Well I’m surprised that I managed to agree with most of the winners, a change for me. There seemed to be two different types of awards, the big one that they nominees and had presenters for, then smaller ones given out by Geoff Keighly without much fanfare.
Best Performance: Trey Parker
The first category of awards for the night. The nominees were Kevin Spacey for the role of Kevin Spacey in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Adam Harrington for Bigby Wolf in The Wolf Amongst Us, Troy Baker for Talion in Shadows of Mordor, Melissa Hutchinson for Clementine in The Walking Dead and Trey Parker for just about every role in The Stick of Truth. Trey Parker won the award and gave a nice speech about loving video games that finished with “This is why Video Games are the greatest form of entertainment. Only in games can Trey Parker beat out Kevin Spacey for acting.”
Trending Gamer: Total Biscuit
Ok the fact that this was a category caught me by surprise but let’s roll with it. Presented by Boogie and Ijustine, I’m glad Ijustine didn’t have a speech about video games because I have seen her try to play Portal before, it’s not pretty. The Nominees were; Evan “Vanoss” Fong, Total Biscuit, Stampylonghead, Jeff Gerstman and Pewdiepie. I have no idea who most of them are so I’m glad that Total Biscuit won.
Best Online Experience and Game Score: Bungie
The first of the awards presented off stage Bungie won both of these awards for Destiny which was actually a little bit awkward . Just this last week Bungie has been faced with a massive backlash over their changes to the online play in Destiny. The second award for Best Score score had to be presented separately from the first as Williamson left the company earlier in the year in a split that was somewhat acrimonious.
Best Mobile Handheld Game: Hearthstone
Presented by two comedians, I have no idea who they were, the only funny thing that was said was when one of them called out to Reggie that they should hit up the strip-clubs after the show. There were a lot of good nominees in this category Hearthstone, Bravely Default, Threes, Monument Valley and Super Smash Brothers 3DS.
Best Sports/Racing Game: Mario Cart 8
Presenter Dan Reynolds had nice words for the awards “Best trophy I’ve ever seen, a beautiful woman with eeehh…” I’m pretty sure he was going to say wings. The nominess were; FIFA 15, Trials Fusion, NBA 2k15, Forza Horizon 2 and Mario Cart 8. It’s nice to see Mario Cart is still as popular as ever getting the win. Reggie came up to collect the prize, he is just everywhere tonight.
Best Esports Player: Nadeshot
Nadeshot is the the Esports player of the year. I’ve never heard of him before but best guess is that he is a CoD player.
Best Shooter: Farcry 4
Mass Effect Director Casey Hudson very astutely pointed out that you need guns in a FPS. Good work Casey. The nominees were CoD: Advanced Warfare, Destiny, Farcry 4, Titanfall and Wolfenstein: The New Order.
Best Narrative and Games for Change Award: Valiant Hearts
Ubisoft picked up a further two awards with Valiant Hearts winning the Best Narrative and Games for Change awards. Games for Change is a new award for games that look to bring attention and change to some aspects of society.
Best Indie Game: Shovel Knight
There seems to be some anger that Birth of Isaac: Rebirth wasn’t on this list but the list is already full of some great games. The nominees were Broken Age, Transistor, Shovel Knight, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and Monument Valley. Shovel knight won and this lead to the developers, Yacht Club Games, standing right next to Shawn Layden the head of PlayStation while thanking Nintendo for their help during the development of the game.
Best Fighting Game and Developer of the Year: Smash Brothers and Nintendo
Nintendo picked up these awards for Super Smash Brothers and I guess just being awesome. Reggie was once again on hand to accept the awards showing off his Mario pin for being at Nintendo for over ten years.
Game of the Year: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Well that’s disappointing but being honest DA:I is just such a big game it was never going to lose. It was up against some really good competition with Dark Souls II and Wolfenstein: the New Order also in it’s category. I personally would have liked to have seen Bayonetta II win the GotY as it got legitimately good reviews where as the reviews for DA:I all seemed to point out flaws with the game and then give it a good score anyhow. I think TGA knew that this would be a poor choice so they followed it up with some amazing news for Nintendo fans which you can see here.