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Writers Guild of America to Honor Video Games; Snub Portal, BioShock, and Mass Effect
The Writers Guild of America has been in the headlines this past few months for their on going strike against their Producers, but even on the picket lines the guild has listed its first winners for their "Videogame Writing Award": Crash of the Titans, Dead Head Fred, The Simpsons Game, The Witcher, and World in Conflict.
What eludes me to no end is how big name releases like BioShock and Mass Effect were kept off the list, despite one having a totally original story, place, and character, and the other containing nearly a full books worth of dialog and back story. And perhaps most grievous is to leave off the critical darling, Portal. Part of the magic experienced the first time you play that game is the darkly hilarious writing spouted from the GlaDOS. The game didn't even require the story to be great, but Valve created one of the most memorable game experiences in years because of it. I suppose Steve was right about it being overlooked.
I am also amazed that Half Life 2: Episode 2 was also left off the list. Perhaps disqualified for being a direct continuation of the story, the latest episode has some of the most emotional scenes in the series, and perhaps in all of gaming. If I could nominate a best female performance in gaming, it would definitely have to go to Merle Dandridge, who performs Alyx's voice in the series.
While I'd agree that The Simpsons Game and The Witcher have great writing, what I can't understand is how the WGA thought Crash of the Titans had better writing than all the other games I mentioned. I mean ... did they play the game?
Well, like you said..they may have just..not played them. I honestly think if they had, they would have been worth mention. Unless they were paid to keep those off the list/paid to have those games on there.
Posted by Gungnir at January 16, 2008 10:12 PMWho cares what they snub? They can do whatever they want.
As for the rest of us, we know these games are good. Right?
Why would we need them to validate or justify this?
Big whoop. :D
Posted by Gauphastus at January 17, 2008 3:58 AMYeah, The Witcher beating out Bioshock and Portal is kind of a surprise to me. I didn't play Mass Effect. I don't think that the strength of The Witcher is in its writing.
Posted by doctor_kaz at January 17, 2008 10:24 AMGoing a little conspiracy theory here, but perhaps the reason they don't nominate the best games is because they don't want their already dwindling television and movie audience to take a serious hit? The day America's majority realizes that video games can tell deep, compelling, interactive stories that both stir emotions and stimulate educated discussion is the day that Hollywood dies. What with the current strike I can't imagine that they'd want to lose more of their audience to another medium.
Or perhaps they just picked a random sampling of games.
Posted by Tolheim at January 17, 2008 12:29 PMThat list seems pretty unfinished. They could'nt possibly leave portal or half life off. They are a couple of the best games ever made!
Posted by Markonite2 at January 17, 2008 3:22 PMOr perhaps, at the risk of being conspiracy-theor-ish, perhaps they only mentioned games written by WGA writers? I haven't done any legwork to confirm or deny this... it just leaped into my brain as a possiblity.
Posted by Pfellah at January 17, 2008 3:33 PMYeah, Im pretty sure that the games had to have been written by members of the WGA.
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