So on Tuesday night was the Spike TV Video Game Awards, and… dear God, where to begin?
Last year’s event (which was the very first one_ made me cringe with embarrassment, and by the end, anything “funny” slowly fadded away and I was simply left feeling angry. This time, I became immediately incensed, but near end, I was actually sad and depressed. Why? Because it was the ultimate showcase of what video games have become today.
Whenever the hardcore gaming audience, the ones who have been obsessed with gaming all their lives and are now in their mid to late twenties (or even older), complained about the “mainstreaming” of video games, I admit that it’s highly annoying, but point to the fact that it’s to be expected. And that it can be extremely difficult to sit and watch something you hold very dear by transformed by the masses into something which you very much cannot understand, or worse, turned into something that’s representative of the things you hate most, and which was why you embraced whatever thing in the first place. And ultimately, it’s all inevitable (video games isn’t the first victim of this) and that one should just sit back, relax, and simply enjoy the games one likes and try not to become too work up or bitter about things.
Well, I take it all back.
The problem here is, appropriately enough, the great evil empire, EA. They ran the show, more or less. It wasn’t really an awards ceremony but simply a public forum for EA to shamelessly flex its marketing muscles and to pimp their wares. But besides running that show, they’re getting closer to running the whole show, i.e. the entire video game industry. And they know it, and so does everyone else, such as Viacom and everyone else in Hollywood, hence why the whole event was nothing more than a huge circle-jerk for everyone involved.
EA has a very specific vision of how video games should be, and unfortunately, not only are the powers that be (the record companies, movies studios, those who thrive off the bullshit hip-hop/extreme! lifestyle) more than happy to help reinforce it, but the general public seems more than willing to embrace it. Hence why EA’s growing dominance seem to indicate that everything that I enjoy and cherish about games may become no more, or at the very least, extremely hard to come buy.
As for the show itself, there was simply so many things that was just wrong, but here in my opinion are the highlights…
… According to EA and Spike TV, video games really aren’t relevant to the general public unless it’s filled to the brim with bullshit gangsta rap and what passes as “hardcore” rock these days. In fact, there was hardly any time spent on the awards, and instead, it was just a musical performances. After all, no one really gives a shit for who’s nominated and the whatnot, it was all about the Motley Crue reunion!
In all seriousness, what the fuck? What does the Crue have anything to do with video games? Maybe Dr. Feelgood was in the latest GTA, I don’t know. At least the brains behind the show knew what game players want: to see a bunch of 45-year old rockers from the hair metal days running around like idiots and trying to reclaim their youth (and damaging their frail hips in the process). Though I must confess, I used to be a fan of theirs…. when I was 11 or something…
… As for the awards, the very first to be given out was for best performance by a female and the winner was Brooke Burton. Nevermind how asinine the other nominees were (I have to assume that Carmen Electra and Hedi Klum didn’t brake new ground in the world of voice acting and were included just to show off some polygonal skin… and while Judi Dench is a fine actress, everything about the game is abysmal, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she, like other decent actors in video games in the past, just phoned it in…. plus four of the fiver were from EA titles), but the simple fact is that Brooke Burton wasn’t even in the game, except for a few seconds in the title sequence FMV….
… Like I said, with the exception of awards that gave an opportunity for some celebrity to come up and ramble on about a title they had minimal or no real input, most weren’t even featured on the broadcast. Instead the winners were mentioned via vice overs with accompanying clips (and 99% of the time there was no gameplay footage, just FMV). I especially liked how the announcer read the designer of the year award (which was Jason Jones and Bungie for Halo 2) as quickly as possible (even the one second it would have taken for the announcer to take a breath is one less second for boobies)….
… Speaking of sex, thankfully no porn stars were on-hand (I think) but video games were still made out to be the sophomoric male spectacle that it basically still is. Besides the aforementioned Brooke Burton debacle, there was a segment where “hot chicks” spout out game codes. Cuz as well all know, girls are super dumb, and gamers totally get hard-on when they hear cheat codes and girls saying them….
