Full disclosure up front: I’ve got a little history with the Spike VGAs. In 2004, I was a member of the advisory committee, helping the network pick the nominees and winners for several categories.

I quit the board the next year, on ethical concerns, since the network was insisting that judges and advisors nominate and vote on games that weren’t yet released – and no one had been able to play in full.

This was long before gaming journalist Geoff Keighley started working for Spike. The awards are very much on the up and up these days. And they’ve truly becoming must-watch events for gamers.

The 2009 edition looks to be another bump in quality - and buzz. Bungie and Microsoft will give players their first look at “Halo: Reach” this year – and other exclusives will be revealed in the days leading up to Dec. 12, when the show will air live at 8pm.

The nominees (full list after the break) are a solid bunch as well – with “Uncharted 2” leading the pack with eight nominations. Players can vote on their favorites now at the VGA site.

By now you probably know the winners of the Game Developers' Choice Awards ("Fallout 3" for game of the year and writing, "Dead Space" for audio, "Prince of Persia" for art, "World of Goo" for downloadable game, "God of War: Chains of Olympus for handheld, "LittleBigPlanet" for everything else). The ceremony was relatively fun and a great opportunity for an underappreciated creative community to celebrate its work together.

But having been present at numerous awards shows in Hollywood, I couldn't help but notice some key differences tha indicate, well, this still ain't exactly the Oscars:

-Numerous nominees who weren't present. If "Grand Theft Auto IV" had won any awards, there wouldn't have been anyone from Rockstar here to accept. If "Gears of War 2" had won, Cliff Bleszinski wouldn't have been there to bound on stage.

-At the Oscars, there are seat fillers who jump into chairs if you so much as go to the bathroom. At the GDC's, empty seats abounded. I had a good half a row to myself.

-The number of female award winners: ZERO. The number of women who appeared at all: Two, one of whom runs the conference and one who was there to look pretty and escort winners offstage

-When you win an Oscar, you go to the Governor's Ball and numerous studio-sponsored parties and are mobbed by agents, producers, and well-wishers. Apparently if you win the Seamus McNally Grand Prize at the from Independent Games Festival Awards (the "indie" ceremony before GDC Awards proper), you end up at lame "Rock Band"-and-beer parties in someone's apartment. As I discovered when I was at just such a party last night and Erik Svedang, the creator of "Blueberry Garden," and several of his pals showed up:

Let's hope for the industry's sake that winners will have somewhere better to be in the future.

The biggest business story of 2008 in the world of vidoegames was, without a doubt, the success of Nintendo. Followed closely by the struggles of Sony. The Wii and DS beat the PS3 and PSP, respectively, by a factor of nearly three in unit sales last year. Games published by the house of Mario took five of the spots on NPD's year end top ten sales chart, while nothing published by Sony, or for its consoles, made the list.

Which is why it's so striking to look at the nominees for the Game Developers Choice Awards today and see Nintendo completely and utterly shut out. Sony, meanwhile, had the most nominations of any publisher (12), the most nominations for games exclusive to its consoles (14), and tied for the most games nominated available for its consoles (25).

Apparently the people who make games do not agree with the public about who's leading the industry. (Which, I think, adds credence to my arguments that Sony is getting too artsy for its own good and Nintendo games are like "Paul Blart: Mall Cop").

Looking through the 50 GDC nominations (ten categories, five picks each), it's amazing that there's only one game developed or published by Nintendo ("Advance Wars: Day of Ruin"). In fact, just seven of the 50 nods went to games that are even available on the DS or Wii. 25 are available on PS3, 25 for Xbox 360 (how convenient), 19 for PC, three for DS and three for PSP.

The Best Handheld Game category is particularly revealing. Even though the DS handily outsells the PSP and has significantly more software, three of the five nominated games are for PSP, two for DS.

