2011 GAME British Academy Video Games Awards Nominations Announced

If you hadn’t noticed, it is awards season. For those not yet stricken with red carpet fatigue (what do you mean it’s not all about the dresses?), it’s a good time to look back on all the wonderful things that the last year has brought us. For us gamers, that means settling down to watch the British Academy’s GAME BAFTA Video Games Awards.

Since 2003, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts have been running these awards to celebrate excellence and innovation in the industry. Even for hardened cynics, it’s difficult not to be excited not only about the wealth of creativity on show, but also the fact that the British Academy takes vidogames seriously enough to hold such a ceremony.

The event takes place on Wednesday 16 March and will stream live on ign.com, bafta.org and baftagameaward.com.

Before you feast your hungry eyes upon the nominees, remember that the GAME Award of 2010 is voted for by the public, so be sure to visit www.baftagameaward.com to vote for your favourite game of last year. Last year’s winner (presented by X-Factor reject Olly Murs for some unfathomable reason) was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which followed Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare‘s victory the year before, so it will be interesting to see whether Call of Duty: Black Ops makes it a hat-trick for the series, or whether the public will deem one of the other nominees more deserving.

The nominations for the GAME Award of 2010 are as follows:

GAME Award of 2010

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch

Dance Central
Microsoft Games Studios & MTV Games/MTV & Harmonix

FIFA 11
Electronic Arts/Electronic Arts Canada

Halo Reach
Microsoft Games Studios/Bungie

Heavy Rain
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studia Europe

Limbo
Xbox Live Arcade/Playdead Games

Mass Effect 2
Electronic Arts/BioWare

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
Electronic Arts/Criterion Games

Red Dead Redemption
Rockstar Games/Rockstar San Diego

Super Mario Galaxy 2
Nintendo/Nintendo

Exciting, huh?

The rest of the nominations are listed below, by category.

Action

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal

Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Alan Kertz, Kristoffer Bergqvist
Electronic Arts/DICE

BioShock 2
Jordan Thomas, Zak McClendon
2K Games/2K Marin

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Adam Rosas, Scott Bean, Dom Drozdz
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch

God of War III
Stig Asmussen, Todd Papy, Steve Caterson
Sony Computer Entertainment/SCE Santa Monica Studio

Halo: Reach
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Bungie

Artistic Achievement

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Adam Rosas, Scott Bean, Dom Drozdz
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch

God of War III
Stig Asmussen, Ken Feldman, Cecil Kim
Sony Computer Entertainment/SCE Santa Monica Studio

Heavy Rain
David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Scott Johnson
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe

LIMBO
Development Team
Xbox Live Arcade/Playdead Games

Mass Effect 2
Development Team
Electronic Arts/BioWare

Best Game

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal

FIFA 11
Development Team
Electronic Arts/ Electronic Arts Canada

Heavy Rain
David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Scott Johnson
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe

LIMBO
Development Team
Xbox Live Arcade/Playdead Games

Mass Effect 2
Development Team
Electronic Arts/BioWare

Super Mario Galaxy 2
Koichi Hayashida, Yoshiaki Koizumi, Takashi Tezuka
Nintendo/Nintendo

Family

Dance Central
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios & MTV Games/MTV & Harmonix

Kinect Adventures
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Good Science Studio

Kinect Sports
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Rare

Kinectimals
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Frontier Developments Ltd

LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
Development Team
Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment/TT Games

Toy Story 3
John Blackburn, Jonathan Warner, Jeff Bunker
Disney Interactive Studios/Avalanche Software

Gameplay

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal

God of War III
Stig Asmussen, Todd Papy, Adam Puhl
Sony Computer Entertainment/SCE Santa Monica Studio

Heavy Rain
David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Scott Johnson
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe

LIMBO
Development Team
Xbox Live Arcade/Playdead Games

Mass Effect 2
Development Team
Electronic Arts/BioWare

Super Mario Galaxy 2
Koichi Hayashida, Yoshiaki Koizumi, Takashi Tezuka
Nintendo/Nintendo

Handheld

Cut the Rope
Development Team
Chillingo/Zeptolab

God of War: Ghost of Sparta
Development Team
Sony Computer Entertainment/Ready at Dawn & SCE Santa Monica Studio

LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
Development Team
Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment/TT Games

Professor Layton and the Lost Future
Akihiro Hino
Nintendo/Level 5 Games

Sonic Colours
Development Team
SEGA/Sonic Team

Super Scribblenauts
Joseph M Tringali, Marius Fahlbusch, Jeremiah Slaczka
Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment/5th Cell

Multiplayer

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal

Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Alan Kertz, Kristoffer Bergqvist
Electronic Arts/DICE