… Hey EA, if you’re going to 2 hour commercial for your games in the guise of a award ceremony, at least do it somewhat half-assed. First off, get your goons to at least some rehearsal time. This one exchange from two random white guys (who do some sort of bullshit extreme sporting I think) sums it up nicely:
Guy #1: (in an apathetic voice and while struggling to read the teleprompter) “Hey… now…. um…. here are…. the…. nominees for…. best…. action…. action game.”
Guy #2: (says nothing and instead is trying to look like as if he’s playing a PSP but is overacting if you can believe it)
Guy #1: “Dude… what are… what are…. you… doing?”
Guy #2: (now talking in the same manner of the first idiot) “I was just playing…. the new…. Sony PSP.”
Guy #1: “Dude… that just…. how is that possible…. it just…. came out…. in…. Japan like this last…. past weekend?”
Guy #2: “Dude… Spike TV has the hook ups. And… I’m playing… the new…. Need for Speed Underground…. for the PSP…. due this spring….”
And of course, right on cue was footage of the new game on a giant monitor right above them….
… I love how when Burnout 3 won an award (an EA game that’s actually good since they had nothing to do with it), instead of hearing from the producer, one of the true talents behind the game, we all got to hear mostly from DJ Stryker, easily the worst thing about the whole game go and on and on and on, just like in the game!….
… Impossible as it may be, Snoop Dog was actually a worse host than last year’s David Spade. Snoop (who’s music I used to dig) has outlived his shtick in my book and was nothing more than a self-promoting bore/whore. The exchanges between him and his digital self was especially not funny (sorry, but the whole novelty of a real celeb as a game character has been long dead).
He rapped of course, and about seventeen thousand times, or at least if felt like it (he even did a bit in the middle of Motley Crue’s number). Plus he promoted his new game coming out. Joining him onstage was the man behind it, John Singleton (another person whom I used to like, even admire), and they both went on about how the new game will redefine all video games with it use of highly detailed graphics, hard hitting story, real street language, and no hold barred violence, to depict life of the mean streets of South Central blah, blah, blah. Then they showed a clip, which not surprisingly was a total San Andreas rip-off, and of course, 99.9% FMV and the rest, shitty, ripped-off gameplay…
… I mentioned the Snoop Dog game just recently in connection with Game Informer earlier. Hmmm… do you think there’s any connection between that magazine, which has the exclusive on Snoop’s game winning the award for best game publication. That an gamespot.com winning best game site, which also happens to publish Game Informer? Na, didn’t think so…
… They filmed “random people of the streets” talking about video games. What did one guy state as a reason why GTA San Andreas is game of the year? “The hookers, they lookl better this time.”…
… Bloodrayne won hottest game vixen or some nonsense, so the game’s creators created a clip where they had her give thanks, but the whole time the eyes were rolled up in the back of her skull. Wow, really hot….
… No one could say Katamari Damacy correctly…
… EA was probably annoyed by having to give awards to other companies in order to give the show some semblance of legitimacy, which obviously didn’t happen, so they really should have given game of the year to Madden 2005 even though it wasn’t nominated. I also think it’s pretty funny that the guy from Bungie who went up to accept the award looked really pissed…
… Now at this point, it may seem to most that I’m making way too much out of one stupid thing. Why the hell am I so pissed off? I’m sorry, but I honestly believe everyone who enjoys video games should feel the same exact way, or at the very least be concerned. But the reality is, most people (especially the majority of the game playing public) really doesn’t give a shit about such nonsense. Well folks should care, maybe even those who don’t necessarily care about video games, because EA is becoming a force to be reckoned with, and when you consider how utterly astounding it is that they’ve managed to mobilize so many companies to work together for them in such a fashion, just imagine what’s possible just a few years down the road. It wasn’t just a sham of a show, it was almost like a sign of things to come.
Okay, end of rant. That was far more heavy handed that even I wanted to be.
Besides, there’s still some hope for video games after all. Yesterday, the day after the show, Namco finally revealed the first screen from Katamari Damacy 2. So it’s not all doom and gloom, at least not yet.
