Source: videogamesblogger.com

X-Play will have their annual Best Games of 2008 Awards on Tuesday, December 9th at 8:00 PM Eastern/Pacific time on G4.

X-Play is the most watched videogame series on TV and has announced the nominees for it’s various award categories for the Sixth Annual Best of 2008 Awards. The categories cover over 20 different sections including Most Original Game, Best Strategy Game, Best New Character and Best Sound Design.

The categories have also been expanded this year to cover some all new ground. These include: Best New Downloadable Game, Best Racing Game, Best Music/Rhythm Game, Best Handheld and Best MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online Game).

The special episode of the awards will take viewers through each category, revealing the winners and explaining in detail exactly why each game won. It will culminate finally in the highly coveted Game of the Year Award, where players can watch with anticipation in finding out which of this years heavy-hitters will win it all.

Will it be Bethesda’s post-apocalyptic epic Western RPG Fallout 3? How about the intense sequel to one of the Xbox 360’s best games in Gears of War 2?

Or Valve’s latest innovative shooter, the zombie-packed Left 4 Dead? EA’s first foray into the first-person adventure genre with the acrobatic action game Mirror’s Edge? And there’s many others as well, from Will Wright’s latest opus, the creature-building Sims-follow-up Spore to EA’s first gory survival horror game Dead Space to Rockstar and Take Two’s latest epic open-world crime game Grand Theft Auto IV. And don’t forget about Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Wii Fit, Mario Kart Wii and big DS and PSP titles like God of War: Chains of Olympus, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy IV, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII and Professor Layton and the Curious Village. There’s lots to choose from and all the awards this year should be really interesting.

“It seems commonplace to expect and find every year to improve on the one before,” says Adam Sessler, Host and Managing Editor, “X-Play.” “But the level of sophistication and depth found in 2008’s standout titles are truly extraordinary.”

“Every year, it gets tougher and tougher to pick the winners,” says Morgan Webb, Host, “X-Play.” “This year was no exception and we had to really challenge ourselves to whittle down the list of nominees to come up with the best of the best.”

The Complete List of “X-Play Best of 2008″ categories and nominees include:

Game of the Year

* Fable 2
* Fallout 3
* Gears of War 2
* Grand Theft Auto IV
* Left 4 Dead
* Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
* Resistance 2

Most Original Game

* Boom Blox
* Braid
* LittleBigPlanet
* Mirror’s Edge
* No More Heroes
* The World Ends With You

Best Gameplay Innovation

* “Level creation/sharing” – LittleBigPlanet
* “AI Director” – Left 4 Dead
* “Objective-based multiplayer” – Resistance 2
* “Voice command” – Tom Clancy’s EndWar
* “Right stick combat” – Too Human
* “Public quests” – Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

Best Multiplayer Game

* Gears of War 2
* Left 4 Dead
* Madden NFL 09
* Resistance 2
* Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
* Too Human

Best Action/Adventure Game

* Dead Space
* God of War: Chains of Olympus
* Grand Theft Auto IV
* No More Heroes
* Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

Best Sports Game

* FIFA 09
* Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds
* NBA 2K9
* NHL 09
* Madden NFL 09

Best Shooter

* Call of Duty: World at War
* Far Cry 2
* Gears of War 2
* Left 4 Dead
* Resistance 2

Best RPG

* Fable 2
* Fallout 3
* Persona 4
* Tales of Vesperia
* The World Ends With You

Best New Character

* The dog – Fable 2
* Niko Bellic – Grand Theft Auto IV
* Sackboy – LittleBigPlanet
* Drebin 893 – Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
* Travis Touchdown – No More Heroes

Best Art Direction

* Fable 2
* Fallout 3
* Far Cry 2
* LittleBigPlanet
* Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
* Prince of Persia

Best Animation

* Grand Theft Auto IV
* Left 4 Dead
* NBA 2K9
* Madden NFL 09
* Prince of Persia
* Resistance 2

