2012 Spike VGA

It's been a while since I subjected myself wholly to the lowest common denominator broadcast for the industry, but I'm feeling self-punishing tonight. Who's with this party?!

No doubt positive impressions about skits, scripts, hijinks, awards (or lack thereof), and trailers will follow shortly. It's on in just a few minutes, stay tuned!

Wow, I didn't even know it was on tonight. After last year, I might just avoid it like I use to.

garion333 wrote:

Wow, I didn't even know it was on tonight. After last year, I might just avoid it like I use to.

Never watched it. I lost interest in watching TV only for the advertising a few Super Bowls ago.

EDIT: I can't even think of what games might be getting trailers tonight. Maybe Mass Effect 4? Unless MS decides to drop a surprise Xbox 3 announcement on everyone, I feel like all the other major franchises just did their yearly iteration in the last 3 months.

I remember watching this back when it was called the Spike EGA. And we made do with 16 colors of award. This new fangled VGA business is just a fad.

shoptroll wrote:

EDIT: I can't even think of what games might be getting trailers tonight. Maybe Mass Effect 4? Unless MS decides to drop a surprise Xbox 3 announcement on everyone, I feel like all the other major franchises just did their yearly iteration in the last 3 months.

There was a video released just as Valve released an oversized HL2ep2 update and everyone linked them, but the video seemed to have more to do with Respawn's game.

So far, it's not terrible. A great accomplishment, truly. But Linkin Park just came on, so they might've front-loaded the content.

So far the new reveals are The Phantom Limb, probably next-gen, and Dark Souls 2, woot! Might be time for me to finally finish the first.

It's "The Phantom Pain." Easy to mix it up

Blind_Evil wrote:

It's "The Phantom Pain." Easy to mix it up :)

Ha, right you are!

cyrax wrote:

So far the new reveals are The Phantom Limb

IMAGE(http://venturefans.org/wiki/images/thumb/d/d7/Phantom_Limb.png/250px-Phantom_Limb.png)

No way!? Is there a co-op mode with The Monarch and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch? A horde mode with #21? Do you...

cyrax wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

It's "The Phantom Pain." Easy to mix it up :)

Ha, right you are!

Awwwwww...... dammit.

They need to stop calling things "world premieres" when we've seen trailers for these games since E3 or before.

I mean I guess these trailers in particular could be new, but.. that seems kind of disingenuous.

I guess disingenuous shouldn't be a surprise.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I guess disingenuous shouldn't be a surprise.

Mmmm bull shots.

Also, I initially thought phantom pain was the name of a linkin park album.

Edit: do we really need a second dark souls game this soon?

Dark Souls 2. Nothing else matters.

shoptroll wrote:

Edit: do we really need a second dark souls game this soon?

Yep.
I need it.

Probably not soon unfortunately.

Walking Dead for GOTY, pretty awesome.

shoptroll wrote:

Edit: do we really need a second dark souls game this soon?

Yes. I'm going to guess you haven't played Dark Souls

The sooner, the better.

shoptroll wrote:

Edit: do we really need a second dark souls game this soon?

Sales figures, critical love, and developer interest say yes. Long live the market!

Also, totally called the bad second half. That aside, not seeing a majority of them, this is easily the best VGA Spike's put together. No lame sketches, very little pandering or cheesy dialogue (Alba had half, Jackson the other half), good trailers...I mean damn, they actually spent a good deal of time on video games themselves, instead of nerd culture. About the only oddity was Linkin Park.

Sketches were replaced with "Sam Jackson Mode" shorts, that were well done and funny. That'd be cool if Polygon was readying a piece on how Spike managed not to do what previously seemed like everything possible to put on a pandering, unfunny event.

*slow clap*

Also, The Walking Dead named GOTY. They disappointed me, I wanted to revel in humanity's crap. Instead, I'm actually hopeful for the future. Let's do this, video games!

cyrax wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

Edit: do we really need a second dark souls game this soon?

Also, The Walking Dead named GOTY. They disappointed me, I wanted to revel in humanity's crap. Instead, I'm actually hopeful for the future. Let's do this, video games!

Was a shock to me it would win GOTY. I really loved the game and I'm REALLY enjoying reading all the WTF comments on various gaming websites.

Life is good. What a way to turn the gaming world a little upside down for a few minutes there VGA.

I'm not at all surprised TWD won. This award has always been voted on by reviewers from all the major outlets, and that segment has seemed kind of burnt out on AAA games this year. I figured it'd be either Mass Effect 3 or TWD.

Really, I love Neogaf.

IMAGE(http://imageshack.us/a/img191/6787/9d78i2st.gif)

Mind blown

IMAGE(https://i.minus.com/iQFE26MFd8hjV.gif)

I also kept thinking MGS through that entire trailer.

cyrax wrote:

IMAGE(https://i.minus.com/iQFE26MFd8hjV.gif)

lmao

QWOP 2. Lol.

Now that TWD won the game of the year, does the VGA take on new relevance? I think it's cool that the game won, but it's never been clear why and if the games mean anything within the context of the industry. And that kind of is the thing for awards to make any sense or have any weight.

As far as I know they're still being voted on by the same committee, with a lot of the same people yearly. I think this is more a sign of stagnancy in the AAA space and journalists being tired of the same franchises than any change in the actual award show.

Blind_Evil wrote:

As far as I know they're still being voted on by the same committee, with a lot of the same people yearly. I think this is more a sign of stagnancy in the AAA space and journalists being tired of the same franchises than any change in the actual award show.

This, and it's hard to gauge trends with only a single data point.

I agree with that, I and understand it is hypothetically the same base of judges as previous years. The thing is- I didn't care about what they selected other years. Maybe I'm a cynical minority in that, but I doubt it. I found myself wanting to give the VGAs more relevancy in the last couple of years because I respect the opinion of TWD as game of the year. I realized that was dumb, and was shifting relevancy backwards (it should matter as an entity first, then it's decisions can matter on their own).

I don't think my internal dialogue about this is isolated, though I haven't seen it made explicit anywhere. I've seen a lot more people this year praising the VGAs this year, and specifically holding up their choice of game of the year. I just wonder if the public isn't lulled into a sense of relevancy here because A) it is a choice that validates a lot of opinions out there and B) the award show wasn't offensive this year.

Both, clearly, and the general thoughts about people giving credit to awards is a topic beyond this industry, and is relevant to all award events. Peer recognition is the best, but unless you're personally invested, which I suppose makes more sense with an interactive medium, I don't find awards engaging.

Regardless, an adventure game won game of the year on Spike tv. Weird.

It was a pretty cool adventure.