Grand Theft Auto IV crowned Game of the Year at Spike VGAs

by Ross Miller on Dec 14th 2008 10:59PM

It seems like Spike Video Game Award judges and Time magazine now have something in common. The Spike VGA Game of the Year was just announced and it was ... wait for it ... drumroll please ... more drumroll, please ... that's better ... Grand Theft Auto IV. The announcement was preceded by the latest Brutal Legend trailer, so we almost missed it basking in the awesomeness of Tim freaking Schafer. Congratulations to Rockstar.

Curious which games won – and, by proxy, which ones lost – in the rest of the categories? Find the full list of winners after the break.

Best Shooter: Gears of War 2 (Epic Games)
Best Xbox 360 Game: Gears of War 2 (Epic Games)
Best Indie Game Voted by the Fans: World of Goo (2D Boy)
Big Name in a Game: Kiefer Sutherland (Call of Duty: World at War)
Gamer God Inductee: Will Wright (Sim City, Spore)
Best RPG: Fallout 3 (Bethesda)
Best Music Game: Rock Band 2 (Harmonix)
Best Soundtrack in a Game: Rock Band 2 (Harmonix)
Studio of the Year: Media Molecule (Little Big Planet)
Best PS3 Game: Little Big Planet (Media Molecule)
Best Driving: Burnout Paradise (Criterion)
Best Game Based on a Movie or TV Show: Lego Indy (Traveller's Tales)
Best Fighting: Soul Calibur 4 (Project Soul)
Best Multiplayer: Left 4 Dead (Valve)
Best PC: Left 4 Dead (Valve)
Best Portable: Professor Layton (Level 5)
Best Wii: Boom Blox (EA Casual)
Best Individual Sports: Shaun White Snowboarding (Ubi Montreal)
Best Female in a Game: Jenny McCarthy as Tanya in Red Alert 3 (EA Westwood)
Best Performance by a Human Male: Michael Hollick as Niko Bellic (Grand Theft Auto IV)
Best Performance by a Human Female: Debbie Mae West as Meryl Silverburgh (Metal Gear Solid 4)
Best Graphics: Metal Gear Solid 4 (Kojima Productions)
Best Original Score: Metal Gear Solid 4 (Kojima Productions)
Best Action-Adventure Game: Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar Games)
Best Game of the Year: Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar Games)

[Thanks to Primotech for doing the heavy lifting of writing all these down!]

Tags: best-of-2008, breakingnews, grand-theft-auto-iv, gtaiv, js-twitter, PS3, spike-vga-2008, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (164)

HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT!

Tell me about it. I was looking forward to Cliffy B's tire slashing.

Maybe he'll still do it, just for the hell of it.

totaly agree MGS4 should have won it, fallout 3 in second...maybe

I disagree. I didn't watch the show, but this is a surprisingly credible list. There's room for a quibble here and there, but I think the only game that's really out of place is Boom Blox for the Wii. Both Smash Bros. and World of Goo would have been better choices. Imo, Boom Blox is a 7/10.

Speaking of World of Goo, I'm very glad to see it beat out the overhyped Braid for indie game of the year.

IMO

GOTY: MGS4 or GOW2
Best Indie: Braid
Best Studio: Lionhead, Kojima, EPIC, Bethesda

Everything else is dead on.

My opinion was rendered obsolete due to general offensiveness. My apologies!

kojima, epic and mm should have had a 3 way tie for best studio.

Or maybe your mom is a "retard" for having you and calling people retards on the interwebz? Just maybe...

It's called having an opinion. Thats why at the beginning I wrote "I-M-FUCKING-O"! Its not like I went on a fanboy rant about it not winning. Douche!

I'm a huge MGS fan, but the game isn't as good as everyone says. It's high quality like all of Kojima's games are, but the story was an absolute joke, the gameplay feels just like everything that was MGS3 sans the more action-orientated gameplay. I can't say how it measures up to GTA4, since i haven't played it, but i wouldn't say that MGS4 is as great as everyone makes it out to be.

