Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty: Black Ops top 2010 BAFTA nominations

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Call of Duty: Black Ops and Heavy Rain have been revealed as the top contenders for the 2010 British Academy Video Game Awards (BAFTA). They join a list of 44 gaming nominees that will duke it out in 16 award categories during the live event in London on March 16th.

According to today's announcement, Ubisoft's open-world assassin adventure leads the BAFTA pack with seven nominations in categories like Best Action, Best Game, Best Gameplay and Best Multiplayer, while Call of Duty: Black Ops and Heavy Rain follow closely behind with six BAFTA nods each. But lest we fuel a fanboy war, it's important to note that both Call of Duty and Heavy Rain also won a spot in the publicly-voted GAME Award of 2010 list; a category in which Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is not recognized.

Other notable nominees include the indie darling Limbo for Best Artistic Direction, Best Game and Gameplay; Super Mario Galaxy 2 for Best Gameplay, Original Music and Technical Innovation, Alan Wake for Best Story, Use of Audio and Original Music, and Bejeweled Blitz for BAFTA's new category, Best Social Network Game. High profile titles such as Mass Effect 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Gran Turismo 5 and God of War 3 are also in the running.

A complete list can be found at BAFTA's website.

Videogame award events are best taken with a healthy serving of objectivity and a pinch of cynicism; especially now when it seems that everyone with industry contacts and an online voting application is clamoring to become the industry's one, true judge. Granted, the folks at BAFTA have a bit more credibility than most, but at the end of a day they're just another group of quasi-experts attempting to rank a highly subjective industry. That disclaimer out of the way, I fully believe Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood can totally kick Call of Duty's ass any day of week. Discuss!

[Source: BAFTA]

Feb 16, 2011

Matt Bradford wrote news and features here at GamesRadar+ until 2016. Since then he's gone on to work with the Guinness World Records, acting as writer and researcher for the annual Gamer's Edition series of books, and has worked as an editor, technical writer, and voice actor. Matt is now a freelance journalist and editor, generating copy across a multitude of industries.