Wii sports scores at Baftas

Mike Bantick
Thursday, 25 October 2007 03:41

Your IT - Entertainment

The sublime release title for the Nintendo Wii, Wii Sports has hit a bunch of home runs at the British Academy Video Games Awards in London.

The game that has all the elements of depth, character, pick-up-and-play appeal and simple fun has garnered six Bafta awards announced this week.

Picking up Best Sports game, Best Gameplay, Best Innovation, Best Strategy and Simulation, Best Casual game and Best Multiplayer.

Despite taking home most of the mantelpiece fillers, Wii sports was pipped for Best Game of the year by BioShock .  With its under the sea vision of Utopia gone wrong, BioShock’s atmosphere, innovation and character impressed the judges.

Other award winners of note included;

The super enhanced crime thriller world of Crackdown (Best Action and Adventure as well as Best use of audio).  

The every bloody and thankfully mythical presentation in God of War 2 (Best Story and Character along with Best Technical Achievement

The delightfully calligraphy driven Okami picked up Best Artistic Achievement

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards have long been associated with – funnily enough – Film and Television media.  Branching out into the video game milieu in 2003 was a solid endorsement of the video game craft as an art form.

"The decision by BAFTA to make computer games its 'third arm' is overdue endorsement of a genre that has struggled for artistic recognition..... If recognition by BAFTA helps the industry to raise its game, then it will soon be accepted without dispute."  Mark Brown, The Guardian