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Games Entertainment

Gears of War Sweeps AIAS Awards 62

Posted by Zonk from the duck-and-cover-says-bert-the-turtle dept.
GamesIndustry.biz reports on a very successful night for Epic Games, which garnered no less than eight awards for their 360 console shooter Gears of War. In addition to awards like 'Best Console Game' and 'Game of the Year', feathers in Epic's cap include 'Outstanding Character Performance Male' for John DiMaggio's Marcus Fenix and 'Sports Best Online Game Play'. Epic's CliffyB and Michael Capps were onhand to accept the awards, and were elated by their success: "The thing is ... being on the outside of this industry looking in as a kid, and wanting to be part of it, and then being able to be here and get an award from all of these talented people who've been in the business for so long, finally to be a part of it, to be recognized like this is absolutely unbelievable. We could not be honoured more." Other impressive winners for the night included Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fight Night, Rainbow Six, and the Wii. The full list of awards winners is available on the article.
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Gears of War Sweeps AIAS Awards More

Gears of War Sweeps AIAS Awards

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  • but while I can understand why they'd give awards for the other categories, and while I love Bender/Wakka John Dimaggio's work...

    I can't see Marcus Fenix being note-worthy. The VA did a pretty good job with what he had, but the writing wasn't really there to making any special character performance possible, at least IMO.

    The character is awfully generic. Big strong soldier-guy with a bad attitude. Gruff. Not particularly special.

    *possible spoilers*
    While the idea of his father being an important scientist ha
    • "I can't see Marcus Fenix being note-worthy. The VA did a pretty good job with what he had, but the writing wasn't really there to making any special character performance possible, at least IMO."

      EXACTLY!

      Lester Speight had a much more memorable character in Augustus Cole. [wikipedia.org] Apparently these people don't know the value of having an Office Linebacker [wikipedia.org] around. :-(

      • I have to agree. I would throw Baird in there as well. Best line: "Awww it's like two assholes on a first date." Those two had a better interaction than Marcus and Dom. Marcus and Dom were like a married couple.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Thraxen ( 455388 )
      But the award is for performance, not writing.

  • Great news (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by petrus4 ( 213815 )
    Although I haven't played Gears of War, I am a very happy owner of boxed copies of Unreal, Unreal Tournament, and Unreal Tournament 2004. The games are fantastic, the editor is even better, and they're produced by a group of extremely creative, intelligent, and generally wonderful human beings.

    If you don't have a copy of any of the UT series, I strongly recommend them...the original UT is probably the best of the lot, but UT 2004 is also very enjoyable. If you get the original UT, I also like the Bullet T
    • Even better news for you then. Epic promised the new Unreal Tournament currently in development is going to blow Gears of War out of the water.

  • Talk about a GoW lovefest... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TooMuchEspressoGuy ( 763203 ) on Friday February 09, 2007 @12:25PM (#17949368)
    No doubt the game is deserving of many of those awards, but art direction when Okami and Twilight Princess were also in the running? Outstanding character performance (male) when Markus was sort of a bland army guy? I'm sure there was a better male character out there this year. And just what does outstanding achievement in visual engineering mean, anyway?

    It looks to me like these guys just took one look at Gamerankings, saw that GoW had the best ranking for the year, and then decided to give half the awards to it on that basis alone.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Intangible Fact ( 1001781 )
      Okami has a better art style then Twilight Princess. Just because its "zelda" it doesn' t mean to give it all the awards and a perfect ten.
      • Way to miss the entire point of the post.

        Regardless of what you think of TP's art direction, you have to admit that it's better than the "hey guys let's make everything shiny and put bloom EVERYWHERE" approach of GoW.

        • There is more to Gears than just shinny graphics. When playing gears it feels like a movie. It pulls you in with outstanding graphics and gameplay.
          • Good art direction != more polygons.

            While the graphics may be realistic, they're not all that attracive. Shades of brown, shiny, and bloom everywhere. Compare that with a colorful, artistic game like Okami or Viva Pinata and you'll see what I mean.

            • Its two different types of art. Just like art in the real world. Some are aimed to be more colorfull and imaginative (Picasso) while others are aimed for realism. Not one is better than the other.
              • Bad analogy. Very few artists strive for realism, especially in the modern day when the camera has (literally) made photo-realism a concrete reality, thus rendering the pursuit of photo-realism through analogue art obsolete. Even then, photo-realism was not an artistic goal, but a practical one, since there was no better substitute for accuracy in art until the camera. Art has always been about abstraction, to a greater or lesser degree, because without even a small amount of abstraction, art would not be a
                • "Art is that which is made with the primary intention of stimulating the human senses as well as the human mind or spirit.

                  An artwork is being assessed by means of the amount of stimulation it brings about. The impact it has on people, the amount of people that can relate, the degree of their appreciation, and the effect or influence it has or has had in the past, all accumulate to the 'degree of art'. Timeless masterpieces in art posess all these aspects to a great extent.

                  Something is not considered 'art' w

                • Most films are photo-realistic already, yet for some reason art direction is a fairly major department. Many photos themselves are considered art. Of course photo-realistic games can have good art direction (and photo-realism can actually help convey the art better than, say, a TRS-80 could).

                  "Art" has little to do with the manner in which it is expressed. It is that which provokes an emotional response in the viewer, simple as that.

      • > Okami has a better art style then Twilight Princess.

        So Twilight Princess took the lead in art style from Okami ?

        That doesn't sound right to me.
    • Isn't that the way most awards work? A decent actress in the best movie of the year can get the Best Actress award over a great actress who's phenomenal performance couldn't save a stinker. If Extreme Paintbrawl had had an amazing soundtrack, do you think it would have gotten any awards? Not saying that Okami and Twilight Princess are bad games, but if GoW is more popular, it has the advantage in all categories.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bVork ( 772426 )
      Okami wasn't in the running, because Capcom is not part of the AIAS. Companies must be members in order to have their games included. The same thing happened in 2005, when Resident Evil 4 was not among the nominees.

