National Parenting Publications Awards honors Wizard101

The family friendly MMO, Wizard101 was recently named an Honors Award winner in the 2009 National Parenting Publications Awards (NAPPA) Children’s Products competition. Full results were announced November 1, 2009, in more than 40 regional parenting magazines across the country and online at Parenthood.com. This award recognizes video games available for children that are safe and fun.

“This multi-player online adventure game encourages social activity and collaboration among players,” said NAPPA judge Alex Chisholm. “While other online fantasy games may be too mature for some kids, Wizard101 hits a nice balance among fun, adventure and competition as players are summoned to help save Wizard City.”

Congrats to the makers of this game, which is in fact something safe and fun you can play with your children. You can learn more about Wizard101 by visiting www.wizard101.com.

Scribblenauts, Uncharted 2 win Best of E3 honors

Scribblenauts, the surprise hit of E3 2009, and Uncharted 2 were the big winners of this year’s Best of E3 2009 Awards. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves won Best of Show, Best Action/Adventure Game and Best console game while the DS game from 5TH Cell won Best Original Game and Best Handheld Game. BioWare and LucasArts’ promising MMO game, Star Wars: The Old Republic, rounded out the platform specific awards, taking home Best PC Game. A full list of winners chosen by the panel of game journalists that made up this year’s Game Critics judging panel, can be found after the break.

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Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead Top ELAN Noms

Valve Software’s Left 4 Dead, Bethesda’s Fallout 3 Gears of War 2 and Fable II have been nominated in the lion’s share of categories for this year’s ELAN Awards. These four titles have been nominated in nine different categories including Videogame of the Year, Best Console Game and Outstanding Technical Innovation - to name a few.

The awards will take place in April and be hosted by Tom Kenny, comedian and voice of the SpongeBob SquarePants.

The full list of categories and nominations after the break:

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Call of Duty 4 Wins Big at BAFTAs

The GAME British Academy Video Games Awards (BAFTAs) are over and the biggest winner was Call of Duty 4. The awards took place at the London Hilton on Park Lane, and were hosted by games aficionado Dara O’Briain. At this gala event some of last year’s biggest games were honored in various categories, while Atari founder Nolan Bushnell was given the BAFTA FELLOWSHIP Award for his contributions to the industry over his long and interesting career.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was the biggest winner of this year’s BAFTA video game awards, picking up top honors in the Action & Adventure, Gameplay, Story and Character categories - along with the only category voted on by players - the GAME Award of 2008. Dead Space also did pretty well, landing awards for Original Score and Use of Audio, while Super Mario Galaxy won the Best Game award this year.

A full list of the categories, nominees and this year’s winners can be found after the break (winners highlighted in bold).

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AIAS and IFC to Televise Interactive Achievement Awards

So, did the Spike TV Video Game Awards show leave you feeling, well, a little juvenile about the industry? Looking to see the video game industry I a little more of a professional light? Well, it looks like you’re going to be getting your wish. Earlier today, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS) and IFC (Independent Film Channel) announced that they’ve entered into a partnership to bring the 12th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards to television audiences for the first time. The awards presentation will take place on Thursday, February 19th at the Red Rock Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, while broadcast of the show will take place on IFC in April 2009. The IAA broadcast will be condensed into a half hour special with highlights from the IAAs and will be hosted by comedian, actor, and “proud game enthusiast”, Jay Mohr.

“Bringing the Interactive Achievement Awards to our audience marries alternative culture with alternative content,” said Jennifer Caserta, executive vice president and general manager of IFC said. “The Interactive Achievement Awards is an exciting and highly anticipated addition to our programming line-up that will include award highlights, scenes from the red carpet and interstitials hosted by IFC News’ Matt Singer.”

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Did WGA Game Awards Get Snubbed?

Earlier this month, when the Writers Guild of America announced its nominees for the 2008 Videogame Writing Award, a lot of gamers were left scratching their heads. Sure, games like Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed were entertaining, but where were the games like Dead Space? Apparently, the folks behind those games simply decided to skip out.

According to an article on Variety’s website, a number of games were never considered for nomination due to the companies behind those games either not having their writers join the WGA or never submitting scripts to the WGA for nomination.

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WGA Videogame Writing Nominees Announced

After people complained about Dead Head Fred winning last year’s award (the reason being that the nominated game in question had to feature writing from a member), it looks like the Writers Guild Association is trying to redeem itself this year. The organization announced this year’s nominees, which includes an excellent indie game from Mouschief. See this year’s nominees after the break.

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