The story's the same when it comes to exclusives. Only four nods, one each for "Boom Blox," "Soul Bubbles," "Advance Wars: Days of Ruin" and "The World Ends with You," went to games exclusive to Nintendo consoles. By contrast, there were eight nods for Xbox 360 exclusives ("Gears 2," "Fable 2" and "Braid") and 14 for PS3 or PSP ("LittleBigPlanet," "MGS 4," "Patapon," "God of War: Chains of Olympus," "Echochrome," and "PixelJunk Eden").

The three best selling games released in 2008, "Wii Fit," "Mario Kart Wii," and "Super Smash Bros. Brawl," all of which were published by Nintendo, were completely shut out.

It's not that the GDC nominees are a bunch of obscure indie titles. Game of the Year picks "Grand Theft Auto IV," "Fable 2," "Fallout 3," "Left 4 Dead" and "LittleBigPlanet" are all heavily hyped and, with the exception of "LBP," solid or exceptional sellers. This is hardly like the Oscars, overloaded as it is with movies like "The Reader," "Milk," "Frozen River," and "Doubt," that few people have even heard of, let alone seen.

But still, there's an evident divergence between what's selling and what's being celebrated. Is it a bad thing? I don't personally think so. I would quibble with plenty of particular nominations, but overall the GDC nominators made very respectable -- if somewhat safe -- choices. The simple fact is that Nintendo didn't do particularly innovative or exciting work last year. And third party publishers, with a few  exceptions, didn't do their best work for the DS or Wii. In part because the industry has been slow to adjust the the success of the Wii. And in part because you can simply do more on the PS3 and 360.

And we can't forget the impact of one game, Sony's PS3 exclusive "LittleBigPlanet," which took seven of the 50 nominations despite being something of a bust commercially (it sold just 611,000 units last year, per NPD).

This could very well be the trend going forward, at least for this console generation. It sure seems to me that the games that hardcore players, the press, and the industry are excited about in 2009 are mostly for PC/PS3/360.

More on some of the specific picks later. For now, here are the nominees (per Gamasutra, which presents the GDC awards):

Best Game Design
Far Cry 2(Ubisoft Montreal)
Braid (Number None)
Fallout 3 (Bethesda Game Studios)
Left 4 Dead (Valve Software)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)

Best Visual Art
Fallout 3 (Bethesda Game Studios)
Metal Gear Solid 4 (Kojima Productions)
Prince Of Persia (Ubisoft Montreal)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)
Gears Of War 2 (Epic Games)

Best Technology
Spore (Maxis)
Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar North)
Left 4 Dead (Valve Software)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)
Gears Of War 2 (Epic Games)

Best Writing
Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft Montreal)
Braid (Number None)
Fallout 3 (Bethesda Game Studios)
Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar North)
Metal Gear Solid 4 (Kojima Productions)

Best Audio
Dead Space (EA Redwood Shores)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)
Metal Gear Solid 4 (Kojima Productions)
Left 4 Dead (Valve Software)
Gears Of War 2 (Epic Games)

Best Debut
Braid (Number None)
Sins Of A Solar Empire (Ironclad Games)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)
World Of Goo (2D Boy)
Soul Bubbles (Mekensleep)

Innovation
Spore (Maxis)
World Of Goo (2D Boy)
Boom Blox (EA Los Angeles)
Braid (Number None)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)

Best Handheld
Patapon (Pyramid/SCE Japan)
Advance Wars: Days Of Ruin (Intelligent Systems)
God Of War: Chains Of Olympus (Ready At Dawn Studios)
Echochrome (SCE Japan)
The World Ends With You (Jupiter/Square Enix)

Best Downloadable Game
Castle Crashers (The Behemoth)
Braid (Number None)
World Of Goo (2D Boy)
N+ (Metanet/Slick Entertainment)
Pixeljunk Eden (Q-Games)

Game of the Year
Fable 2 (Lionhead Studios)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)
Fallout 3 (Bethesda Game Studios)
Left 4 Dead (Valve Software)
Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar North)

The favorite (according to, ummm, me) too home the second annual videogame writing trophy from the Writers Guild of America awards last night. Despite the fact that many of the year's highest profile games weren't submitted for consideration, I think "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed" was not only the best  of the five nominees, but probably the best written videogame in 2008, period. Even reviewers who didn't like the game almost universally praised the story. So, despite a flawed process, good for the WGA, I say.

