Here are the winners of the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards

by Christopher Grant on Dec 10th 2011 11:14PM

Regardless of what you think about the actual Spike Video Game Awards broadcast, with its frustrating focus on everything but the actual video game awards, we don't think that means the awards themselves are any less valid.

That could be because this writer is a judge (disclosure!) but if you have a look at the list of winners past the break, you won't find a single award for Mountain Dew, though you will find plenty for games like Skyrim, Portal 2, Bastion, and Skyward Sword.

GAME OF THE YEAR
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

STUDIO OF THE YEAR
Bethesda Game Studios

CHARACTER OF THE YEAR
The Joker – Batman: Arkham City

VIDEO GAME HALL OF FAME AWARD
"The Legend of Zelda"

GAMER GOD AWARD
Blizzard Entertainment

BEST XBOX 360 GAME
Batman: Arkham City

BEST PS3 GAME
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

BEST Wii GAME
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

BEST PC GAME
Portal 2

BEST HANDHELD/MOBILE GAME
Super Mario 3D Land

BEST SHOOTER
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

BEST ACTION ADVENTURE GAME
Batman: Arkham City

BEST RPG
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

BEST MULTI-PLAYER
Portal 2

BEST INDIVIDUAL SPORTS GAME
Fight Night Champion

BEST TEAM SPORTS GAME
NBA 2K12

BEST DRIVING GAME
Forza Motorsport 4

BEST FIGHTING GAME
Mortal Kombat

BEST MOTION GAME
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

BEST INDEPENDENT GAME
Minecraft

BEST ADAPTED VIDEO GAME
Batman: Arkham City

BEST SONG IN A GAME
"Build that Wall (Zia's Theme)" by Darren Korb – Bastion

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Bastion

BEST GRAPHICS
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A HUMAN MALE
Stephen Merchant as Wheatley – Portal 2

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A HUMAN FEMALE
Ellen McLain as GLaDOS – Portal 2

BEST DOWNLOADABLE GAME
Bastion

BEST DLC
Portal 2 Peer Review

MOST ANTICIPATED GAME
Mass Effect 3

GAMETRAILERS.COM TRAILER OF THE YEAR
Assassin's Creed: Revelations – E3 2011 Trailer

EA SPORTS NFL BLITZ DIGITAL COVER ATHLETE
Ray Rice

Tags: elder-scrolls-5, skyrim, spike-vga-2011, the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim

Reader Comments (190)

Yes Virginia, the awards are less valid.

@refinedsugar

indeed it is hard to

CoD won best FPS (over Battlefield & Gears 3)

Skyrim (I won't say its not GoTY potential cos it is) shipped with an ass load of bugs and gets Bethesda best studio.

Gears 3 didn't win best 360 game (really? aren't those supposed to recognise the best game exclusive to that platform - and if not why did sky rim not win it for both PS3 & 360 if it was GOTY?)

And Deus Ex won nothing... (not even best trailer for its epic 5 min trailer - though I suppose technically that came out at the end of last year)

...seriously - no love for DX:HR???

@Theory28

Yes, but if you hear from some of the people I hear from, it turns out that everyone buys multiplatform games on Xbox 360 anyway.

Also, Deus Ex had no multiplayer. The average Spike TV fan HATES those kinds of games.

I could never possibly take VGA seriously, but it's still disappointing to not see Dark Souls on this list. I guess that's one more reason to love it.

@refinedsugar

It really is no different than any other award program on TV be it movie, film, daytime or video game.

It is a popularity contest and really award worthy stuff never wins because the only purpose of these awards it to keep the money train running on already popular items not to really raise awareness or award great achievement or for upping the level of the art.

Its all BS and its why I don't watch nor could give a cr*p except as a passing glance.

@Theory28
gears is no FPS, and it wasn't really that great.
but yes, DE:HR should have won the best FPS award, even though it's a hybrid
and it wouldn't be very sporting, if the GOTY would be allowed to win the best game on ps3/360/pc award.
people say Batman AC is a great game, portal 2 was awesome, so why not give them a "best X game" award, even though they are multiplatform

@Gibbeynator skyrim has no multiplayer yet it got game of the year

@jsx92

A game that puts it's user through Hell could never win a Popularity contest. Hell, I don't think a for serious Award Show would give it more than a mention, because the Award's Comity wouldn't want to be responsible with send millions of unsuspecting gamers to their deaths and broken controllers and even TVs.

@refinedsugar

Also, the real winners are those of us who didn't watch this piss.

@Dickhole Pasta
Easy. Because Theory28 hates CoD so much that it causes him to have allucination-inducing seizures just upon hearing the name of this game. And while in a CoD-hatred trip, he saw the moon falling into the ocean, fireflies that actually burn in flames and, of course, FPS GoW 3.

Not a single surprise to be had.

@Faceless Troll Bastion's best score is not surprising?

@Fuzunga
Not in the least, if anyone BUT Bastion won it'd be shocking.

Portal 2 won best Multi-player? jinkies.

@MBMBaM fan

Yea, I wonder how many people are still playing Portal 2's multiplayer.

@MBMBaM fan - The VGA's are like little league sports; Everyone gets a trophy of some kind at the end of the year.

@Fuzunga

have you played it? the soundtrack is surprisingly catchy, and completely awesome.

@Faceless Troll NOT True. I was surprised by the temporal anomaly that is the date it aired. "Saturday December 11"! December 11 is sunday. Saturday was the 10th.

