Shooters and action-oriented titles dominated the British Academy of Film and Television Arts' (BAFTA) video game awards, with Sony Computer Entertainment and Naughty Dog's PlayStation 3 game Uncharted 2: Among Thieves leading the way.
Uncharted 2, the sequel to the 2007 original, garnered nine nominations across all of the British Academy Video Games Awards, which are sponsored by UK retailer GAME. Uncharted 2 was nominated in the action, artistic achievement, and overall best game categories, among others.
Activision and Infinity Ward's first-person shooter, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC drew eight nominations in the categories of action, best game, multiplayer and others.
Eidos and Rocksteady's acclaimed stealthy beat-'em-up Batman: Arkham Asylum received seven nominations, while Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed II garnered six. Valve's Left 4 Dead 2 earned four nominations, appropriately.
The common theme among the nominees this year was action-focused gameplay and high production values. The overwhelming majority of games on BAFTA's list are high-budget, heavily marketed retail titles that cater to mainly to video games' loyal young male audience.
But there were some games that weren't about bullets and fisticuffs. In the artistic achievement category, there's also Flower from thatgamecompany, a downloadable game on PlayStation Network that lets the player control the wind to blow a flower petal through the air.
In addition, EA Sports' FIFA 10 soccer game is up for best game, and a family and social category included The Beatles: Rock Band from Harmonix, Buzz! Quiz World from SCEE, Guitar Hero 5 from Activision, and New Super Mario Bros. and Wii Sports Resort from Nintendo. The portable category also was home to less action-oriented games such as 5th Cell's Scribblenauts and SCEE's LittleBigPlanet.
Below is the full list of GAME British Academy Video Games Awards nominees:
Action
Assassin’s Creed II
Sebastien Puel, Patrice Desilets
Ubisoft Entertainment Ltd/Ubisoft Montreal
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Sefton Hill, David Hego, Nick Arundel
Eidos/Rocksteady Studios
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Development Team
Activision/Infinity Ward
inFAMOUS
Brian Fleming, Bruce Oberg, Chris Zimmerman
Sony Computer Entertainment/Sucker Punch Productions & SCE Foster City Studio
Left 4 Dead 2
Gabe Newell, Chet Faliszek, Tom Leonard
Valve/EA
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Development Team
Sony Computer Entertainment/Naughty Dog and SCE Foster City Studio
Artistic Achievement
Assassin’s Creed II
Sebastien Puel, Patrice Desilets
Ubisoft Entertainment Ltd/Ubisoft Montreal
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Sefton Hill, David Hego, Nick Arundel
Eidos/Rocksteady Studios
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Development team
Activision/Infinity Ward
Flower
Development Team
Sony Computer Entertainment/ThatGameCompany and SCE Santa Monica Studio
Streetfighter IV
Yoshinori Ono
Capcom/Capcom
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Development Team
Sony Computer Entertainment/Naughty Dog & SCE Foster City Studio
Best Game
Assassin’s Creed II
Sebastien Puel, Patrice Desilets
Ubisoft Entertainment Ltd/Ubisoft Montreal
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Sefton Hill, David Hego, Nick Arundel
Eidos/Rocksteady Studios
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Development Team
Activision/Infinity Ward
FIFA 10
Andrew Wilson, David Rutter, Gary Paterson
Electronic Arts/EA Canada
Left 4 Dead 2
Gabe Newell, Chet Faliszek, Tom Leonard
Valve/EA
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Development Team
Sony Computer Entertainment/Naughty Dog & SCE Foster City Studio
Family & Social
The Beatles: Rock Band
Alex Rigopulos, Paul DeGooyer, Josh Randall
Electronic Arts/MTV Games/Apple Corp/Harmonix Music Systems
Buzz! Quiz World
David Amor, Andrew Eades, Lee Clare
Sony Computer Entertainment/Relentless Software & XDEV Studio Europe
EyePet
Development Team
Sony Computer Entertainment/SCE London Studio
Guitar Hero 5
Brian Bright, Paul Robinson, Allen Freese
Activision/Neversoft Entertainment/Vicarios Visions/Budcat
New Super Mario Bros Wii
Shigeru Miyamoto, Takashi Tezuka, Hiroyuki Kimura
Nintendo/Nintendo