The specific winners for writing "The Force Unleashed" are Haden Blackman, Shawn Pitman, John Stafford and Cameron Suey.

I have no particular problem with the content of the Interactive Academy Award nominations (full list here). They're not incredibly inspired, but most of the year's best games are included.

Then again, they'd have to be. The most striking thing about the Interactive Achievement Awards is that there are 29 categories. By contrast the Oscars, a ceremony that, rightly or wrongly, is a tad bit more prestigious in our culture, has 24 awards. (Warning: Rant coming)

The distinct impression you get browsing through the IAA categories is that they want to give a prize to almost everyone. Given that it's an organization funded by the videogame publishers who receive the prizes, that doesn't make the best impression. The motion picture academy may receive its funding in the same way, but somehow it keeps itself under control.

Why, for instance, are there 10 different genre awards? Can't adventure, action, casual, family, MMO, rpg, strategy, sports, racing and fighting games compete against each other? And honestly, are there clear differences? If you haven't peeked yet, answer this: Is "God of War: Chains of Olympus" action or adventure? Is "Boom Blox" a family game or a casual game? Is "WWE Smackdown vs Raw" a sports game or a fighting game? (scroll to the bottom for your answers)

The distinctions are utterly ridiculous. And some of these categories have to be really padded to come up with five nominees. Were there really five great racing games last year? Or five great fighting games? Perhaps I'm forgetting a bunch of great titles, but nominating "Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe," "Soul Calibur IV," "Super Smash Bros. Brawl," "Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix" and "WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2009" for fighting game of the year seems less like a recognition of excellence than a simple list of the five major fighting games released in 2008.

Here's another quiz for you: Outside of three nominated music/rythm games, which two titles had the best soundtrack? Keep in mind this is separate from original score.

Why in the world are we even judging the soundtracks in games like "Guitar Hero: World Tour" and "Rock Band 2" anyway? They're as much a matter of licensing deals as taste. And since they don't have to be matched to gameplay, it's basically an award for "what songs do we like best?" And while we're on the topic, how can there be ten genre awards, but not one for music/rythm?

I'm not even close to done. Someone explain this to me: What's the difference between game design and game direction? Apparently "Fable 2" is better designed than "Metal Gear Solid 4," but "MGS 4" is better directed. I did not know that.

I'm as big a fan of storytelling in videogames as you'll find, but has the medium really advanced so far that we're ready to recognize both original and adapted stories? If the Golden Globes can get away with one writing award, can't the Interactive Achievement Awards? Talk about stretching: to come up with five nominees for the adapted category, they had to include "Mortal Kombat vs DC." I totally enjoyed that game, but nominating it for the writing? Dear God. All of a sudden "The Reader" getting nominated for best picture over "The Dark Knight" isn't bothering me so much.

Quiz number three: In the category of outstanding character performance, which guy from "Gears of War 2" was more deserving: Dom or Marcus?

And finally, do we really need separate categories for console, PC, handheld, and cellular games? Giving a separate award for handheld and cellular (probably merging the two) I could maybe see since, much like animation in film, there are technical limitations that make it tough for them to compete with console/pc games. But is it really that hard to judge PC titles against console? I simply don't believe it. And is it really necessary to give a "console game of the year" award separate from "overeall game of the year?" It shouldn't be, since four of the five nominees are the same. (For some reason, "Left 4 Dead" was nominated for computer and overall, but not console, even though "Fallout 3" got the nod in all three. Huh?)

People wonder why the Interactive Achievement Awards don't get much mainstream attention... Perhaps because they give 29 of them. Somehow the Game Developers Choice awards manages to give just 10 and they come out fine. A lot better, in fact. I just went through all the interactive achievement categories and, off the top of my head, eliminated all the unnecessary ones and combined the duplicative ones and came out with just 11 (my formula is below). Feel free to disagree, but can anyone really argue that giving 29 awards is smart if they're supposed to be taken seriously by the people who receive them or the culture at large?

