By John Walker on March 6th, 2013 at 11:00 am.
There are videogaming BAFTAs. I wouldn’t know, since BAFTA have never invited me to anything. WHAT AM I? CHOPPED GAMES JOURNALIST LIVER? It appears they happened last night, and games won awards. Which games? Which awards? I’ll grudgingly tell you now.
The results fall squarely into that odd new zone of the mainstream of non-mainstream. The games absolutely everyone bought, while feeling like they were special for having bought them. And king of those games is PS3 exclusive, Journey, which greedily scooped Artistic Achievement, Audio Achievement, Game Design, Online Multiplayer (WHA?), and Original Music. And that’s despite being a game about going for a boring walk in the sand! Impressive stuff.
Indie darling Thomas Was Alone picked up the rather odd prize for Best Performer, for Danny Wallace’s narration. I very briefly worked with Danny Wallace about 14 years ago, and he was always a bit rude to me, so I’m not sure he deserves it. Telltale’s much loved The Walking Dead series received even more accolades, with one for Mobile And Handheld, and another for Story. The other darling of the indie set, The Unfinished Swan, grabbed Game Innovation and Début Game.
The Best British Game, according to BAFTA suits, was handheld puzzler The Room, and the Family Award went very deservedly to Travellers Tales, except for entirely the wrong game. They got it for LEGO Batman 2, where it should obviously have been given for either LEGO Harry Potter 2, or LEGO Lord Of The Rings. Something called SongPop picked up Online-Browser, and New Star Soccer garnered the nebulous Sports/Fitness. (I’m not quite sure how sofa entertainment and jumping up on down on plastic games can be in the same category.)
We are told we should watch the appositely named Kind Of A Big Deal, for Starcrossed, with their Ones To Watch award, and of course Uncy Gabe was presented with his Academy Fellowship for Best Beard.
But Best Game went to Dishonored – certainly one of our favourite games of 2012, but one we found didn’t have the staying power to top our list for the year.
You can watch the whole thing here:
06/03/2013 at 11:06 Ninja Foodstuff says:
Funnily enough, movie types get invited to BAFTA game events. You have to be (or know) a BAFTA member in order to get an invite (and membership is not cheap, and requires that existing members “vouch” for you), or have been nominated for something. I believe if you actually win an award you get free membership, and can thus vote on future awards.
Yes, it’s a silly system.
06/03/2013 at 11:08 Moni says:
Oh, go on then, tell us some stories about Danny Wallace.
06/03/2013 at 13:36 battles_atlas says:
I met him once, I thought he was a prick. Though I though that before I met him too. He’s the Southern Paddy McGuniness – a man who is adored by media outlets too poor to afford the talented guy they used to follow around.
06/03/2013 at 13:56 Furius says:
Me too. He’s a snobby prick. His chummy fumbling englishman routine is a total act. He’s not even English!
06/03/2013 at 15:01 trjp says:
What you’re saying is he’s a modern-day Kenny Lynch then?
06/03/2013 at 11:10 Screwie says:
Poor Dara, he seems to have outgrown his podium.
06/03/2013 at 11:18 Droopy The Dog says:
It’s to be expected, he’s a giant amongs stage kit designed for mere men.
06/03/2013 at 14:02 gulag says:
Saw him charging up Grafton St. once. He looked like the prow of a warship. Would not have wanted to be in his way.
Lovely fella.
06/03/2013 at 15:09 trjp says:
A warship with a baby as a mascot of course? :)
06/03/2013 at 11:23 TheApologist says:
That seems like a fairly decent list of awards to me. Definitely better than SPIKE TV MEGABLAM SHOOTYMAN PRIZE SPONSORED BY CRISPS (TM).
Seems an odd thing to snark about anyway.
06/03/2013 at 11:37 Delusibeta says:
If there was an award for Best Gaming Award Show, the BAFTAs would win every year, in my opinion.
06/03/2013 at 11:38 Niko says:
Isn’t “snark” a British word for “talk”?
06/03/2013 at 11:47 phuzz says:
Generally only talking in a sarcastic or dismissive way.
06/03/2013 at 11:50 Lord Custard Smingleigh says:
Which is to say, when we’re speaking with Johnny Foreigner. Bah!
06/03/2013 at 11:51 Niko says:
Ah, I see, I was a little wrong about the connotation.
06/03/2013 at 13:35 Chris D says:
I’m now slightly disappointed you weren’t doing a variation of the “How can you tell when a Brit is being snarky? Their lips are moving” gag.
06/03/2013 at 14:13 Niko says:
See, I’m not reading RPS for long enough to get a required concentration of Britishness to do that.
06/03/2013 at 14:27 Berzee says:
But if your brief exposure has caused you to think that “snark” is a word for “talk”, I think that’s the very best confirmation of the joke you didn’t make. ^__^
06/03/2013 at 11:36 aircool says:
BAFTAS = British Awards For Talking Absolute Shite!