      Personally, I don't take these awards seriously. Ignoring a significant number of the games released in a year makes the concept "best game released this year" quite meaningless.
    • I disagree somewhat on some of your points and completely on some others.

      * Art direction should have gone to Okami, no question. But Twilight Princess really isn't the shiznet Nintendo fans are making it out to be. I'm not talking on a technical level (which we all knew Zelda couldn't compete in), but in terms of pure art. A couple of green/purple on black textures? Bland grasses and forests? It honestly looked like they kept the exact same aesthetic as N64 (which was ok a decade ago, but fairly plain
  • I loved Gears Of War, but I don't think it should have beat out Oblivion in the graphics categories. Gears of War does look great. However, Oblivion could be awe inspiring at times. Bethesda needs a better hype machine.
  • Gideon Emery's voiceover of Balthier for Final Fantasy XII this year is so much more meaningful, colorful, not to mention a far larger work that even the whole of Gears couldn't compare. All in all, if there's one award this year that FF XII should have definitely walked away with, it was voice acting. Probably several others as well. Gears was a phenomenal game, but I don't think that means it should sweep the awards the way it did. Its voice acting was spot-on, but not deserving of any sort of special hon
    • You cannot compare FF and Gears. They are two diffent type of game genre. It would be difficult to incorporate a story that FF has into gears gameplay style and vice versa.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sciros ( 986030 )
        Wait so the award was "best voice performance for a 3rd person online-multiplayer-enabled shooter" ??

  • Fun game (Score:3, Insightful)

    by m3gtr0nix ( 1058936 ) on Friday February 09, 2007 @01:07PM (#17950050)
    I just picked up GoW last week. As a long time UT / UT2003 / UT2004 PC game player, I was definitely interested to see what Epic has been delaying UT3 for. I've been enjoying the game and overall think they did a very good job with it. I think they made a traditional shooter a little different with the way the whole "cover" system works...and then of course the chainsaw action is fun to mess around with.

    Is it worthy of all the awards it seems to win everyday? I don't know, but at this point, it has become easy and almost expected for whatever game award it's up for, it will win. Kinda like the Oscar and other movie awards...there is always one or two movies a year that all the award shows just fawn all over.

    Either way it's a fun game and I'm enjoying playing it. I don't know if it's the best game EVAR, but worth it if you like a good shooter. Character development and story isn't the greatest, but I've seen worse. The gameplay makes up for it IMO.
  • All favorites aside, I think GoW did a marvelous job of getting everything right, and very little wrong. Yes, there are a few bugs and quirks. Overall, however, this is a very polished game and has rightfully earned its crown when compared to the rest of the stuff released these past years. The only thing I can ding it for is storyline, which seems almost blissfully forgotten amid blaring chainsaw massacres and curbstomps.

  • Yet another Sci-Fi FPS (Score:3)

    by SetupWeasel ( 54062 ) on Friday February 09, 2007 @02:42PM (#17951668) Homepage
    GAME OF THE YEAR! Impress your friends! Shoot things in the same way you have for only 300 or so other games! It's like Halo 4 only Halo 4 is in the future! This is the now!

    While we are at it, let's give John Carmack another award. INNOVATION!
    • Not to nitpick an obvious troll who's never played the game, but its not a first person shooter. It's a third person shooter with a cover system that, for better or worse, does not have you "shoot things the same way you have for only 300 or so other games".

      Its also f-ing gorgeous. I have impressed my non-gaming friends and relatives by showing them it for 5 minutes.

      All that being said, its obvious you don't like any shooter games since they all play the same to you. Enjoy your RTS (wait, they play all t
  • The AIAS awards are just an advertising platform and have very little to do with actually awarding the best games. In order to even be nominated you must shill out money to The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. Oh but don't take my work on it. Capcom is saying the same thing.

    http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid= 22479 [gamesindustry.biz]

    http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?st ory=12559 [gamasutra.com]

    I'm sure with ethics like that they are really judging the games by their content and not lest say how much the companies "donated" this year.

    This award ceremony is nothing but an Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences fund raiser and advertising campaign.

    • Nothing there suggests the judges were biased. Almost every organization out there that gives awards requires you be a member. USA Triathlon requires you PAY MONEY to be considered.

      Capcom should just pay up. Joining was not an issue for Activision, Big Huge Games, BioWare/Pandemic Studios, Buena Vista Games, Day 1 Studios, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, High Moon Studios, id Software, Insomniac Games, Microsoft, Midway, NCsoft, Nintendo, NovaLogic, Oddworld Inhabitants, Pi Studios, PlayFirst, RedOctane, Sega

      • You didn't like GoW, therefore the judges, reviewers and players were stupid to like it.
      • There is a big difference though. The USA Triathlon requires a membership to compete in their races that costs $40 for two or three year increments.

        To quote from the article I linked that you obviously did not read

        "Does our company really need to pay tens of thousands of dollars in order to present awards to our own games?"
        Seth Killian
        Capcom Entertainment Inc

        Also you don't have write in votes to get a runner to compete in a triathlon. In this case let's look at what happened in last years awards

        "For last ye
  • Guys, remember... these awards represent the opinions of a handful of judges from one organization. You may or may not agree with them, and your opinion may or may not be better than theirs.. but remember: it's their opinion, they can hand out the awards to whoever they like best.

    There's plenty more organizations that have yet to hand out their awards for last year's games. Give them some time, your picks might win some awards as well.

  • Indeed, this is the same John DiMaggio [imdb.com] who voices Bender. I didn't know that until I saw his name in the story summary.

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