The Golden Joysticks

Just as E3 is synonomous with gaming events, The Golden Joystick Awards are the most well known and popular gaming award ceremony.  Every year the general public vote for their favourite game depending on category, be it sport, shooter, one to watch, or all round game of the year.Year to year the categories and brackets fluctuate and change, seemingly randomly, but that does not stop both the award and ceremony being certainly prestigious. It is one of the only gaming events (minus the likes of E3) to attract celebrity names such as David Mitchell and Frankie Boyle to attend.  It is important to remember that the votes for every award is based only on public vote, making this the true 'peoples award' It is for this reason that developers, publishers and even gamers themselves take such a huge interest in this annual ceremony - ladies and gents this is big business! So here are this years categories and my votes for each category:

Best Shooter: Crysis 2

Crysis 2 is one of the games I picked up a while ago that I have been meaning to review but simply haven't had the.. Well Ok i've been lazy with that one.  It is quite simply an amazing game. Easily the most visually stunning game I have seen thus far, with a brilliant soundtrack, story and with unique mechanics it is a must play from me. Admittedly I was a little torn on this choice, as another game in the list is SEGA's own 'Vanquish'. This also is a brilliant title, aesthetically pleasing, unique mechanics (ROCKET SLIDE!!) and an all round gem of a game, but my gut told me to go with Crysis 2 - easily the hardest decision I made in all of my choices. Unfortunately I believe that both of these games will be horribly overshadowed and lose to Call Of Duty: Black Ops - at leats if the last few years results are anything to go by..

Best Action: Castlevania Lords Of Shadow

Ok now this was a definite no brainer. If you read my VERY FIRST blog and review on Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow here you will know that this is not only my favourite action games, but quite possibly one of my favourite games on all of Playstation 3. This is a well deserved solid choice for me, but heavy competition comes in the form of Assassins Creed.

 

Best RPG: Fallout New Vegas

Again, a rather easy choice for me as I thoroughly enjoyed playing through it and it is a game I invested a lot of time into. Although nowhere near (in my opinion) as good as its predecessor  Fallout 3, this one still took best of show in the RPG category for me. I'll get round to reviewing that too at some point...

 

 

 

Best MMO: World Of Warcraft

Ya know, because there basically isn't any others and I used to be a massive WoW addict..

Best Fighting: Mortal Kombat

Yet again, a fantastically hands down choice for me. Mortal Kombat made my list of most anticipated games and the only reason I haven't got round to writing the 5 star rave review of it yet is that I'm still playing it. Every day. Since launch. Now if that isn't reason for it to be my best fighting game of the year, I don't know what is but just in case.. It's fantastically gory, beautiful to look at (in a sick kind of way) easy for both beginners and pro alike, brings a tonne of new shiny things (like X-Rays) did away with all the genuinely crap characters and did an amazing job of rebooting the story into touch. That's about it I think..

 

 

Now i'm gonna be honest with you here, I didn't feel it was fair of me to vote on many of the other categories as I either:

A) Had only played one of the games or hadn't played any of the games in the category at all; 

or B) Hated them all or only liked one game.

For this reason there are a few categories I did not vote in but If I had to, based off the little of these games that I have played here's what I'd vote.

Best Racing: Gran Turismo 5
Best Sports: Football Manager 2011
Best Strategy: Civilization V
Best Music Based: Guitar Hero, Warriors Of Rock
Best Free to Play: Zuma
Best Mobile: Fruit Ninja
Best Downloadable: Dead Nation

Ultimate Game Of The Year: Black Ops

Now here's the main event. The head honcho. The big cheese. The don. The..Ok i'll stop. Yes this is the ultimate game of the year award, the most coveted of all the golden joystick awards. This was also the category that annoyed me the most. In fact it pushed me almost not to vote. Why? Because of the simply baffling lack of choice. I chose Call of Duty Black Ops for two reasons, one of which was the fact I did not feel any other game was deserving of GOTY, in fact I barely felt Blops is deserving. What swung me to voting however is the fact that, I undeniably have played this game more than any other this year and have in fact enjoyed it. At the end of the day I suppose that is what this award is about. I guess I just would have liked to give this title to a game that had ground breaking mechanics or something like that, not just a record sales breaking blockbuster. I was shocked to see a lack of Crysis 2 up there, and even more shocked to see Bulletstorm which in my opinion is pretty terrible. But I suppose that's just the way it is. At least zombies mode is fucking awesome. 

 

One to Watch: Metal Gear Rising

It's a Metal Gear Solid Game. Is there really anything else I need to say?

 

So there you have it folks, this years Golden Joystick Awards nominations. Watch this space for the results when they happen, and don't forget to cast your vote to see your favourite game win!

 

http://www.goldenjoystick.com