@fenixnight
did i go on a fanboy rant? no
I realize this rebuttal will only worsen my image since people happen to be head over heels for Gears 2. I guess I can't blame them being a huge Halo 3 fan that I am.
But really, Gears of War 2 was a huge dissapointment to me, moreso than GTAIV
they both sucked compared to earlier iterations
but GTAIV sucked less, much less than GoW2

GTA IV on PC ? Being GoTY now (if spike's vga counts) I can't even play because SecuRom doesn't work... So after reverting to a pirated copy I discover that it runs at a stable 15FPS on my Radeon... Well good thing I borrowed a copy first.

to quote someone in the chat:

SORT OF A DISAPPOINTMENT

Shmil, fail less at living. Jesus.

- Giving MGS4 the "best graphics" award is kind of insulting. It's as if to say that's all it's good for. The MGS games have always had good graphics, but it's the story and gameplay mechanics that make them good. There isn't any award there for a good story (isn't this essential in any good media? It applies to books, TV, movies, why not games?) or fun gameplay mechanics. Although the sneaking part of MGS is fun, I'm sure there are Wii games with more fun gameplay mechanics.
- GTA4 as GOTY? Not a chance. GTA4 had some fun parts, and some boring parts. As did MGS4, LBP, GOW2...etc. The point is that it needs to be balanced, and anything that isn't fun has to be important in some other enjoyable way. MGS4 had some really long cutscenes, which didn't add to the game itself, but were enjoyable as they went through the story. And they were skippable, so you could still enjoy the game if you didn't care about the story. GTA4 was overwhelmingly boring for me, and you couldn't really enjoy the game without taking people out every hour or so. LBP was fun, and the only really frustrating part is "The Bunker". I haven't played GOW2, so I can't judge it.
- Also, as a European, I would exclude Harmonix from any awards

ok...MGS4 as best graphics?? is that a joke? seriously. lets even put fallout 3 on pc an mgs4 on ps3 side by side on a 30 inch 1080p tv at the maximum resolution they'll go an see which one looks clearer,sharper,an just better..fallout 3 WILL win..i've done this check myself. i don't see how any console game could win when none of them are made even at full 720p..that just doesn't make sense. best graphics should always go to a pc game hands down..an everyone that knows anything would agree with that!

MGS4 is one of the greatest games I've ever played. Everything, I mean EVERYTHING is top-notch and polished (except maybe the first time you try to get on MGO). That game should have won GOTY for sure.

You can't give gears 2 an award when you can't even get into a game. Yes, even after the patch...

As for gta iv, it was very fun. i really enjoyed the multiplayer, especially the race and cops and crooks modes. Very very fun, to me at least. Could have been a lot better, sure, but still very fun. I approve this pick. I approved so much, I jizzed in my pants.

TBH, from what I've played this year the only nominee for GOTY from me is Saints Row 2, pretty much the only game which hasn't disappointed (not played Fable 2 or Fallout 3 yet though)

@knightsray

yeah maybe as screenshots, once you throw animation and lip sync artistry, cinematics into the mix, MGS4 steps boldly above fallout 3. The character animation in fallout3 is damn near PITIFUL next to MGS4...and that's a BIG part of the graphics.

@rv
"You can't give gears 2 an award when you can't even get into a game. Yes, even after the patch..."

"I" can get into a game just fine. Under 2 minutes almost every time. Millions of others can along with me. So maybe YOU can't give the award. But millions of US can.

enjoy

Shmil, just because you don't like Gears 2, doesn't mean you have to be such a dick to people. Everyone's not a retard for having their own opinion and you should feel some shame for being such a jackass over such a small thing.

Anyway, though I am probably just another "retard" for saying this, I don't think GTA deserved game of the year at all. It seemed people hadn't remained in love with it after a few weeks went by, and there were other games that really were better done and gathered more gamers time - rather than just their money. I liked the game at first, but the missions became real redundant and boring very fast. I think MGS was the overall most exciting release to play through this year.

Proof that Spike has no clue about anything.

fail

. . .

and thanks to JRPGs "...." is a totally valid opinion!

And this is why I get my information from the publications, because Spike is full of shit. Was there even a best RPG category?

All of the awards were voted on by game journalists and bloggers.

Fallout 3 best RPG

There was and Fallout 3 got the award.

Well that's no surprise there. Expected but still. I could go on and on about Fallout 3 not being as good as it could've and should've been, but that still doesn't mean that Fable II would get it.

Fallout3 got best rpg? Was pretty boring imo, but then again it didn't have much competition anyways.

I bet Persona 4 wasn't even taken into consideration. :(

People who watch Spike play RPGs?

Spike shows something other than Star Trek TNG reruns and Ultimate Fighting?