@HaVoK308

i do.

@Fuzunga Have you even played bastion? PHENOMENAL original score.

...Portal 2 had DLC?

How did that win over Old World Blues?!

@Diet Kane
It was free...

@Diet Kane
It wasn't for New Vegas.

@Warlock234

It was also a mandatory title update.

lols deadislands trailer didn't win? Really?

@whitetrashshayno
Did you even watch the AC trailer? I've never scene a more photo-realistic animation.

@whitetrashshayno And that effing song killed it.

@whitetrashshayno "Killed it" like in a good way, the way the kids use it these days.

@Assmar Killed it like a Templar

@Warlock234 No. I didn't see it, and do you know why? Because no one cared about it.

The week the Dead Island trailer came out I didn't see one game site NOT talk about that trailer. Even mainstream news sites were stirring controversy over it. It probably boosted interest in a game more than any other trailer this year, and for that alone it should be the winner.

All the VGA's prove to me is how much money each studio made. The bigger the award, the bigger the bag of money was thrown at Spike to be declared the winner.

Skyrim what an upset!!...was rooting for Batman or Uncharted 3..: (

@rambo8

It doesn't matter. They're all good games and nobody cares about Spike's awards except for Spike.

snoozefest. sorry i'm just in a bad mood!

Resistance 3 grabs my best shooter here. I absolutely adored it.

Man this was a good year.

And with Bioshock Infinite, Mass Effect 3, the PS Vita, (hopefully) more good 3ds games, Next year looks pretty good too.

@Gandkaidos
Vita, yes. 3DS, no. Vita will dominate, 3DS will die.

@Warlock234
You, sir, are a dumbass.

@Warlock234 Yeah yeah yeah, same shit topic every new console generation. A is going to kill B ... C is going to kill A...

@Warlock234

Troll harder.

WoW. Just to establish something before I say this, but I've been a CoD fanboy since CoD 3, and ONLY played CoD as far as FPS's go until this year, and I can definitely say that BF3 should have one at least the FPS category.

@Warlock234 If you admit to not knowing anything about shooters why would you make a clam in regards to shooters? The best first person shooter this year was Bulletstorm. The best third person shooter was Dead Space 2.

@F1shBone

gears 3 is the best 3rd person shooter hands down and im with warlock battlefield 3 should have won shooter of the year.

@F1shBone
You seemed to have misunderstood. I have played every CoD since CoD 3 religiously, on top of my 125 hours of TF2 on Steam, 100's of hours of Halo, and now the time I've spent with BF3 on PC and Xbox. I have plenty of experience with shooters. Bulletstorm seems like a good game, but BF3 has a brand new engine, gameplay, and mechanics, I personally think it deserved GOTY (at least in the FPS category). You are entitled to your opinion though, but don't be telling me I have no experience.

How battlefield 3 wasn't in the best graphics category is beyond me.

@Warlock234
Not really. More people brought, played and enjoy MW3 more. Also the fact that the game shipped with gameplay problems, games differed from console and PC graphically and player count and alot of people jumped ship once MW3 dropped.

BF3 can get a nice "runners up" award though.

@StarcasM
Skyrim shipped w/ numerous bugs and won GOTY. CoD won based on popularity doesnt actually make it the best FPS game

MW3 is the best shooter? Really? FFS.

Also, Dead Island may have been a bit disappointing, but the trailer was still amazing.

How the hell did GoW3 not get best 360 game?

@

Because it wasn't as good as Arkham, and Uncharted 3 was better than Arkham :D

@Spunky Monkey 190906....Negative, GOW 3 was by far the best game on the 360.

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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Here are the winners of the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards

Reader Comments (190)

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:18PM refinedsugar said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 6:44AM Theory28 said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 8:25AM Gibbeynator said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 9:01AM jsx92 said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 9:37AM Zo said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 10:23AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 12:00PM Teus said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 12:02PM Mr Meow Meow said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 2:31PM Fullmetal Salchemist said

Posted: Dec 12th 2011 11:38AM TheShaper said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:21PM Faceless Troll said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:37PM Fuzunga said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:41PM Jennacide said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 12:02AM MBMBaM fan said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 12:09AM HaVoK308 said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 12:28AM BananaBoat said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 12:33AM Liquidfingers said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 12:50PM KaySakura said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 12:51PM SmilinGoat said

Posted: Dec 14th 2011 7:07PM adooooom said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:21PM Diet Kane said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:28PM Warlock234 said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 2:03AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 4:29AM TRONdll said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:22PM whitetrashshayno said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:29PM Warlock234 said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:41PM Assmar said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:42PM Assmar said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 12:00AM Arteen said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 1:27PM SmDFrylock said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:22PM rambo8 said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 9:19AM Arcaria said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:22PM TheRealLawrence said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:26PM Dooliss said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:26PM Gandkaidos said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:30PM Warlock234 said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:54PM darkinchworm said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 4:39AM JCat said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 5:30AM DekuTree said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:27PM Warlock234 said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:41PM F1shBone said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:46PM Miami Prodigy said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 12:03AM Warlock234 said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 12:59AM Draugdraugr said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 11:35AM StarcasM said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 1:00PM Redbirdsrevenge said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:28PM Dratyan said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:28PM LoneWolf18 said

Posted: Dec 10th 2011 11:57PM Spunky Monkey 190906 said

Posted: Dec 11th 2011 12:28AM Slight of Ham said

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Info

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