Spike TV’s first annual Video Game Awards, which took place Tuesday night in Las Vegas, will air tonight at 9:00 p.m. A list of winners has already been released, so if you’re opposed to spoilers, you may not want to read beyond this point. Otherwise you’ll know that EA Sports’ Madden NFL 2004 took Game of the Year from Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Ubi Soft’s Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell. The football title, however, came up short of the endzone in the category Best Sports Game, losing to Tony Hawk’s Underground from Ativision.
Other winning titles include Namco’s Soul Calibur II, which bested Sony Online Ent’s PlanetsSide and EA Games’ The Sims: Superstar for the distinction of Most Addictive, and Microsoft’s Halo: Combat Evolved, which won Best PC Game. The upcoming Halo 2 was also named Most Anticipated Game, winning out over Activision’s Doom 3, Atari’s Driv3r, Microsoft’s Fable, THQ’s Full Spectrum Warrior SCEA’s Gran Turismo 4, VU Games’ Half-Life 2, Konami’s Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, EA Games’ The Sims 2 and Ubi Soft’s Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow.
Tecmo’s Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball nabbed Best Animation, winning out over Vice City and Blizzard Ent.’s Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne.
The battle of the blockbusters was won by Atari’s Enter the Matrix, which snatched Best Game Based on a Movie from EA Games’ The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Lucas Arts’ Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. But Knights didn’t’ go empty-handed. The game took Best Fantasy Game from Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XI. FFXI would get its revenge on the Jedi in the category Best Online Game, beating Star Wars Galaxies and EA Games’ Battlefield 1942: The Road to Rome.
NASCAR Thunder 2004 from EA Sports sped past Nintendo’s F-Zero GX and VU Games’ The Simpsons: Hit & Run to take the cup for Best Driving Game, and Activision’s True Crime: Streets of LA made a quick getaway with Best Action Game. EA Games’ Freedom Fighters and Rockstar Games’ Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne were also up for that category.
The crime spree continued as Actor Ray Liotta (Goodfellas, Identity) picked up the award for Best Performance by a Human. His role in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was favored over that of fellow cast member and porn star Jenna Jameson. He also beat out rapper Snoop Dogg in True Crime: Streets of LA (Activision), X-Files actor David Duchovny in XIII (Ubi Soft) and the Def Jam Crew (DMX, Ludacris, Method Man and Red Man) in Def Jam Vendetta (EA Big).
The distinction of Best Fighting Game was bestowed upon THQ’s WWE Smackdown!: Here Comes the Pain, which put the smackdown on EA Big’s Def Jam Vendetta and Namco’s Soul Calibur II.
Rounding out the 16 categories was Best Handheld Game, which went to Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, Best Music for Def Jam Vendetta, and Best First Person Action for Activision’s Call of Duty.
The first annual Spike TV Video Game Awards (VGAs) is the second televised video game awards show behind G4’s G4oria, which was held earlier this year. Actor/comedian David Spade hosts the ceremony from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. For all Spike VGA results, log on to www.spiketv.com.
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