BAFTA/Brian Ritchie The winners of the Game British Academy Video Game Awards have been announced at a ceremony in the London Hilton Hotel, Park Lane.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves grabs four BAFTAs
Batman: Arkham Asylum wins two, including Best Game
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 takes public-voted GAME Award of 2009
UNCHARTED 2: AMONG THIEVES took home four BAFTAs from tonight’s GAME British Academy Video Games Awards at the London Hilton. The blockbusting third person action adventure won in the Action, Story, Original Score and Use of Audio categories.
The atmospheric and immersive BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM brought the hugely popular DC Comics superhero to life and duly took away the award for Gameplay along with the coveted Best Game BAFTA.
The public-voted GAME Award of 2009 was presented to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the first-person shooter released in November which recently became Britain’s second best-selling game ever.
The team behind FIFA 10 were rewarded with two BAFTAs for their innovation and evolution of the franchise; taking away the awards for Sports and Use of Online. The series had previously won the Sports category with the FIFA 2004 edition.
LITTLEBIGPLANET won the BAFTA for Handheld, the PS3 version of the game won the award for Artistic Achievement at last year’s ceremony. LEFT 4 DEAD 2 won the award for Multiplayer, making this the second year running that the series has won in this category.
The visually stunning FLOWER won this year’s Artistic Achievement BAFTA. Lauded by the jury as a ‘triumph… that could only ever exist in the interactive medium’, the game takes players on a swooping journey through beautiful, dreamlike landscapes.
WII SPORTS RESORT won the BAFTA for Family and Social. The original Wii Sports game won six awards at the 2007 awards. EMPIRE: TOTAL WAR, an epic, expansive and innovative progression of the popular real-time strategy series, triumphed in the Strategy category.
The climax of the evening saw Ant and Dec present SHIGERU MIYAMOTO, the creative force behind some of the world's most popular and enduring video games, with the Academy’s highest accolade, the Fellowship. Accepting the award, Miyamoto-san heralded the burgeoning importance of video games as a mainstream entertainment medium and also spoke of the joy he takes in creating gaming experiences for people of all ages, saying that “Our imaginations and creativity … should be the only limits and that is what makes our industry a joy and a dream to work in.”
As well as recognising those at the peak of their talent, this year’s ceremony also shone the spotlight on three teams of designers just starting to make their names in the gaming world. Three groups of students and recent graduates who had each designed a new game prototype contested this year’s 2009 BAFTA Ones to Watch Award in association with Dare to be Digital. The award was presented to SHRUNK!, designed by The Butterflyers.
Video Game Awards - Winners List (214 KB)
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Notes to Editors
About BAFTA
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is the UK’s leading organisation dedicated to the recognition and promotion of excellence in the fields of the moving image. Renowned for its high profile Film, Television and Video Games Awards ceremonies, the prestigious BAFTA mask has long been seen as a symbol of excellence.
About the judging process
Games were entered by both developers and publishers into all the categories listed in this release and were initially voted on by BAFTA’s video games members and a carefully selected list of industry experts via a secure website. The titles garnering the most votes went through to specialist juries who received the games approximately six weeks prior to making their nominations. Each juror signs confidentiality papers and casts their votes on paper. The results in each category are not known until the envelope is opened on the night.
About GAME
GAME is Europe’s leading specialist retailer of pc and video game products. Since the start of trading in 1991 with 11 stores in the UK, it has grown both organically and through acquisition to a chain of over 1,300 outlets in January 2009. It operates stores in ten countries, supported by eCommerce websites. Online retail is located at GAME. For further corporate information, log onto www.gamegroup.plc.uk.
About the GAME Award of 2009
The ten shortlisted titles were chosen by a panel of journalists and gaming fans. They began by looking at GAME’s top-selling games of 2009 and arrived at the final shortlist through game-playing and debate. The shortlist was then announced on the dedicated voting site www.baftagameaward.com, which had a record number of votes of nearly 70,000.
About BAFTA Video Games Awards
BAFTA first introduced its Interactive Entertainment Awards in 1998, which covered many forms of creative content including mobile, interactive television, installations, websites and video games. The Awards allowed the Academy to recognise new forms of entertainment that were engaging new audiences and challenging traditional expressions of creativity.
In 2003, the sheer ubiquity of interactive forms of entertainment and the breadth of genres and platforms in video games outgrew the combined ceremony, so a standalone Video Games Awards was created.
The Academy’s Strategic Review in 2005 positioned Video Games as its third pillar of activity in recognition of its importance as an art form of the moving image.
Tonight’s ceremony is the fourth to be held since the Video Games Awards became a stand-alone event.
