Earlier this evening, the GAME British Academy Video Game Awards were held in London, and here at Game Rant, we’ve got the full list of winners and nominees for your viewing pleasure.

The show was hosted by the comedian Dara Ó Briain, with various C-list celebrities taking the stage to present individual awards. Ó Briain was in top form throughout the night, with hilarious geeky jokes keeping the crowd entertained throughout.

Without further ado, here are the categories and nominations, with the winners in bold and marked with asterisks:

Here we are, less than two weeks away from the release of the first new multiplayer maps for Modern Warfare 2.  Eager gamers are already chomping at the bit to get their hands on these, but now there is even more reason to get excited: the weekend after the maps launch, gamers who play Modern Warfare 2 over Xbox Live will earn double XP.

As a friendly reminder, Modern Warfare 2’s Stimulus Package features a total of five multiplayer maps.  Bailout, Salvage, and Storm are brand new areas, while Crash and Overgrown are remakes of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare maps.

The shots that Battlefield: Bad Company 2 took at Modern Warfare 2 in the game were few and far between (though quite funny).  But lately they have been increasing to a higher level.

In a video recently released by EA, Yankees star pitcher C.C. Sabathia and Bad Company character Sweetwater are featured in a clip titled “Friends Really Against Grenade Spam.”  This is obviously a parody and response to Modern Warfare 2’s controversial “Friends Against Grenade Spam” video.

If you’ve spent any time in Campaign or Special Ops mode for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 then there’s no doubt you are familiar with ‘The Pit’.  This is the first level in either mode that you play in the game and the folks over at The Gadget Show have gone out and recreated the level in real life.

This coming Monday, March 22nd, 2010, Jason Bradbury from The Gadget Show, on channel 5 in Ireland and the UK, will be going head to head against a former special forces agent in a reality vs. virtual reality competition to see who comes out on top.  Jason will be going through the the level on his Xbox 360 while the special forces agent does the same thing on the real life course recreated from the game.  Both participants will be score on time and accuracy.  Any guesses as to who will come out on top?

On March 30th, Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 2 (a.k.a. the 800-pound gorilla) will be offering up some brand new maps, along with two classics that you may remember from the original Modern Warfare. The map pack will include the new levels “Bailout”, “Salvage”, and “Storm”; the two remakes are “Crash” and “Overgrown”.

“Bailout” is a large apartment building with multiple floors for close combat, “Salvage” on the other hand is an industrial park filled with tons of heavy machinery, and last but certainly not least there is “Storm” which takes place in a snow covered junkyard that is filled with crushed vehicles and debris.

The Creative Artists Agency (CAA) has managed to pick up the former heads of Infinity Ward, Jason West and Vince Zampella. An interesting move because not many game developer companies have been represented by talent agencies, but with the huge success of the Modern Warfare franchise, it’s no surprise that West and Zampella count as top tier talent.

I know what you’re thinking, it’s been on all our minds since March 1st – after the sudden firings of Infinity Ward’s  top brass, Jason West and Vince Zampella, why didn’t the rest of the Infinity Ward team simply stand up and follow them out the door and on to greener pastures – where they’d be free to make contemporary combat games until the end of time?

It’s a fair question, and this latest rumor, courtesy of Kotaku, may help answer it.

A source close to Kotaku states that Activision is deliberately withholding bonus payouts from the team, essentially using  said bonuses as leverage against their potential disloyalty.

After what seems like an eternal wait, the first map pack available for Modern Warfare 2 will be available for download through Xbox LIVE on March 30.

Contents of the map pack has yet to be officially be announced, but I think we have a good idea of what to expect.

In addition to the map pack release, Xbox LIVE Silver account holders will be able to get a sample of online gameplay in Modern Warfare 2 during the time-period between March 12th to the 15th during a special Multiplayer Unlock period.

While the whole Infinity Ward vs. Activision battle rages on, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 surpassed a milestone this week. Robert Bowling, a Creative Strategist for Infinity Ward posted a tweet saying “…annnd we JUST hit 25 MILLION unique players on Modern Warfare 2. Insanity! Also, got a lot of #MW2 DLC details coming this week! FINALLY!”.

