I like GAME, as a company they make sure to give equal sale opportunities to all video games (no matter of consumer trends). For a nationwide store you would expect that their yearly awards would be given to games that sell the most in the sole aim of profit, not so with the GAME awards. There are twelve different categories which all but one is chosen by the company themselves. I really had thought that game of the year would go to something like Fifa or Lego Star Wars – huge sellers this year in overall sales. I was surprised to see that a lot of the winners were actually Nintendo products.

The best portable game was handed to Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney which we’ve covered before, it’s a pretty amazing game but I really expected something like Brain Training, Animal Crossing or Vice City Stories to win due to their large target audience. My expectations were challenged as well by the other categories. These included (winner in brackets); Artistic Achievement (Dragon Quest VIII), Technical Achievement (Wii Console), Best Publisher (Nintendo, with EA not far behind…), Best Developer (Nintendo), Best Story (Canis Canem Edit aka Bully), Best Hardware (DS Lite, The Wii wasn’t even nominated for this? I suppose it did win a lot of other awards though), Originality (Wii Hardware), Use of a licence (Lego Star Wars 2) and finally Best Multiplayer (Gears of War. Craig kicked my ass at this game so I’m not so fond of the multiplayer ). There were also two other awards for Players Choice and Game of the Year. The players choice as voted for by members of the GAME mailing list was awarded to Gears of War (with 28% of the vote) and Zelda came second (24%, very close indeed). This isn’t bad seeing as the amount of people with a 360 in comparison to Wii is largely in the Xbox camp. The game of the year (voted for by GAME stuff) was given to Shadow of the Colossus with Guitar Hero 2 in second place.

I must agree with GAME on the majority of the results. I’m really glad that they are rewarding creativity instead of appeal. It’s great to play games that don’t just rehash the same engines every year with a few tweaked game play options and new teams/cars etc. By rewarding those companies that do go out and make something new, it’s a good sign for creativity in the years to come. It will also hopefully show the majority of mainstream gamers that there is more to gaming than good graphics.

My pessimistic side says that there will still be a new Fifa football game out next Christmas that will sell like hot mochi just for having a few footballers change squads. Clearly there will be as they sell so well, it’s just a shame that a lot of companies (mainly EA actually) hash out stuff over and over again with little changes for easy profit.