So I see the media was too afraid to back down and vote for something else after falling for the hype earlier this year. It's ok we wouldn't have blamed you guys.

They couldn't go with an exclusive for any console since it wouldn't please the other fanboys, so they just went with GTA....

As it should be obvious by now, whenever magazines or television shows like time and spike have these awards for video games, they always pick the most popular game that appeals to the majority. That's why you saw Halo 3 on Time's top 10 games and that's why you see GTAIV winning these awards.

Because the truth is, nobody outside of the hardcore community gives a shit about most of the games we talk about here.

that and halo 3 is an awful game

No it isn't. Is it overrated? yes. Horrible? No, not even close. It's a decent game that's fun to play with friends.

Sorry, who won? I was busy cleaning up all the vomit that came out of me after watching less than five minutes of the VGA's.

thats believable, but really stupid...

I'm with you, Mich:

GTA IV was an awesome game, and the first in the series to really shine because of its excellent story and immersive world. I think it totally deserved the win, and definitely not because of the open-world ruckus-causing. If you didn't like GTA IV because you couldn't go streaking for points like in Saints Row 2, you're doing it wrong.

Sorry Jerk Face, but I have to disagree.

Saying that GTAIV had an immersive world is just downright insulting. GTA:SA had an immersive world, since (from what I remember) it had city, country, forest, and a huuuuuge jump in the middle of no where. Granted, GTAIV is large, but it doesn't feel as large as GTA:SA's map since all GTAIV really has is miles and miles of city areas and an airport.

The story mode was riddled with cheesy voice acting and a shallow plot. Then again, this really means nothing to me, because I play a GTA game for free roam, which BTW was a huge step downward. Besides the fact that the game is much slower, they completely killed the driving mechanics when they "made it realistic" by making you slide at every turn, yet completely avoided the fact that cars are heavy, and don't glide through the skies for simple bumps or tiny ramps.

I could understand how fiction could work for GTA:SA, but when Rockstar tried to make things "realistic", they failed miserably, and tried to cover up their mistakes with poor logic.

buy it 19.99 at gamefly

I know it's cool to hate GTA4 now, but I really enjoyed it. I still play it, even though I've had it since launch. I, personally, think this is a deserved title. Congrats to Rockstar.

Exactly. I love how people hate the game now despite loving it at launch. But then again, hating on good games is what's hip nowadays so it's not surprising.

I don't hate it, not by any means. I just did not find it replayable - something that I find very important.

Its always cool to hate whats popular on the internet. Should be of no surprise by now considering people still rag on about Halo or whatever other game that I can't think of to strengthen my argument =p

Unlike the others you all are talking about, I never liked GTA4. It was no where close to being as good as vice city or San Andreas. It tried to be to realistic which killed it for me.

Saints Row 2 felt more like a GTA sequel than GTA 4 did for me anyway.

@jawmuncher:

I hate this criticism of GTA4. God forbid Rockstar try something new and take the series in a bit of a different direction.

And you know what? GTA4 was still fun for the same reasons Saint's Row and the other GTAs were fun. You can still run around and cause a ruckus, except GTA4 featured something that I haven't seen in too many other games ever (I have a list, it's pretty short). It featured a complex story with serious themes and genuine emotional engagement.

Just because the game wasn't what you expected doesn't mean it was bad. Bring some genuine criticism next time instead of crying about how it was not like the older PS2 GTA games.

It also featured cars that were a pain in the ass to drive. It also featured an irritating social aspect that was a pain the in ass to take care of. It featured a lack of replayability as well. Yeah it had a good story to it, but that's really a moot point in a GTA game. When developing one, you say:

Are the cars fun to drive: Y/N
Can you play the game over and over again without any loss of fun: Y/N

If you are answering N to either of these then you are making a poor GTA game.

Ok, the friends were obnoxious, but what was wrong with the driving? I played the whole game and didn't have any problems at all. I still enjoyed the driving quite a bit, actually. That's how a car should feel.

Also, about replayability, I've always had mixed feelings about this. I mean, I could name dozens of fantastic games with little to no replay value, and a lot of crappy or less fantastic games with tons of it. And I don't buy that replay value is an inherent quality of a GTA title, nor does it need to be.

Basically you're looking for different things in GTA4 than I am, and it's probably no coincidence that I like what I see and you don't. The series matured. This is not a bad thing.

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