Another year, another Video Game Awards (VGA) extravaganza on Spike TV. The VGAs are undoubtedly polarising within the gaming community, possibly due to their reliance on celebrity presenters — Samuel L. Jackson made his fourth appearance this year — exclusive premieres of trailers and a lot of glitzy goings-on that don't necessarily focus on the subject at hand, such as the best games of the year.
Still, it's a high-profile event in the gaming calendar regardless of the varied opinions on the Twittersphere, so we scanned the results to see how Nintendo fared; not very well, it transpired. The only Nintendo winner was New Super Mario Bros. U, walking away with the prize in the Best Wii / Wii U game category, seeing off competition from The Last Story, Xenoblade Chronicles and ZombiU. Unfortunately the official page for the award — at the time of writing — lists Nintendo's new console as Wii-U rather than Wii U; oh well.
The year's 3DS library only received one of the four nominations in the Handheld / Mobile category, New Super Mario Bros. 2, which missed out to the creative PS Vita title Sound Shapes. In terms of the other categories, it's unsurprising that Nintendo didn't feature more prominently, due to the dwindling output of Wii and the only-recent arrival of Wii U.
So there you have it, the only Nintendo-exclusive to win a VGA was in a Nintendo system's category. The winner of the big prize, Game of the Year, was multi-platform episodic release The Walking Dead: The Game.
[source spike.com]
Comments 44
I got to wonder what kind of bad quality drugs the judges or voters are taking when choosing the winners.
Dafuq? I totally agree, Koto
@Koto I agree too. At least COD BO II wasn't the winner. That would prove they are insane.
NSMBU is awesome, but i still can't believe Xenoblade won.
Who cares about awards? if you like a game, thats all that matters, if your fave game does not win a prize who cares, you still had fun!
How can Walking Dead win game of the year without winning best game on any specific console?
Why wasn't pokemon nominated for anything?
I also think they focus too much on "mainstream" games.
Huh. I'm surprised The Walking Dead was the overall winner. Excellent game, but I didn't think it was going to get that much recognition. Shame Pokemon wasn't nominated for a portable category.
Xenoblade should have won every award even if it doesn't fit in that category, its just so good
Not every award show has to vote for your favorite games. I stopped paying attention to Spike's Award show a long time ago
This awards show is a joke. They nominated New super mario bros 2 over kid icarus uprising?
This thing seems far to much like a popularity contest then a actual best game contest.
I mean they put wii sports in there! Now its a good fun game and all but no way in hell is it a canidate for game of the decade.
Where the **** is mario galaxy/2 and metal gear solid 3 on that GOTD list? I mean the original mario galaxy dethroned ocarina of time as the highest rated game of all time on gamerankings for petes sake!
/rant
Nintendo didn't really have that many amazing games this year, so that's not really surprising. The Wii was dead and the WiiU just launched.
What an awesome picture. At first I was confused, but now it is quite funny.
I'm pretty happy that Sound Shapes won. It is an awesome title. But was Kid Icarus nominated at all?
It's not possible to take anything on Spike TV seriously at all. This show is for the people who's involvement in video games is only that they watch the VGA each year. For real, the program is not for people that have a game centered lifestyle. Not at all.
Zombie video game number 100 billion gets game of the year? Why am I not surprised...
I love how everyone claims the award show was garbage because only one Nintendo game got an award lol.
The Walking Dead games were pretty good but I'd hardly call them game of the year material.
I don't pay attention to the VGA's anymore. The fact that Handheld / Mobile is even a category is beyond me. Not to mention most of the nominations seem like the same [instert M-rated action] game every year.
I hate those awards. They should be called the Nintendo snub awards!
Meh.
Anybody who thinks the VGA's is a legitimate awards show is fooling themselves. All the categories are "best" and "game of the" and video games are one of the things that are so numerous and varied, that they just wont fit into the categories. Best Multiplayer? Did you really have every single game with a multiplayer mode in the running? If so, how did you compare them? Best graphics; most realistic or best style? And how did you rank styles? Why is Draw Something being compared to Simcity, and how come all but one of the handhelds are Sony when the vita is doing terribly, and the 3DS had a lot of good releases that weren't the newest Mario? Why is most anticipated even a category; that's just blatant advertising for sequels.
These awards are just nonsense advertising and fake credibility for an industry that needs a different kind of attention. You can make legitimate categories, but voting can't be restricted; it has to be voted for in mass, then taken down to the top 5, which is decided on by the biggest names in the industry who have no relation to the names they're voting on. That is clearly not what happened here; the variety in the developers and games should show that.
What about Scribblenauts or,not to mention Nintendo Land?!Nintendo Land is like the Wii Sports of Wii U,except it doesn't always come with the console itself.Not to mention,the console should have gotten an award,too(If they give awards for GOOD consoles).
In fact,this reminds me of how Gameinformer bashed on the Wii U's online features just because it lacked STINKIN PARTY CHAT and other crap they have on the systems they worship(PS3 and 360)!