Quiz answers:

-"God of War: Chains of Olympus" is adventure, not action.

-"Boom Blox" is family, not casual

-"WWE Smackdown vs Raw" is fighting, not sports

-"LittleBigPlanet" and "Motorstorm: Pacific Rift." Duh.

-Trick question. They're both nominated!

How did I get to 11? By eliminating all 10 genre awards, killing character performance (animation should be able to cover that), combining handheld and cellular, combining soundtrack with score, combining adapted and original story, killing the innovation award (to win a prize you should be innovative and good, in which case you can win game of the year), combining game design and game direction, killing console and PC and just letting those titles fight for overall game of the year.

Now we know why "Braid" wasn't nominate for one of the Writers Guild videogame awards.

Creator Jonathan Blow puts a good old fashioned beatdown on the WGA videogame awards on his blog, calling them "a membership drive masquerading as an award ceremony."

His reason is that, to be eligible, the credited writers of games have to join the WGA's videogame writers caucus. It only costs $75, but as a matter of principle, Blow, who notes he's not at pro- or anti-union (after all he is self-employed) thinks this is not the way to recognize the best game writing:

I would not mind participating in an award ceremony that is honestly trying to recognize the best in video game writing. When the WGA sat down to create their awards, they could have made this their priority: that the awards would go to the people most deserving, and over time would build a reputation of respectability, giving game writers something real to aspire to. Along with the award nominations they could have sent out a letter saying “Hey, please join our guild; guild membership does not influence the awards in any way, but we feel that we have a positive contribution to make to the game industry.”

Instead, they mandate caucus membership, with the obvious effect that the awards probably won’t go to be best games. So the structure becomes this: you give them a little something by making their guild more powerful, they give you a little something back by maybe giving you an award. It’s just slimy, and if the public were to assume that these awards were chosen based only on quality, then it would be fundamentally corrupt.

In fairness to the WGA, they've never pretended the award doesn't exist, in part, for this exact reason. When the videogame award was announced in 2007, caucus member Micah Wright, who's now the chairman, said, “This is the first time game writers have been honored by their peers in the writing community, and it's an important step toward the WGA's goal of covering everything that moves on a screen."

But that's not all that annoys Blow. He observes that membership in the videogame writers caucus isn't full membership in the Guild, since they don't get to vote, attend membership meetings, etc. It's more of a group affiliated with the WGA than part of the WGA. "[A]pparently, by joining the caucus you are not even a real member of the WGA, because hey, just because we are giving you an award for outstanding video game writing doesn’t mean you are a real writer," Blow adds in an extra jab.

(In fairness to the WGA, it wouldn't really really work for game writers to join since the guild has no jurisdiction in the space, just an optional contract.)

And he's not done yet. He finally notes that the WGA only recognizes games with an explicit "written by" credit. Which doesn't work for "Braid," on which one person did everything and just took "a game by" credit (though Blow postulates, and I think he's right, that the WGA would have easily made an exception for him). "[T]his, and other parts of the application," he writes, "make clear that the WGA is targeting large-team industrially-created games, and that indie games are out of their area of concern; this reinforces to me the notion that this is about business, and money, and union power, rather than being about quality."

Between Blow's arguments and the many publishers that, as I previously reported, didn't submit their games most likely out of anti-union sentiments, the WGA isn't exactly putting together the most representative award. It's totally understandable why the WGA is using the prize as a tool to organize an important industry, but the cost is turning out to be significant.

[For more, check out this article in tomorrow's Daily Variety]

Since the Writers Guild of America announced it videogame writing nominees last week, there's been a lot of reaction to the list. Were "Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3," "Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble, "Fallout 3," "Star Wars: the Force Unleashed" and "Tomb Raider: Underworld" really the five best written games of 2008?