Best Writing

* Grand Theft Auto IV
* Fable 2
* Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
* No More Heroes
* The Witcher: Enhanced Edition

Best Original Soundtrack

* Gears of War 2
* Mirror’s Edge
* Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
* No More Heroes
* Resistance 2

Best Sound Design

* Battlefield: Bad Company
* Condemned 2: Bloodshot
* Dead Space
* Fable 2
* Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

Best Downloadable Content

* Burnout Paradise – bikes/map expansion
* Call of Duty 4 – maps
* Rock Band 2 – DLC songs
* Team Fortress 2 – class upgrades
* Warhawk – PSN expansions

Best New Downloadable Game

* Bionic Commando Rearmed
* Braid
* Geometry Wars 2
* Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty
* Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
* World of Goo

Best Strategy Game

* Advance Wars: Days of Ruin
* Galactic Civilizations 2: Twilight of the Arnor
* Sins of a Solar Empire
* Tom Clancy’s EndWar
* Valkyria Chronicles

Best Racing Game

* Burnout Paradise
* GRID
* Mario Kart Wii
* MotorStorm: Pacific Rift
* Pure

Best Music/Rhythm Game

* Audiosurf
* Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
* Guitar Hero World Tour
* Patapon
* Rock Band 2

Best Handheld Game

* Chrono Trigger DS
* God of War: Chains of Olympus
* Patapon
* Professor Layton and the Curious Village
* The World Ends With You

Best M-M-O

* Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures
* Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
* World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

Source: videogamesblogger.com

This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee goes to the Game Developers Conference. Let’s take a look at “special” presentation of Yahtzee’s Game Developer’s Choice Awards Videos from GDC 2008.

Source: thexboxdomain.com

Source: thexboxdomain.com

Source: seganerds.com

Well, here I was thinking that Virtua Fighter 5 and Universe at War: Earth Assault would be bringing in all the awards. Seems that the people running Spike’s Video Game Awards took notice of Virtua Tennis 3.

The game is nominated under ‘individual sports game’, competing against Skate, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08, and Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground. I think we all know that Skate will take the award.

When I first looked at the list of nominees, I scrolled down to find a ‘best fighting game’ category, but there wasn’t one, though there was  ‘best military game’ and ‘best rhythm game’ categories.

Though, I think this is too early for a ‘best game of the year’ awards since theres still more then a month left, meaning they’ll miss out on games like NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams.

[Via TeamXbox]

Source: seganerds.com

Two of Sega-Europe’s team, have shown that Sega know how to play football (soccer) games, just as well as they can make them.

The glory came, when Dwayne Buck and Aaron Francis, (both from Sega-Europe), teamed up to take on other pairs, from the gaming industry, at a game of Pro Evolution Soccer.

The ‘PES Industry Cup’, (in association with MCV and sponsored by Play.com and Cobra Beer), had 32 two-player teams battling it out.  The pair defeated Codemasters’ development duo, James Firth and Craig Duncan, in a “tense” final.  But the contest did not only have teams from the gaming industry, it also featured some names from the world of football media, (commentators, presenters etc…), though, to be honest, with my limited football knowledge, I hadn’t really heard of any of them.

[Source: MCV]

Source: seganerds.com

Game Critics Award has been giving out awards since 1998. Yep, back in the day when us Sega Nerds were importing games on our Sega Saturn and swearing Dreamcast would be the next sure thing.

I’m sorta surprised that Virtua Fighter 5 got best fighting game, since its just a port. I would like to say, before we get all the Nintendo fans saying that Super Smash Bros deserved the award. Super Smash bros was not nominated. The game only had to face off against Smack Down! vs Raw 2008 and the 30th Naruto game announced this year.

The only other game that was nominated was Universe at War: Earth Assault, who lost against World in Conflict. Whats up with this similar sounding names?

Source: thexboxdomain.com

Source: thexboxdomain.com

Source: thexboxdomain.com