2011 BAFTA Video Game Awards Nominees

BAFTA has made public their list of nominees for the 2011 video games awards. Somewhat surprisingly, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and Call of Duty: Black Ops have the same amount of nods, tying for most nominations with 7 in total each. Mass Effect 2 garnered a respectable 6 nominations and it will be interesting to see if it cleans up at these awards, considering that it has one of the highest metascores for a video game ever, on top of having claimed to have garnered over 100 "best of" awards already.

The competition is fierce and one can never truly tell what the experts who judge these things are thinking (or if they are at all).

Weigh in on the nominations and tell us if you think BAFTA has made good selections, who you think should win what, and because the voting for the GAME award is open to the public, vote for your favourite game on the list (link below)! The BAFTA Video Game Awards will be held Wednesday, March 16.

Action

  • Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (Ubisoft)
  • Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (EA/DICE)
  • BioShock 2 (2K Games/2K Marin)
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision/Treyarch)
  • God of War III (Sony)
  • Halo: Reach (Microsoft/Bungie)

Artistic Achievement

  • Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (Ubisoft)
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision/Treyarch)
  • God of War III (Sony)
  • Heavy Rain (Sony/Quantic Dream)
  • LIMBO (XBLA/Playdead Games)
  • Mass Effect 2 (EA/BioWare)

Best Game

  • Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (Ubisoft)
  • FIFA 11 (EA Sports)
  • Heavy Rain (Sony/Quantic Dream)
  • LIMBO (XBLA/Playdead)
  • Mass Effect 2 (EA/BioWare)
  • Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Nintendo)

Family

  • Dance Central (Microsoft/MTV/Harmonix)
  • Kinect Adventures (Microsft/Good Science Studio)
  • Kinect Sports (Microsoft/Rare)
  • Kinectimals (Microsoft/Frontier)
  • LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Warner Bros/TT Games)
  • Toy Story 3 (Disney/Avalanche Software)

Gameplay

  • Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (Ubisoft)
  • God of War III (Sony)
  • Heavy Rain (Sony/Quantic Dream)
  • LIMBO (XBLA/Playdead Games)
  • Mass Effect 2 (EA/BioWare)
  • Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Nintendo)

Handheld

  • Cut the Rope (Chillingo/Zeptolab)
  • God of War: Ghost of Sparta (Sony/Ready at Dawn)
  • LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Warner Bros/TT Games)
  • Professor Layton and the Lost Future (Nintendo/Level 5 Games)
  • Sonic Colours (SEGA/Sonic Team)
  • Super Scribblenauts (Warner Bros/5th Cell)

Multiplayer

  • Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (Ubisoft)
  • Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (EA/DICE)
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision Blizzard/Treyarch)
  • Halo: Reach (Microsoft/Bungie)
  • Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (EA/Criterion Games)
  • Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty (Blizzard)

Original Music

  • Alan Wake (Microsoft/Remedy)
  • Fable III (Microsoft/Lionhead)
  • Heavy Rain (Sony/Quantic Dream)
  • James Bond 007: Bloodstone (Activision Blizzard/Bizarre Creations)
  • Mass Effect 2 (EA/BioWare)
  • Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Nintendo)

Social Network Game

  • Bejeweled Blitz (Popcap)
  • Farmerama (Bigpoint)
  • FIFA Superstars (EA Sports/Playfish)
  • My Empire (Playfish)
  • Zoo Mumba (Bigpoint)
  • Zuma Blitz (PopCap)

Sports

  • F1 2010 (Codemasters)
  • FIFA 11 (EA)
  • Football Manager 2011 (SEGA/Sports Interactive)
  • Gran Turismo 5 (Sony/Polyphony)
  • International Cricket 2010 (Codemasters/Trickstar Games)
  • Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 (Konami/Winning Eleven Productions)

Story

  • Alan Wake (Microsoft/Remedy)
  • BioShock 2 (2K Games/2K Marin)
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision/Treyarch)
  • Fallout: New Vegas (Bethesda/Obsidian)
  • Heavy Rain (Sony/Quantic Dream)
  • Mass Effect 2 (EA/BioWare)

Strategy

  • Civilization V (2K Games/Firaxis)
  • Fallout: New Vegas (Bethesda/Obsidian)
  • FIFA Manager 11 (EA Sports)
  • Napoleon Total War (SEGA/Creative Assembly)
  • Plants vs. Zombies XBLA (PopCap)
  • Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty (Blizzard)

Technical Innovation

  • Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (Ubisoft)
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision Blizzard/Treyarch)
  • Halo: Reach (Microsoft/Bungie)
  • Heavy Rain (Sony/Quantic Dream)
  • Kinectimals (Microsoft/Frontier)
  • Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Nintendo)

Use of Audio

  • Alan Wake (Microsoft/Remedy)
  • Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (Ubisoft)
  • Battlefield: Bad Company: 2 (EA/DICE)
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision/Treyarch)
  • DJ Hero 2 (Activision/Freestylegames)
  • LIMBO (XBLA/Playdead)

BAFTA Ones to Watch Award in association with Dare to Be Digital

  • Mush (Angry Mango)
  • Sculpty (Team Tickle)
  • Twang (That Game Studio)

2010 GAME Award

(Public Vote)

  • Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision/Treyarch)
  • Dance Central (Microsoft/MTV/Harmonix)
  • FIFA 11 (EA Sports)
  • Halo: Reach (Microsoft/Bungie)
  • Heavy Rain (Sony/Quantic Dream)
  • Limbo (XBLA/Playdead Games)
  • Mass Effect 2 (EA/BioWare)
  • Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (EA/Criterion)
  • Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar)
  • Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Nintendo)

Some interesting notes: Kinect is dominating in the Family friendly genre with 3 nods; Red Dead Redemption didn't get much love in the categories: Minecraft is nowhere to be found.

Check out Game Rant's 2010 Video Game Awards to see our picks and compare!

Source: BAFTA