Like most award organizations, the WGA doesn't disclose which titles, or how many total, were submitted. So I put together a list of the games I thought had decent writing and would have had a shot at a nomination and then I asked the publishers or developers directly.

The answers were none too inspiring, at least for those who want there to have been as broad a mix of potential nominees as possible. A few of the publishersr/developers offered a "no comment" or didn't respond, but the vast majority told me they didn't submit to the WGA awards. These are the games I've found out weren't submitted to the WGA, as well as the ones I asked about but didn't get an answer:

Didn't get an answer (at least not yet): Fable 2, Gears of War 2, LittleBigPlanet, Metal Gear Solid 4, Silent Hill: Homecoming

Many of these specific "no's," I should note, came from companies that gave me blanket statements that they didn't submit to the WGA Awards at all, including prominent names like EA (with "Command and Conquer" being an exception apparently driven by the LA studio), Rockstar,and Ubisoft.

The obvious question is: Why? Don't videogame companies like winning awards, for the PR boost if not the prestige? There has been some speculation on the Web that the reason is the writers have to be members fo the Writers Guild, but it turns out that's not true. For any game that wants to be considered, the credited writers mere need to join the WGA's videogame writers caucus, an offshoot group sponsored by the guild. Membership costs a whopping $75.

It's possible some companies just weren't organized enough to get it done or they didn't think the WGA awards were prestigious enough to merit a few hours of time and a few hundred dollars for videogame writers caucus membership. But my best guess is that many of these videogame companies are flat out anti-union and don't want to encourage them in any way, even for an award. After all, the subtext of these awards are that the WGA would like to organize all of videogame writing (currently it offers an optional contract for members who can convince companies to sign on, but it has no mandatory jurisdiction in the space). And most videogame companies are about as interested in that as porting their new titles to the Gizmodo.

Update: Jonathan Blow explains why he didn't submit "Braid," and why he thinks the WGA videogame award is not a real award, here.

 Last week the Writers Guild announced its nominees for the best written videogames and provoked a bit of controversy on the 'Net. I wonder if the Visual Effects Society will have the same effect now that it has announced its pick of the most visually impressive videogames, both in real time and pre-rendered, along with its full list of 2008 nominees.

I don't know that any of these would be my picks, but they're all decent choices. And of course it raises a question about how games are and shoudl be compared, since on pure quality nothing for the Wii could ever stand up, and even 360 and PS3 games may have a disadvantage compared to those rendered on the most high-end PCs.

OUTSTANDING REAL TIME VISUALS IN A VIDEO GAME

Crysis Warhead
Zoltan Pocza, Gabor Mogyorosi, Tamas Schlagl

Dead Space
Ian Milham, Ben Wanat, Christopher Stone

Need For Speed Undercover
Henry Labounta, Steve Barcia, Dave Taylor, Carl Jarrett

OUTSTANDING PRE-RENDERED VISUALS IN A VIDEO GAME

Command And Conquer  - Red Alert 3 - Chrono-Lab, Empire And Allied Scenes
Richard Taylor, Benjamin Hopkins, Katai Tang, Mical Pedriana

Need For Speed Undercover - Cinematics
Henry Labounta, Steve Barcia, Dave Taylor, Mark Raham

World of Warcraft - Wrath of The Lich King - Intro Cinematic
Jeff Chamberlain, Phillip Hillenbrand

There's also the question about the nominating process. In the case of the VES Awards, I don't yet know how many and which games were released and which were even eligible. Trying to find out.

But in the case of the WGA Awards, there does seem to be a misperception out there on the Interwebs that only games written by guild members are eligible. In fact, wannabe nominees who aren't members simply need to join the Videogame Writers' Caucus, a group started by the guild to promote the field. Membership costs a whopping $75. Some people may not want to join, but they don't need any special guild memberships. They do, however, need a "written by" credit. "Designed by" or anything like that isn't allowed.

There was lots of debate last month amongst gamers about the quality of the Spike Video Game Awards, but I don't think we ever found out how it performed.

