by infantpipoc
Best Action (Adventure) winners across VGA, VGX and TGA
“Action adventure” is a video game genre that drove the Escapists turned Second Wind crew up a wall, yet yours truly is quite fund of the umbrella term. Some of those now paid through Patreon people has game development side gigs thus they think more in the bottom up mechanic design way while I as mere consumer of the media think more in the up down experience sense. If a game feels swashbuckling enough, I would not care too much about the mechanics.
“Action” is a cinematic genre that video game just took at its face value with much demerits. So much so that the aughts’ Best Action Game of Spike Video Game Awards and the Game Awards category of the same name are 2 similar yet different things. Just check out the first several winners of VGA Best Action Game, and you call the difference between it and the Hades of this world.
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Best Action Game Spike Video Game Awards 2003 Beaten Freedom Fighters, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, SOCOM II U.S. Navy SEALs, Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike and XIII Not much to say about this one. It’s a “Grand Theft Auto clone”. When Best Action Adventure category started 5 years later, it would be the first numbered installment in GTA series up for VGA won. So, the continuity is there rather than between the category Best Action Game (2003-2007) and the TGA started in 2016. Besides there was the first person and third person difference back then.
Best Action Game Spike Video Game Awards 2004 Beaten Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Ninja Gaiden Speak of the devil or car thief, the very first Grand Theft Auto title up for VGA won GOTY and this genre award. Snake Eater’s sequel would won the Game Awards’ oddly named Best Action/Adventure Game one whole decade later.
Action Game of the Year Spike Video Game Awards 2005 Beaten Resident Evil 4, Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie, the Warriors and 50 Cent: Bulletproof David Jaff once listed the 3 pillars of this 2005 game: spectacle fighting akin to Devil May Cry, puzzles like those in Legend of Zelda games and atmosphere fund in ICO. Most of the “action games” nowadays would be fine to do aways with the puzzles, at least the type that cannot be called “combat puzzles”.
Best Action Game Spike Video Game Awards 2006 Beaten New Super Mario Bros, Ōkami, Saints Row and Bully Capcom’s interactive Dawn of the Living Dead was something Xbox 360 hung its hat on. And I guess as something symbolizing the first full year of said console, VGA would gladly give it a monkey shaped trophy.
Best Action Game Spike Video Game Awards 2007 Beaten Assassin's Creed, God of War II and Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction Ah, Wii! The console that succeeded without a decent library Hard not to blame it for the desert on PS5 and Xbox Series S/X. Yet Wii’s desert still got some oasis like Super Mario Galaxy in it. Though checking it out for myself through the Switch re-release in 2020, cannot say I am too impressed.
Best Action Adventure Game Spike Video Game Awards 2008 Beaten Dead Space, Mirror's Edge and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots The category finally got its name change in a year Xbox 360/PS3 reached full-bloom through crook, hook and hype. After all, one really cannot nominate any GTA title for Best Shooter with its janky business of firearm handling.
Best Action Adventure Game Spike Video Game Awards 2009 Beaten Batman: Arkham Asylum, Brütal Legend and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves As a bigger and better sequel that cashed in the check its predecessor wrote, Assassin’s Creed Two almost changed people impression of Ubisoft just putting out standardized stuff year over year. Then Assassin’s Creed games came out standardized year over year…
Best Action Adventure Game Spike Video Game Awards 2010 Beaten God of War III, Red Dead Redemption and Super Mario Galaxy 2 Assassin’s Creed franchise’ standardization still did not feel too obvious in 2010’s Brotherhood. With focus on one single city called Rome rather than The Second’s tour around Italy, Brotherhood hits the right spot of being an expansion. Too bad Revelations did not do the same for Constantinople/Istanbul.
Best Action Adventure Game Spike Video Game Awards 2011 Beaten Assassin's Creed: Revelations, the Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception Another bigger and better sequel won this genre award in 2011. After Asylum mopped the floor with any of Konami’s 3D space Castlevania, City got to mop the floor with something branded the Legend of Zelda here. Too bad Knight pushed things too far.
Beaten Assassin's Creed III, Darksiders II and Sleeping Dogs Arkane’s Thief for the 21st century feels like a breath of fresh air in more than one sense of the words in 2012. The Blink teleportation ability did solve the cannot-see-where-to-land problem of first person platforming. In a year when yours truly felt fatigue about mandatory virtual killing, this one’s deciding everyone’s life and death offered a very different type of power fantasy. Along with the Xbox 360/PS3 generation sinking into twilight and the success of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, this cult favorite at best can be seen as part of PC gaming renaissance.