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DICE 2009: Jay Mohr pokes fun at devs at AIAA awards
We've seen the unforgettably disastrous consequences that result when comedians attempt to make jokes at the expense of members of the gaming industry (smelly virgins! LOLOLOL!), but from what we've heard, Jay Mohr's introduction to the 12th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards show actually possessed some elements of humor. Instead of harping on gamer stereotypes, Mohr's act was refreshingly researched -- take, for instance, his jab at Richard Garriott: "That guy used thirty million to launch himself into space. Maybe he should have used that to launch Tabula Rasa."While some of his jabs fell flat, Mohr ended up hitting more than he missed. He compared the 100-plus hours he's sunk into Fallout 3 to the amount of time it takes to acquire a pilot's license, saying, "Guys are landing planes on the Hudson. I'm decorating a shack in Megaton." He turned his sights to the D.I.Y. nature of LittleBigPlanet, too, saying, "It's like buying a CD, plugging it in, and then having to go buy all the instruments." Best of all, he refused to pick on Grand Theft Auto IV, quipping, "If you want to watch an awards show about thugs beating up ho's, watch the Grammys." Awww ... (wait for it) ...
LittleBigPlanet sacks AIAA, wins 8 awards
Last night at the 12th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards in Las Vegas, Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet walked away with 8 awards. Not only did it win both game of the year awards (overall and console), but it also snagged awards for visual engineering, art direction, character performance (gotta love the Sackboy!), and innovation. Basically, the AIAA just repeated all of the reasons we loved the game. Other games that scooped up some AIAA awards include Left 4 Dead, Braid, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and God of War: Chains of Olympus.The full list of winners is presented after the break.
Blizzard wins the Oscars of online games
As Oscar time gets closer, some of us gamers may start wishing for awards of our own. Mass Effect was at least as good as There Will Be Blood, right? Luckily, on February 7th, we gamers got our own red carpet show, as The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences hosted the 11th annual Interactive Achievement Awards in conjunction with the DICE Summit at the Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. Blizzard, of course, managed to snag a few rewards of their own. Not only did the Burning Crusade pick up Massively Multi-player Game of the Year, but Blizzard President Mike Morhaime was inducted into the Academy's Hall of Fame.Gamespot had video coverage of the event, which you can check out here, or if you'd rather just cut to the meaty stuff, the Academy's website has a PDF with a list of the winners here. You can also check out some wider commentary on all the awards from our friends at Joystiq here. We'll expect trophies for Wrath of the Lich King and Starcraft II next year!
WoW: The Burning Crusade wins MMO of the year from the AIAS
The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has placed another feather in the positively avian cap of Blizzard's World of Warcraft. A final list of the nominees and winners from AIAS' 11th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards has been released, and of the five shortlisted games in the Massively Multiplayer Game of the Year category, it is the WoW expansion in particular, The Burning Crusade, that took the top honor (as Mike Schramm predicted when the nominations were first announced). Blizzard executives also gave speeches on the strategies behind their success -- unrelated to the award -- at the D.I.C.E. Summit, where the awards took place.There were four other MMOs that deserve a mention for being nominated, and these are a mix of new titles and expansions. In no particular order, they are: EVE Online: Trinity, Guild Wars: Eye of the North, The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, and Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa. The Overall Game of the Year went to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and you can check out a discussion of this, and some of the other AIAS' gaming awards outside of the MMO focus, at Joystiq.
DICE: AIAS awards to be televised in '07
Some of us, including DICE presenter David Jaffe, are afraid changes in the Ninth Annual Interactive Achievement Awards will compromise the integrity of the award (well, that and not considering Resident Evil 4 for anything). This year's awards show includes: "a red carpet, celebrity host [Jay Mohr], celebrity presenters from film, television and sports, along with musical acts directly from video games." Unlike SpikeTV's godawful VGAs, this show won't be televised... this year. The DICE Summit has enlisted Dick Clark Productions--who are responsible for awards show like the Golden Globes and the Daytime Emmys--to bring their awards show to a major network. No word of who's going to televise the show, but there is some consolation that they aren't planning on running it on G4, or Spike, or MTV. Not yet at least. [Thanks, James]
