Last night, the London Hilton Hotel in the UK played host to the annual GAME British Academy Video Games Awards, one of the most prestigious awards ceremonies in the industry. Heavy Rain came away with the most awards of any other game at the event, but was beaten to the Best Game honor by Mass Effect 2. Call of Duty: Black Ops scooped the public-voted GAME Award 2010. And Peter Molyneux was awarded a BAFTA Fellowship, the highest honor the Academy can bestow, for his lifelong contributions to the industry.
While the were mostly unsurprising, some of the winners were unexpected. God of War III beat Heavy Rain and LIMBO to the Artistic Achievement award, for example. Perhaps even more surprisingly, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit managed to lay the smack down on the heavyweight combo of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Black Ops, Halo: Reach and Starcraft II to raise the Multiplayer trophy.
Another surprise came with the winner of the Handheld BAFTA -- it went to Cut The Rope from Chillingo, the only iOS title on the list. Considering it was up against the PSP God of War, LEGO Harry Potter, Professor Layton and the Lost Future, Sonic Colours and Super Scribblenauts, the $0.99 game's victory shows that iOS titles are being taken very seriously by the industry.
Heavy Rain grabbed itself three awards in total: Technical Innovation, Original Music and Story. Composer Normand Corbeil looked genuinely overcome with emotion as he accepted the award for Heavy Rain's soundtrack. Heavy Rain's victory in the Story category over Alan Wake, BioShock 2 and Mass Effect 2 in particular will likely be a controversial choice, but fans of David Cage's brand of "Interactive Drama" will be pleased.
The awards showed a pleasing breadth of opinion rather than being dominated by one big-name title. Black Ops, one of the most financially successful games of the last year, had a surprisingly weak showing, with its only victory on the evening coming in the public-voted GAME Award 2010 category. This is the third year in a row the Call of Duty franchise has picked up this particular award.
Check out the full list of winners and nominees at the .
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