British Academy Game Awards (BAFTA) Results

Thursday, April 7th, marked the 2016 British Academy Game Awards which essentially is the video game BAFTAs. Hosted by comedian and gamer Dara O’briain, the awards were a night of praise for the best of the best. Here are some of the nominees and winners, with a brief opinion from myself on each award.

Game of the year
Fallout 4 – WINNER
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture
Life is Strange
Rocket League
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

With a vast post-apocalyptic world, mini nukes and laser beams, Fallout 4 was one of the most anticipated releases in 2015. Whilst definitely deserving of the award, I feel MGS V or The Witcher 3 in particular are better choices for the award. The Witcher 3 has been one of the best game releases in the past decade, providing an immersive and large world. Gwent (the card game in TW3) absorbed a lot of my time with this title. Some of the nominations in this list are also a surprise, namely Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture. EGTTR is an interactive world game where everyone has disappeared from a small village in the british countryside. Whilst atmospherically impressie, the game didn’t really push any boundaries or provide much gameplay past listening to the world you were in and therefore seems out of place in this shortlist.

Best Multiplayer
Rocket League – WINNER
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege
Destiny: The Taken King
World of Warships
Splatoon

For those who haven’t played Psyonix’s car based action sports game, Rocket League is a multiplayer focussed game where teams knock a ball into the opposing team’s goal. Rocket fuelled jet cars flying about smacking a ball is actually an incredibly tense time, and is well deserving of this award.

Best British Game
Batman: Arkham Knight – WINNER
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture
Prison Architect
Tearaway Unfolded
Until Dawn
Her Story

Whilst surrounded by controversy when the PC port was so bad that it had to be removed from online stores, Batman: Arkham Knight is a great game that builds upon its previous titles. Yes, the port for PC was terrible but that shouldn’t stop the game from being judged by it’s merits and working version. I would also like to note the awards panel really like EGTTR and surprisingly it didn’t win this category.

Best Music
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture – WINNER
Batman: Arkham Knight
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate
Ori and the Blind Forest
Fallout 4
Halo 5: Guardians

Oh hey look it’s EGTTR again. In atmospheric interactive worlds, music is key to set the tone for your surroundings. Roaming the countryside where everyone has, well, gone to the rapture was matched perfectly by it’s soundtrack.

Best Audio Achievement
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture – WINNER
Batman: Arkham Knight
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Star Wars Battlefront
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

I meant it when I said the panel really liked the game. If music is relied upon to set the tone, then the voice acting which tells the story is the other main component of interactive world games. Whilst the acting is praiseworthy, I feel like the audio Star Wars Battlefront captured perfectly the galaxy far far away and could have won here.

Best Artistic Achievement
Ori and the Blind Forest – WINNER
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture
Batman: Arkham Knight
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

With stunning visuals and vibrant colours, Ori and the Blind Forest is a game world as beautiful as they come. Although at this stage I’m surprised EGTTR didn’t win.

AMD eSports Audience Award
SMITE – WINNER
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Dota 2
Call Of Duty: Black Ops 3
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft
League of Legends

Of all the awards, this to me is the strangest. Publicly voted for and sponsored by AMD, I’m not quite sure what this award was supposed to really do. Well done SMITE fans for voting for themselves?

For a full list of the awards and nominations visit http://awards.bafta.org/award/2016/games