It's a question I myself almost forgot to ask, until the topic came up recently. So I checked with Variety's ratings expert Rick Kissell, who provided me with the figures, via Nielsen: 680,000 people watched the Spike Video Game Awards in their debut airing on Dec. 14. That's down 26% from the 2007 total and the second lowest since they started in 2004 (a bit higher than 2006's 618,000 but barely more than half of 2004's 1.23 million).

Of course, as a network for guys, Spike particularly cares about hows its shows perform amongst men 18-34. But the story is no better there. 229,000 men 18-34 watched. That's down 29% from 2007 and it's the lowest ever for the show.

The one piece of good news is the VGAs did better with teenage boys (12-17) this time around, perhaps due to Jack Black's fans. Viewership in that demographic rose 30% over 2007 to 199,000 and was no. 3 amongst the five years of the show.

Before you draw any conclusions about what this indicates about the appeal of this year's show, keep one very important fact in mind: the VGAs were up against the Cowboys-Giants game on NBC, which drew the biggest audience ever in three seasons of Sunday Night Football. And a lot of young guys who might otherwise be interested in a videogame awards show also like to watch football.

Nonetheless, whether it was due to scheduling or content or both, Spike can't be thrilled with these results for what was clearly a pretty expensive awards show by cable standards.

Update: The numbers were much better on the digital front, I'm told. Average weekly uniques on the VGA website more than tripled from 2007 and there were a total of more than 1.3 million pageviews. Total online video streams -- show clips, red carpets, those exclusive trailers  -- rose 30% to 353,000.

The Writers Guild just announced its five nominees for the best videogame writing of 2008 and they're a pretty good cross section of the industry, ranging from hugely popular AAA titles ("Fallout 3," "Star Wars: The Force Uleashed") to a downloadable game I've never heard ("Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!" Actually, Variety's Leigh Alexander has a good write up of the game if you want some info) and from the self-consciously kitschy ("Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3") to straight ahead adventure ("Tomb Raider: Underworld").

Here's the full list of nominees:

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 (EA). Writer: Haris Orkin. Story Producer: Mical Pedriana.

Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble! (Mousechief). Writing: Keith Nemitz. Additional Writing: Adrianne Ambrose.

Fallout 3 (Bethesda). Lead Writer: Emil Pagliarulo. Quest Writing: Erik J. Caponi, Brian Chapin, Jon Paul Duvall, Kurt Kuhlmann, Alan Nanes, Bruce Nesmith, and Fred Zeleny. Additional Quest Writing: Nate Ellis, William Killeen, Mark Nelson, and Justin McSweeney.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (LucasArts). Writers: Haden Blackman, Shawn Pitman, John Stafford and Cameron Suey.

Tomb Raider: Underworld (Eidos). Story: Eric Lindstrom and Toby Guard. Screenplay: Eric Lindstrom.

For those who aren't aware, this is actually the second year the WGA has given a videogame writing award. Last year's inaugural winner was "Dead Head Fred." The WGA Awards are the only Hollywood kudofest (that's a Variety term; I bet you can all figure out what it means) to include a prize for videogames.

The nominees and the winners are picked by panels from the WGA's Videogame Writers Caucus (which has 200 members), as well as other winners active in the field. The nominees are picked from games that submit their scripts to the guild. One caveat is that the nominated writers need to either be WGA members of have recently applied. Although that's not too big a restriction really, since anyone who wants to be nominated can simply apply and will almost surely get the nod. I suppose the only restriction would be the cost of joining for independent developers with little funds, or those with employers who simply don't want to pay. I have no idea yet how many scripts were submitted and for what games, but I've asked and will hopefully have an answer soon.

The winners will get their prize at the WGA Awards ceremony on Feb. 7.Meanwhile, can all of us in the videogame world engage in one of Hollywood's favorite pastimes: Awards prognostication? My guess is that the front runner is "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed" is the front runner, since it was almost universally acclaimed for its excellent writing, even by those who didn't like the gameplay. "Fallout 3" may have a shot for the sheer quantity of content in that game, but even the most hardcore fans (of which I am not one) don't seem to think it really stood out for the quality of writing. The wild card is surely "Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble," since so few of us (including me) have played it, but it sure sounds like it has a smarty, wry sense of humor.

