Year??
Doubleju-tee-ef?
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Man, I thought I had played all of the big games of last year. And then the nominations are full of GTA IV, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Little Big Planet. None of which I played.
I totally underestimated GTA IV, Fallout 3 and Little Big Planet. Especially Little Big Planet: I thought it was just a platformer version of Trackmania, but here it is winning four awards, including the Game Design and Innovation awards. I need to see what this is really about.
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how could farcry 2 even get nominated for best game design award?
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Am I the only one thinking that they really should have had GLaDOS reading out the nominations?
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Maaan, I’m surprised how shy are developers, some of them look like they are going to be shooted instead of being awarded. Schafer is being awesome as host (watching it now, around the middle of the show), full of confidence, funny and likable, it strikes me the difference between him and other people that are coming around
By the way, people disagreeing with Fallout 3 could name what they would choose? It´s pure curiosity, I can’t think of any candidate I would vote (have not played Braid, waiting for the PC version, neither Far Cry 2, I wouldn’t realistically vote for MGS4 even if I had a great experiencie with it, and Fallout 3 it´s a hit and miss in my opinion).
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@ Acosta: I’d say GTA4, but then I’m kind of glad it didn’t win the award, or any of the others in fact, as I think the Housers have had their egos stroked quite enough over the game, brilliant though it is.
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I thought the writing in L4D was great as far as dialogue goes, not to mention pretty unique in its execution and performance.
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@amoe: Not to mention for Best Writing, wtf..
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No internet rage, but best writing? Really? REALLY? Yikes. Puzzled internet man.
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Of course Time Schaefer was funny – we found him the jokes.
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I fail at typing. I never even noticed that.
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Thinking about it, 2008 wasn’t really much of a year for games was it?
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I think they got “best writing” confused with “most writing”. Left 4 Dead had much, much better writing than Fallout 3, but there wasn’t enough of it to meet some unspecified minimum for an award apparently.
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Nah.. you have the “opinion of the public”, “the opinion of the critics” and “the opinion of the industry”. Thats 3 oposite definitions of GOTY.
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@Nero: Far Cry 2 had some great writing. The reactions of the enemies during the gunfights are the most lifelike I have ever heard. Really makes you feel bad for shooting them.
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LOL, Fallout 3 best wriying. LOL
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Fallout 3 was funny, but it the primary storyline wasn’t the best I’ve ever played through. Some elements were well written, clever allusions, interesting characters, but it didn’t beat out Grand Theft Auto 4. I believe one of the comments was correct, when its writers said that they seem to be confusing “best writing” with “most writing”- although I can’t agree that a few clever and well written quips from Left 4 Dead beat out Fallout 3.
Also, I’d like to throw it out there that I think the first Fallout was far better written than 3, but 3 has 2 beat.
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Lines such as “I call zombie bullshit”, “Oh no, zombies killed God!” and “I hate vans.” beat out most of Fallout 3′s writing. It had some good side quests, but the main storyline was atrocious.
We need more epic game writing, STAT!
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L4d had best sound hands down and Farcry2? Farcry 2 is the single worst game I have ever played.
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I wish I lived in that world.
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Amen to that Jim. I’m sure everyone who had their hard drive wiped by Ruins of Myth Drannor would agree.
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Hmmm. No offense, but I’m going to throw that right back.
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Farcry 2 is pretty awful.
Between it and Assassins Creed it’s clear that Ubisoft has no idea how an open world game is meant to function
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I have trouble determining worst ever. Because once something gets so bad it actually merits no expectations whatsoever. Rending it hard to critique. Indeed, i’ve enjoyed bad games more that clearly good ones. Boiling point was crap, also genius.
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Oh my god. Self-congratulatory industry awards going to big-selling products of debatable merit? SCANDAL!!
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I think that Fallout 3 winning best writing is fucking hilarious, but really, name one 2008 game that actually had a good, solid plot and decent amounts of good writing.
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Far Cry 2 was fine. It showed a lot of promise that didn’t quite materialise, but nowhere did it fail utterly. Part of the thing is that few people actually buy games that are technically broken.
Part of the problem is that there’s no linear scale for enjoyment. I finished Far Cry 2, so I must have enjoyed it on some level, even if the story was sparse and the trip between missions a little too long. If you really don’t like a game, there’s nothing separating that and something that you can’t even boot up for bugs.
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Fallout 3? Best writing? I love the game, but man, is that ever not the reason.
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Really. I expected more than that, GDC. FFS, they are game geeks, and to tell Fallout3 had the best writing? What the eff?
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How did Fallout 3 ever receive best writing?! Maybe it was one of those things where everyone thought it was good, whereas other games which are greater, polarised opinion more and therefore split the votes. If that makes sense.
Having said that I was comparing the writing of Fallout 3 to Fallout 1 & 2, games which both had amazing writing. I’d have given the writing award to GTA or L4D.
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