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Adam Rosas, Scott Bean, Dom Drozdz
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch

Halo: Reach
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Bungie

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
Development Team
Electronic Arts/Criterion Games

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
Development Team
Blizzard Entertainment/Blizzard Entertainment

Original Music

Alan Wake
Petri Alanko
Microsoft Games Studios/Remedy

Fable III
Russell Shaw
Microsoft Games Studios/Lionhead Studios

Heavy Rain
Normand Corbeil
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe

James Bond 007: Bloodstone
Richard Jacques
Activision Blizzard UK/ Bizarre Creations

Mass Effect 2
Jack Wall
Electronic Arts/BioWare

Super Mario Galaxy 2
Koji Kondo
Nintendo/Nintendo

Social Network Game

Bejeweled Blitz
Jon David, Heather Hazen, Jason Kapalka
Popcap Games/Popcap Games

Farmerama
Tobias Reisberger, Jan-Michel Saaksmeier, Marten Schröder
Bigpoint/Bigpoint

FIFA Superstars
Development Team
EA Sports/Playfish

My Empire
Development Team
Playfish/Playfish

Zoo Mumba
Tobias Reisberger, Eduard Röhrich, Jan-Michel Saaksmeier
Bigpoint GMBH/Bigpoint GMBH

Zuma Blitz
Isaac Aubrey, Jon David, Jason Kapalka
PopCap Games/PopCap Games

Sports

F1 2010
Development Team
Codemasters/Codemasters Birmingham

FIFA 11
Development Team
Electronic Arts/ Electronic Arts Canada

Football Manager 2011
Development Team
SEGA/Sports Interactive

Gran Turismo 5
Development Team
Sony Computer Entertainment/Polyphony Digital Inc

International Cricket 2010
Development Team
Codemasters/Trickstar Games

Pro Evolution Soccer 2011
Shingo Takatsuka, Naoya Hatsumi, Jon Murphy
Konami/Winning Eleven Productions

Story

Alan Wake
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Remedy

BioShock 2
Jordan Thomas, Zak McClendon
2K Games/2K Marin

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Adam Rosas, Scott Bean, Dom Drozdz
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch

Fallout: New Vegas
John Gonzalez, Eric Fenstermaker, Travis Stout
Bethesda Softworks/Obsidian Entertainment

Heavy Rain
David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Scott Johnson
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe

Mass Effect 2
Development Team
Electronic Arts/BioWare

Strategy

Civilization V
Jon Shafer, Dorian Newcomb, Brian Wade
2K Games/Firaxis

Fallout: New Vegas
Josh Sawyer, Frank Kowalkowski, Justin Reynard
Bethesda Softworks/Obsidian Entertainment

FIFA Manager 11
Development Team
EA Sports/Bright Future

Napoleon Total War
Development Team
SEGA/Creative Assembly

Plants vs. Zombies XBLA
George Fan, Matt Lee Johnston, Ty Roberts
PopCap Games/PopCap Games

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
Development Team
Blizzard Entertainment/Blizzard Entertainment

Technical Innovation

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Adam Rosas, Scott Bean, Dom Drozdz
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch

Halo: Reach
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Bungie

Heavy Rain
David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Scott Johnson
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe

Kinectimals
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Frontier Developments Ltd

Super Mario Galaxy 2
Koichi Hayashida, Yoshiaki Koizumi, Takashi Tezuka
Nintendo/Nintendo

Use of Audio

Alan Wake
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Remedy

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal

Battlefield: Bad Company: 2
Stefan Strandberg
Electronic Arts/DICE

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Development Team
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch

DJ Hero 2
Development Team
Activision Blizzard UK LTD/Freestylegames

LIMBO
Development Team
Xbox Live Arcade/Playdead Games

Finally, the BAFTA Ones To Watch Award recognises the work of up-and-coming game designers and developers. To learn more about this award and to see videos of the nominated games, visit the Ones to Watch page on the BAFTA Web site.

BAFTA Ones To Watch Award in association with Dare to Be Digital

Mush
Henry Hoffman, Ahmed Zaman, Matthew Dennis, Katherine Killick, Greg O’Brien
(Angry Mango)

Sculpty
Druhin Mukherjee, Fabien Roussot, James Long, Fraser Littlejohn, Ronan Suess
(Team Tickle)

Twang!
Jocce Marklund, Annette Nielsen, Linus Nordgren, Marcus Heder, Thomas Finlay
(That Game Studio)

That’s your lot. We hope you’re as excited as us about these awards and what they signify for the growing recognition of the industry as a whole.

And if you haven’t get voted for the GAME Award of 2010 you know what to do.