Update: There seems to be a misperception out there on the Interwebs that only games written by guild members are eligible. In fact, wannabe nominees who aren't members simply need to join the Videogame Writers' Caucus, a group started by the guild to promote the field. Membership costs a whopping $75. Some people may not want to join, but they don't need any special guild memberships. They do, however, need a "written by" credit. "Designed by" or anything like that isn't allowed.

The picture on the top right is "Command and Conquer." The one on the left is "Dangerous High School Girls..."

Of the 10 new trailers shown at Spike's Video Game Awards, there was a clear distinction between ones that only showed a dramatic moment, or series of moments, similar to a film trailer, and those that demonstrated what it will actually be like to play the game. In terms of the audience reactions that I observed, people to really like the latter (shocker!). Based kind of what on I observed, but mostly on my own opinions, here are the four that stood out as really good and then the three that stood out as lame.

#1 God of War III. The voicework may be terrible, but the action is out of this world awesome

#2 Brutal Legend. A slick mix of gameplay and rock comedy attitude.

#3 Terminator Salvation. The action actually looks like pretty standard third person shooter, but the transition from transmission static to the familiar "Terminator" theme is truly inspired. (As I predicted, though, the inclusion of five separate company title cards up top is super annoying)

#4 Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and the Damned. Not enough gameplay to be truly great, but it mixes dozens of in-game scenes to give a great sense of the downloadable expansion pack's story, characters and attitude.

Third worst: "Uncharted 2." So at some point in the game Nathan Drake is riding in a train and then it crashes and he falls out the back. Which relates to the other 99.9% of the game how?

Second worst: "Dante's Inferno." There's a few seconds at the end of the protagonist hitting a monster with a cross, but the rest is explaining that it's based on a famous story about hell, which I'm guessing most of us either can figure out based on the title or don't care about.

The worst: "Mafia II." So the story is a second-rate "Goodfellas" rip off. Anything else we need to know about this game? Like what the players do? I guess not.

The Spike Videogame Awards were definitely a somewhat classier affair last night than in the past, but it's still not quite the Oscars. So there's not exactly a post-show Governor's Ball. What we got instead were two relatively low key post-show gatherings at bars close to Sony Pictures' studios, where the VGAs were held. One was sponsored by CAA's videogame department, the other was just organized last minute by some industry folks.

For the sake of idle, pointless industry gossip, here's a report on who I saw where (mostly first-hand, a few second-hand from sources I trust).

The CAA party:

"Gears of War" creative director Cliff Bleszinski from Epic
Insomniac chief Ted Price
Several folks from Double Fine (I didn't see Tim Schafer, but I assume he was there)
Jason Rubin, formerly of Naughty Dog
A bunch of folks from Media Molecule, maker of "LittleBigPlanet"
Kellee Santiago of ThatGameCompany
All the folks from CAA's game division (natch)

At the other party (no official sponsor, though I hear Vanity Fair may be signing on next year):

"Fallout 3" director Todd Howard and other folks from Bethesda Softworks
Infinity Ward co-founder Vince Zampella
Sony Santa Monica chief Allan Becker

I dont' want to turn into Page Six and share who was talking to who about what. However I can't help but share this one unsourced quote of the night, which came up in a discussion about "Brutal Legend," the fact that it was so heavily promoted at the VGAs (Jack Black hosting, Tim Schafer helping give out an award, a very cool new trailer, etc.) and us all wondering why in the world Activision dropped this game but kept dud franchises like "Spyro the Dragon":

When Bobby Kotick saw tonight's show, I bet his head exploded.

Speaking from the perspective of sitting in the audience, this year's Spike Videogame Awards were a big improvement over last year, and not only because they added a Golden Globes vibe by serving alcohol. OK, that definitely helped, but it was pretty much counter-balanced by the guy a few rows ahead of me who got drunk and felt the need, when Megan Fox appeared to give the "game of the year" award, to yell out "Take your top off!"