06/03/2013 at 11:37 Jams O'Donnell says:
One thing bothers me about the game BAFTAs — where is the “game” in “BAFTA?” I guess it’s nice that they recognise gaming but it’d be nice if they, you know, recognised gaming.
British Acadamy of Film and Television Arts and Some Other Stuff We’re Shoving Under That Umbrella.
06/03/2013 at 11:39 Lewie Procter says:
British Acadamy of Film and *Televisual* Arts.
06/03/2013 at 11:52 Jams O'Donnell says:
Not sure if correction or suggestion that “televisual” is enough to cover games. Seems like a stretch, but I’m a grade-A nitpicker.
06/03/2013 at 12:05 Lewie Procter says:
The BAFTA line on this is “Games are televisual arts”.
06/03/2013 at 14:28 Berzee says:
Do they have a screensavers category too?
I vote for those toasters with wings on.
06/03/2013 at 17:18 Nick says:
flying through space, man, you can never beat this classic.
06/03/2013 at 15:00 trjp says:
Aha – RPS’s very own BAFTA stooge arrives!
Can we discuss Journey’s win for Best Online Multiplayer then? :)
I realise it’s a stupid club where you have to be a member to be a member and you have to nominate yourself and you choose your own categories and shit but cmon – Best Online Multiplayer fucking what!?
06/03/2013 at 11:38 Gravy100 says:
I stopped playing Assassins Creed 2 because Danny Wallace was so unbelievably annoying and rude in the unbelievably boring Desmond bits. I like to think those bits weren’t scripted and were just ad-lib.
06/03/2013 at 11:50 zachforrest says:
I read his unbelievably tedious column in Timeout for the sole purpose of riling me up enough so i can push through the hordes of geese and tourists in St James’ Park more aggresively.
06/03/2013 at 12:52 Flukie says:
Wtf is the point in that column it never actually contains any content.
06/03/2013 at 14:01 zachforrest says:
The disappointment i experienced upon waking up one Saturday to find he was filling in for Adam and Joe on 6Music….can’t express…
06/03/2013 at 11:39 Runs With Foxes says:
And by contrast, Far Cry 3 has staying power?
06/03/2013 at 11:48 MuscleHorse says:
Lists are silly, the numbering of said lists doubly so.
Worry not of them.
06/03/2013 at 12:04 Ninja Foodstuff says:
Fun fact: a group of people are better at predicting Oscar winners than the best individual predictor within a group.
06/03/2013 at 15:02 Lord Custard Smingleigh says:
That makes a certain sort of sense when you realise that no committee truly thinks like a human does*, so it takes another committee to predict one accurately.
* PhD dissertation committees excepted. They don’t think even remotely like a human does, more like some sort of malevolent shrew, or possibly a misanthropic vole.
06/03/2013 at 16:24 LennyLeonardo says:
Here is a very (un)interesting question: Are not all voles misanthropic by virtue of their being not human? Or can (non-human) animals be misanthropic, too?
06/03/2013 at 12:06 Ninja Foodstuff says:
I’ve yet to be hooked by FC3. It seems rather monotonous, and I’m only 3 hours in. Dishonored seems a lot more interesting to me (at least in the early stages), but for the bugs (although nothing game-breaking). I started Tomb Raider last night, and though it has a similar setting to FC3, I’m enjoying it a lot more.
06/03/2013 at 14:39 noodlecake says:
Yes it does! It’s much tighter, the characters are more interesting and is generally much less flawed. I really like Dishonoured for a lot of reasons but the fact that I can’t use any of the powers that look any good because everything will go to shit as a result kinda ruins the experience for me. I still haven’t seen what the fun sounding powers look like :(. Also the characters are terribly boring.
06/03/2013 at 11:48 sub-program 32 says:
“despite being a game about going for a boring walk in the sand!” While I don’t really go the whole expressing dislike route much, this line did make me twitch a bit. It just sounds like John never made it past the first half of the first (and shortest) level, or never played it at all and is going by video fragments.
06/03/2013 at 11:58 strangeloup says:
Or, just possibly, he’s being sarcastic.
You never know.
06/03/2013 at 12:13 woodsey says:
I played it all. Sums it up pretty well.
It deserves an award for art direction, because that carried the whole thing. Now people get to say, “ooh, look at how mysterious and emotional it all is”. The co-op integration was a nice idea, but nice ideas don’t always work out how you hope – and Journey is one of those times.
John’s right in that it’s just one of those indie games everyone can say they bought and pat themselves on the back. It does that tiresome indie-schtick of relying on minimum player-input because, y’know, that’s how you really engage with something emotionally.
I have no problem with games wanting to communicate a message or give someone The Feels, but Journey is a poser.
06/03/2013 at 12:45 Gravy100 says:
I suppose you could dismiss it as a poser but I’d say it is more refined, like a posh boy straight out of Eton. Multiplayer for example is one of the areas in which I’d say it is refined, I love the way it was handled as I’m not one for mixing with that COD lot and their base language.
