This is rather late now. I have been meaning to post this considerably sooner, as I actually got up the day after Spike's VGA awards and immediately checked them out on their website, but I have been too carried away either with college work or completing Castlevania: Lords of Shadow to 110%. If you credit the game for nothing else, there aren't many others that allow you to complete it more than logically possible.
First of all, the one had previously mentioned in my earlier post: the overall game of the year, or 'goatie'. I had dreaded this as much as I had looked forward to it, fearing that either Halo Reach or Black Ops would win it due to popular appeal - though I enjoyed both, they are effectively repackaged versions of their predecessors. However, it seems common sense pulled through and Rockstar's rootin' tootin' six-shooterin' Red Dead Redemption took the title, and as far as I see it, it's well deserved. Sure, I enjoyed Bad Company 2 more overall, but Red Dead was a near-perfect game in just about everything it delivered (the same can't be said for BC2's lackluster campaign), as well as being starkly original in comparison to its entire competition. Rockstar may have stumbled a little on GTA IV, but in exploring fairly untouched ground with Red Dead they have more than made up for it.
Other titles were pleasing to see, such as Mass Effect 2 for Best Xbox 360 title trumping the shamefully broken and uninteresting Fable III, Limbo deservedly taking Best Independant Game and God of War 3 having Best Graphics. There was a perhaps a little bit too much of 'Red dead fever', with it also taking Best Original Score AND Best Song in a Game, and Undead Nightmare winning Best DLC. However more irritating was Call of Duty once again snatching Best Shooter, Halo Reach having Best Multiplayer (worse than Halo 3s, yet beat Bad Company 2's huge and tactical multiplayer experience) and Best Action-Adventure Game's winner being Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. Call me a fanboy if you will, but personally I believe Lords of Shadow should have at least been a nominee for the latter, packing in 30-40 hours of an adventure/hack and slash-fused tale of fantasy and love lost, instead of Brotherhood which was in my opinion a worse version of AC2 with tacked-on multiplayer.
Plenty of trailers took the stage, showcasing a new Portal 2 teaser and finally a trailer for a new Elder Scrolls. What didn't rear its head was Gears of War 3. It seems that after delay and delay Gears has stopped trying to breed hype, and for good reason.
If you've ever talked to me about Gears of War, you'll probably have heard my usual speech about Gears 2 'going Hollywood' over Gears 1's depth and darkness. Sure, I enjoyed the game, enough to play the campaign several times and play over 60 hours of multiplayer, but I believe it was a step down for the series, leaving me to wonder whether it's willing to admit for its mistakes in the trilogy's conclusion. In the past, there have been good signs; I read in an interview with 'Cliffy B' in 360 Magazine that he himself admitted to being disappointed with the final product of Gears 2, being too open and lacking the intimacy of the first game. That said, other sources have not put across the same message, mainly in the form of game footage. At E3 2010 we saw Marcus and the gang fighting a Lambent Berserker - yes, looks like there'll be Lambent everything now. Macho and visually impressive though it was, it's not quite the same deal as the ominous first Berserker that Delta Squad meet, creeping through the city crypts. The atmosphere of that mission was unforgettable, but now we're exploring jungles under sunny skies. I've no doubt Epic will deliver in terms of a straight-up third person shooter, and maybe make the story a little clearer, but from the looks of things, we'll never have the grimy feel of the Gears' first outing again.
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