I'm not here to write about the awards show, however, so much as the award. What in the heck is it? We all know the Oscar statue is a guy with a sword. There's the emmy statue that's a big globe. And a Spike VGA Award ("Spikey?" "V'ger?") is... A rainbow colored monkey with a crown holding a bong? I'm not really sure, but I took a photo at an after-party of one of the winner's trophies so Cut Scene readers can enjoy the mystery as well:

I don't think I ever actually noted on here that I was one of the 36 videogame writers who voted for the "Best of E3" awards announced last week, but indeed I was. (The full winner's list is here.)

Given that I have found my taste to be a bit eclectic compared to many game writers (Last year I championed "The Simpsons Game," didn't lavish superlatives on "Super Mario Galaxy," and didn't much enjoy "Mass Effect." Though I did love "Portal" and "Bioshock" and "Rock Band" -- I'm not completely out there), it's perhaps not surprising that very few of my votes were the games that won. In fact of the 11 categories in which I voted, I only picked two of the winners. Just by pure chance I should have done at least a little better. (Those two winners were "Spore" as best PC game and "Pure" as best racing game.)

That being said, I wasn't offended by most of the choices either. "Fallout 3," "LittleBigPlanet," "Dead Space" and "Left4Dead" are all really good games with the potential, based on the limited time I got to see them, to be fantastic.

The only winner I really disagreed with was "Mirror's Edge" for best original game. To me it seemed more gimmicky (A hot chick in the future who does parkour!) than substantive to me, the first person perspective really didn't work for a game where you're trying to manipulate a character through complex spatial puzzles, and the challenge often felt more about timing (can you jump off this ledge with enough speed at the very last second?) than brains.

I also couldn't bring myself to vote for "Gears of War 2" for Best Action Game not because it's bad in any way, but because it's so "Gears of War 1.5." The improvements are so minor over "Gears 2" that I was really surprised to see my fellow critics pick it over "Resistance 2," which strikes me as a much  more dramatic leap forward in campaign and multi-player. (I felt the same way about "Rock Band 2," which looks awesome but is, by Harmonix's own admission, really "Rock Band 1.5.")

My biggest disappointment, however, is that my favorite game at E3 didn't get a single award at all. I'm talking about "Fable 2." Speaking as someone who found the first "Fable" to be a colossal disappointment, I think "Fable 2" looks like it really will deliver on developer Peter Molyneux's promises. The combat system is amazingly simple, but can be leveled up in complex ways for those who care. The open-world roleplaying elements look like they're really tightly integrated into the story, rather than being utterly pointless like in "Fable" 1. The drop-in co-op is pretty damned cool. The human interactions, from multiple gay marriages to public druknenness, seem really fun. There are some wonderful but not overbearing references to the first "Fable." And I love that this week's downloadable "pub games" let players earn money to use later in the game -- Molyneux even said that his studio Lionhead is making an SDK available so others can make games that integrate into the "Fable 2" world.

Of course half an hour or less of hands-on time at E3 only tells you so much. I could reverse myself on every one of these opinions when I finally play the games. But based on my takes so far, it looks like I may be in a minority once again this fall.

Update: Commenter Eric makes an excellent point below: "You said the 1st person perspective "doesn't work for a game trying to manipulate a character through complex spatial puzzles." Isn't that exactly what Portal is?" I guess a more precise description would be that my problem with "Mirror's Edge" is that the character is climbing, jumping, etc. while moving at a very fast pace. I found it really difficult to figure out exactly where she is in the environment in the first person view, which made it tough figure out if I'm precisely lined up for to jump or climb in the right place while running. In "Portal" on the other hand,  you can usually take as much time as you need to look around the room, line yourself up for things, etc. And since you often have to fire precise shots, the first person view is helpful. Based on the 15 or 20 minutes I played, it's not so helpful in "Mirror's Edge." I really felt like I needed a broader view with my character as part of it.