06/03/2013 at 11:52 Crimsoneer says:
I love that we have a famous comedian who ACTUALLY plays video games. Great showing by all, although you do rather wonder who nominated BLOPS 2 for most innovative game.
06/03/2013 at 17:19 Nick says:
his metal gear solid routine is a joy to behold.
06/03/2013 at 11:53 Bluerps says:
I like that they buried Journey in awards, but some of those nominations are a bit bewildering. CODBLOPS2 nominated for Game Innovation? D3 and Dark Souls for Strategy? What?
06/03/2013 at 12:02 rustybroomhandle says:
Worse, the nom is specifically for the ‘Prepare to Die’ edition. Dark Souls was nominated last year too in the same category.
06/03/2013 at 13:22 Squirly says:
I was wondering about Dark Souls myself, but if they nominated it last year as well for the previous edition, at least they’re consistent. Still dumb, but consistently dumb.
06/03/2013 at 12:01 brulleks says:
New Star Soccer actually won? That’s fantastic news!
Ok, so yes the BAFTAs and awards in general are a bit of baloney, but Si Reed deserves all the recognition he gets for beavering away on his indie games for so many years, and giving great attention to the comments of his fanbase.
This lone developer was up against the likes of FIFA, PES and (for some reason) the extremely overhyped but incredibly popular fitness games in this category. Congratulations Si!
06/03/2013 at 13:00 Mr Chug says:
Absolutely this. The PC version of NSS was great, but the mobile version occupied my commute time non stop for a good couple of months. In a field that included BLOPS2 getting a nomination for innovation it’s great to see PES and FIFA getting beaten by the better game.
06/03/2013 at 12:36 Lemming says:
“Online Multiplayer (WHA?)”
Multiplayer that’s unintrusive and you can’t hear them speak? I’d say it’s the best multiplayer game ever made.
06/03/2013 at 14:00 RakeShark says:
I cannot like this comment enough.
Not to mention as an experiment in making people empathetic towards each other, rather than hostile and competitive, I’d say it was a success. Stuff like that I feel deserves to be recognized and put on a pedestal over other entries that check off the boxes of modes/netcode/VOIP/progression/balance. It’s not like BL2 changes the way we think of multiplayer, no, we look at it and say “That’s the standard we want/don’t want”.
Dunno if it’s the contrarian/hipster asshole in me, but I have no qualms about indie-esque games like Journey utterly thieving awards that would go to blockbuster manshoot mega-hits whose profit margins are highlighted on every other gaming website.
06/03/2013 at 17:10 sub-program 32 says:
Totally agreed on that point. The fact that those multiplayer aspects actually affect a story element near the end is just icing on the non-intrusive cake.
06/03/2013 at 12:49 tigershuffle says:
just be thankful that the Brits havent decided to cover games as well…..
subjective awards are one thing, but awards issued on populism
06/03/2013 at 13:21 Hoaxfish says:
and for the MOBO awards to cover MOBAs
06/03/2013 at 12:51 SuicideKing says:
I’m surprised RPS didn’t like Sleeping Dogs enough to put it on their calender.
06/03/2013 at 15:00 Lord Custard Smingleigh says:
More like sleeping bears ’round these parts.
06/03/2013 at 16:04 cjlr says:
If Horace is infinite, does that mean some part of him is always sleeping?
06/03/2013 at 13:27 Hoaxfish says:
I thought the ceremony itself was pretty nice, with an actual focus on the games, and most of the people involved actually had a sense of humour.
I know it’s mostly a temporary hang-over from the recent olympics, but it was nice to see some of the paralympians on stage as any other celebrities (and making some self-deprecating jokes instead of being politically correct).
06/03/2013 at 14:10 Zephro says:
Gabe just got TS Elliot and EE Cummings mixed up! This is the worst thing Valve have ever done.
06/03/2013 at 15:49 mickygor says:
SongPop was the best browser game of 2012. One of the best examples of social gaming, and easily the best on facebook.
07/03/2013 at 07:26 Shadowcat says:
“Who is that fat bastard?”
07/03/2013 at 12:52 Alien Smithee says:
Dara Ó Brian. He likes to tell us he’s an “atheist” but like that other bald fat cringe-worthy bastard Phil Collins, he’s a Freemason, Luciferian and a Satanist. He’s also a Marxist Socialist who loves promoting fraudulent science (i.e. Global Warming and Climate Change) and basically wants you dead, that’s who. Ó Brian likes to grease his palms with blood money and bribes, so he’s obviously a great choice to be connected with the BAFTA’s, basically a PR Advertising and Marketing organisation where “awards” are given to those who bribe the most to the corrupt “officials” behind closed doors, either with money, titles or sexual favours. Glad Rock Paper Shotgun isn’t involved with those criminals!