The BAVGAs: Awarding Misunderstanding, or Mediocrity?

Wednesday night saw the announcement of the nominees for the GAME British Academy Video Game Awards – the gaming indusry’s version of the BAFTAs. Unsurprisingly, the “big” categories were dominated by the likes of Black Ops, Halo: Reach, Mass Effect 2 and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. Honourable mentions go to FIFA 11 for squeezing into the Best Game category amongst some of the year’s largest releases, and to Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for being remembered when Black Ops hit the shelves.

Amongst all of the expected dross, however, was one serious doubleyoo-tee-eff moment: Why is Fallout: New Vegas being nominated for anything? GAME themselves have reduced its selling price by around 50%, in a stark reflection of its God-awful playability, so its inclusion for any sort of award is baffling.

The first category in which it finds itself is Best Story which, given the broadly accepted opinion (shared by this commentator) that this is the least-engaging background story to any game in the Fallout series, is laughable – but that’s not the best bit. New Vegas’ second nomination is in the Best Strategy category. I mean, come on, even my kid brother can spot the difference between RTS and RPG! If anyone can explain to me how “quicksave – walk into ambush – hit VATS” classes as a strategy, I’d be forever grateful.

Something tells me the BAVGAs are a long way away from living up to their film and television counterparts.