I’m going to be honest with you. I hate award shows.
“The Oscars?” Cher has one, and Avatar was given a best picture nod last year. “The Emmys?” No one watches daytime TV anyways. And the Grammys? That pisses me off something fierce. (Jethro Tull over Metallica?) But if you really want me to rant, get me started on something meaningless like the MTV Movie Awards.
As everyone knows, I love video games (as I’m sure you do too). Ever since I got my first NES back when I was a kid, I was hooked. I’ve spent more time playing games when I was supposed to be studying and STILL managed to get through high school and college (take THAT society!).
So you would think that something like Spike’s Video Game Awards (VGA) would bring joy and happiness into my heart.
Wrong.
First, in case you weren’t paying attention or can’t retain what you read a few sentences ago: I. HATE. AWARD SHOWS.
Second, there’s something about watching other people discuss why games I don’t like or never played are better than the ones I do enjoy. Don’t get me wrong, I love to sit down and debate endlessly about everything. If you don’t like a game, fine, but please let me tell you the reasons I feel the game is great. Instead, I have a bunch of people who are going to tell me that one game is better than the other because they said so. (A full list of winners for this and previous years can be found here.)
Finally, I just can’t get behind the whole concept of the award show. Spike really did try this year. They had Neil Patrick Harris host. I love me some NPH, and I wanted to get excited about it. But when NPH started on this skit about game names for the adult industry, I couldn’t stand it. “Call of Booty?” “Halo: Reach-Around?” These ideas are obviously from the mind of an adolescent boy. Also, I’ve already made those jokes endlessly, so they were nothing new.
Olivia Munn was also on the show and gave a very half-assed performance on locking NPH up (to an even lamer extent, a closet) so she could get on the show. At the end of the skit, NPH came out of the closet to save his hosting gig (I still can’t believe the show went there). I’ve said it before, I LOVE Olivia Munn, but she just broke my heart with that performance. Miss Munn, if that great controller-in-the-sky is listening and you come across this line, please know I’m embarrassed for the both of us. But I still love you.
Also, the cast of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia came out and the usually funny group just
wasn’t.
Finally, the second that asshat Dane Cook came on the screen, I just gave up on Spike and the VGAs and to a lesser extent, humanity. His commentary on why Kratos from God of War wasn’t a great wingman was boring and not funny. This is YOUR fault people for giving him a megalomaniac personality. Again, to the great controller-in-the-sky, if Dane Cook is reading this one paragraph, tell him to go back to wherever he came from and to stop ripping off other comics. Hell, at least Dennis Leary waited until Bill Hicks was dead.
I’m not the only one who feels this way about the VGAs. The number of viewers for the VGA has declined. In 2007, the number of viewers was 921,000. In 2008 it was 680,000. 2009 only had 647,000 viewers, and this year there were only 627,000. To me, it isn’t the fact that the show isn’t ready for the mainstream, I think it’s due to the fact that the show offers nothing to the viewers. The show almost seemed to hope that their audience were idiots. Sadly for them, we’re not.
But the show did have its moments. Trailers for the upcoming Mass Effect 3 and the new Mortal Kombat made up for the fact that the show was overall lackluster. (Note: Kratos will be a PS3 exclusive. No word yet on a 360 member yet.)
My grandfather has a saying he picked up from his Army days: “A bitching soldier is a happy soldier.” If I was military, I’d be the happiest son of a bitch alive.
I’m not the only one who feels this way about the VGAs. The number of viewers for the VGA has declined. In 2007, the number of viewers was 921,000. In 2008 it was 680,000. 2009 only had 647,000 viewers, and this year there were only 627,000. To me, it isn’t the fact that the show isn’t ready for the mainstream, I think it’s due to the fact that the show offers nothing to the viewers. The show almost seemed to hope that their audience were idiots. Sadly for them, we’re not.
But the show did have its moments. Trailers for the upcoming Mass Effect 3 and the new Mortal Kombat made up for the fact that the show was overall lackluster. (Note: Kratos will be a PS3 exclusive. No word yet on a 360 member yet.)
My grandfather has a saying he picked up from his Army days: “A bitching soldier is a happy soldier.” If I was military, I’d be the happiest son of a bitch alive.
