Golden Joystick Awards 2011 – Part 1 – Introduction
Move over Academy Awards, run away Grammy’s, step aside Nobel Peace Prize, it is time for the real awards to take centre stage. It is nearly time for THE award ceremony, the Golden Joystick Awards, which will have its eagerly anticipated 29th
edition just around the corner.
What makes the Golden Joystick Awards different not just from other gaming awards, but also from awards in general, is the fact that rather than having a panel made up of experts (read, ‘old geezers’) who decide which game everyone likes, it is a gaming
award for the people, by the people and that is why the awards also go by the name ‘People’s Gaming Awards’.
There are a number of categories which games can be nominated for. Over the years the categories have been given out in ‘association with’ (a nice way of saying sponsored by, but without the sponsor having anything to do with choosing the winner) a number
of sponsors.
The awards are the best way of gauging which games the fans loved the most, as the winners are the direct result of votes cast.
There is of course one slight issue when it comes to awards where nominees are single platform (exclusive) games and that is the fact that the vote count becomes imbalanced.
Games like Battlefield Bad Company, Portal, Call of Duty, and Grand Theft Auto which are multiplatform have an advantage over Halo, Killzone, Gears of War and other single console exclusive titles. Though by the end, if a game really is that good, it ends
up winning one award or the other.
The categories for the Golden Joystick Awards are as follows:
Best Shooter: One of the most fiercely contested awards; any game nominated here knows they are in for a fight. The award pits some of the best games in the genre against each other. This year the award has a total of 14 nominees, all vying
for the prize.
Best Action/Adventure: With 20 nominations, the Best Action/Adventure game category will see the likes of the mega hit, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood go up against the modern cult classic, Portal 2, as well as a few other well known franchises.
Best RPG (Role Playing Game): Only 11 games have been nominated for this title, as it was a bit of a slow year for RPGs in general. Yet, with Dragon Age II and Fallout New Vegas both in the running, it would be premature to say that the
games in this category will have an easy time.
Best MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online): With the fewest games up for nomination (six games in total) one would assume that the games, like their Best RPG counterparts would have an easy time, yet the fact is that each of the games has a
deep loyal fan-base (read, ‘nerds’) who will no doubt log in multiple times to cast as many votes as they can for their favourite game. You know who you are.
Best Fighting: With eight nominations going toe to toe together, it will be interesting to see whether Super Street Fighter still holds the crown, or will Marvel vs. Capcom knock it off its perch.
The rest of the categories and the remainder of the introduction can be found in the next article in Bettor.com’s coverage of the Golden Joystick Awards
Golden Joystick Awards 2011 – Part 2 – Introduction (continued)
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