Sad part is Xenoblade should have won that category xD
@Pikachupwnage Funny you should mention "popularity" considering a lot of award shows are based on popularity
"Handheld/Mobile Category"
twitch
Still bugs me to see those two lumped together.
I have one thing to say to this whole subject, and one thing only.
what is this i dont even
In fact,I thought Spike was for made for men?I guess they like little kids games instead of the REAL manly games.*cough*Kid Icarus:Uprising!
Oh yeah, I forgot about the best handheld/mobile game category. How come PC, XBOX360, and PS3 all get their own categories, but (3)DS, Vita, Android, and iPhone are all lumped together?
I also think it would be a good idea to state which consoles the nominees and winners are available on. Walking Dead won game of the year, New Super Mario Bros. U won best Wii(U) game, Mass Effect 3 won best RPG, Need for Speed won best Driving, Persona 4 Arena won best fighter, and Sound Shapes won best handheld/mobile. Yet the Spike website gives no indication of what platform ANY of these games can be found on. If Spike really thinks these games deserve awards, then surely they deserve this too? But no, anybody interested in the games must look elsewhere for these crucial details.
I've never heard of Spike TV nor of the VGAs. What utter garbage, Kid Icarus Uprising, RE: Revelations, New Super Mario Bros 2. should all have gotten awards. Man, I am soooooo lucky we don't have VG award shows down under, But like anyone here in NZ gives a crap about Nintendo, if they did I would be the most popular kid in the neighbourhood. Also, I am so glad that COD BO2 didn't get any awards, COD games should burn and die for all I care, i'm so glad it didn't get the attention it surely doesn't deserve.
Eh, I like New Super Mario Bros. U, but I'd take Rhythm Heaven Fever or Xenoblade Chronicles over it every time.
Despite the joke that is the VGAs, I like Spike TV.
If I want to watch something ridiculous and trashy, there's really no better channel.
Where else am I supposed to watch Deadliest Warrior and 1000 Ways to Die?
The VGA's are overly commercialized, illegitimate wastes of TV programming. They very clearly cater to Xbox fans with Sony fans following closely behind. I mean, if the nominations for Nintendo were becoming so few and far between that they were seen as big enough of a joke to have a category called "Best Wii/Wii U Game", then you know there's something up. I'm glad I didn't tune in.
A friend did however, and told that the only Nintendo nominations for Game of the Decade were Wind Waker and Wii Sports. Ok. Ok. Enough. Screw the VGA's, the idiots behind it, its fans, and Samuel L. Jackson (who, frankly, is not baddonkey at all).
who cares? Awards shows and ceremonies are, by their nature, measures of popular trends; what makes an awards show "legitimate"? The Oscars are the same studio pandering, commercial junk, go to a neighborhood watch awards show if you want "legitimate" or something.
It's pure entertainment.
And why is it a surprise that popularity for the Wii has waned so much and the Wii's launch didn't make massive waves? It's too early.
And the Walking Dead is indeed an incredible game well deserved of the title. If you haven't played it through, you don't know what your trolling about. There has NEVER been better voice acting and writing in a game than that; I like games but have never felt anything come so close to the feel of a great film (so it's not action packed, not that kind of game); My girlfriend was genuinely hooked on just watching it play through like any other great TV series, and she HATES video games. I can't wait to go back and try another path.
As soon as I saw Re Revelations and Kid Icarus Uprising weren't nominated for mobile/handheld GOTY, I lost the slight interest I had in the show. I agree with someone else said above; they should've had a best 3DS and best Vita game category.
PATHETIC! JUST PATHETIC!
I can't believe Xenoblade Chronicles wasn't even NOMINATED for ANY music related awards. That game has an outstanding soundtrack.
Spike VGAs just being Spike VGAs.
No-one needs to take it seriously.
They all look at Nintendo as "kiddy; not for adults". So they're always trying to take the Big N down a peg.
No zombiu....IM OUTRAGED, SICK OF HATE! (and you get the rest o the joke ) but NSMBU is the same game as the rest in the series (or is there a series?...who knows since it's updates of the same game!) so at least give a award to the people who actually put time into making a game.
The VGAs are on a network that caters to young men with an immature frat boy mentality. I'm surprised there was anything Nintendo-related in that show.
Why no skyward sword? That was that was best wii game ever!we should make our own game awards show and actually pay attention to games that had fun in them not just guns. Farcry, COD, Borderlands, Battlefield they all look the same to me I'm sick and tired of the main stream getting credit and big N is getting nothing! Its not fair so I'm gonna make my own game awards show and I'll actually consider if a game deserves an award based on story, art, music and gameplay like how IGN would do it or like any gamer with a brain would do it! Spike and VGA sucks!
Skyward Sword came out last year.
So its still a Wii/WiiU game and it got screwed out of best game of the year by Skyrim and now it can't win a award on its own console!? What I'm sayin is Skyward Sword is a game that should be praised by all gamers alike because its that awesome!
Wasn't Wind Waker nominated for "Game of the Decade" or something like that this year?
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