Sure, 25 million players is no Farmville, but its still enough people to make the Modern Warfare population higher than that of North Korea.

As many of you know, there has been a bit of a debacle between the head honchos of Infinity Ward, Jason West and Vince Zampella, and Activision. Long story short, Infinity Ward is suing Activision for the hefty sum of $36 million in damages for unpaid royalties. The cause of the problem, on paper, is West and Zampella were “insubordinate” and breached their contract with Activision.

How did the former heads of Infinity Ward breach their contract? Unfortunately, but understandably, the contracts in question were not attached to the Complaint and are unlikely to be released to the public. However, West/Zampella refer to a series of contracts between themselves and Activision in the Complaint. Keep in mind that the terms of these alleged contracts were not between Activision and Infinity Ward, which was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Activision, and that the Complaint sets forth merely allegations and not actual evidence.

The first employment contract was for a three-year term, which began in 2003 after Activision purchased Infinity Ward. This initial contract gave Activision the option to extend it for two more one-year successive terms and Activision picked up this option. By doing so, West/Zampella were still under contract through October 2008. After the successful release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare in 2007, Activision allegedly wanted to extend the contracts of West/Zampella in order to create a sequel. Factually, that’s where things began to get murky.

According to sources at Activision, the much anticipated ‘Stimulus’ map pack DLC from Infinity Ward for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is expected to drop sometime in April.

Luckily for us The Tech Game revealed a set of exclusive screens of the upcoming map pack and has since updated their post with a compilation video.

Activision has finally issued a response to Infinity Ward’s lawsuit (details can be found here), citing that Jason West and Vince Zampella’s actions are “disappointing.” I don’t think it’s the “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed” one either. The statement follows:

I was rather torn on how to feel about Killzone 2. Did it meet visual expectations that were previously presented at the initial E3 trailer? Perhaps not, but it came damn close, which is certainly saying something for a game that was coming in to a lot of skepticism. The gameplay was pretty solid and engaging, though I’m sure fans of Halo or Modern Warfare 2 found it a bit trying, especially with the sluggish aiming (which was later patched).

A few days ago, Game Rant reported on the trouble brewing between Activision and Infinity Ward, which ended with studio heads Jason West and Vince Zampella being ousted. Now it seems they aren’t going to just let Activision push them out. According to G4tv, they have filed a lawsuit against Activision for “breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, wrong termination in violation of public policy, and declaratory relief.” In normal people terms, that basically means Activision didn’t compensate Infinity Ward as was outlined in their contact, and to make matters worse, they terminated West and Zampella unlawfully.

I know that Battlefield: Bad company 2 comes out today, but this video isn’t really promoting Modern Warfare 2, as much as it is simply showing some great moments of failure.  We’ve all experienced disappointing times like these, and this video not only reminds us of them, it also provides some serious laughs.

Set to the perfect musical choice, this video is a must see for fans of, well, hilarity.

At Nintendo’s recent Media Summit, the gaming giant finally announced dates for several highly anticipated games.  It’s an impressive list, both in terms of the pedigree and the sheer number of releases.  Japanese blockbuster Monster Hunter Tri in April;  Fan favorite Super Mario Galaxy 2 in May;  Treasure’s  Sin And Punishment: Star Shooter in June;  Metroid: Other M, co-developed by Nintendo and Tecmo’s Team Ninja, also in June.  My non-scientific methods conclude that this is the most dense, title-rich stretch of important releases in the history of the Wii.  But why now?  And what’s on the horizon?

Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 2: Among Thieves stole the show at yesterday’s Interactive Achievement Awards, bagging Game of the Year and nine other awards.  Have a look at the full list of winners:

The hugely popular Call of Duty franchise doesn’t take breaks. There has been a brand new Call of Duty game released each November since 2005, and 2010 doesn’t look to be any different. Call of Duty 7 rumors and speculation abound, and here’s a few of the juicier ones for you to gnaw on while you’re taking a rest from noob-tubes and knifing.

Can’t get enough Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2? Check out this headset from Mad Catz, the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 “Throat Communicator” for Xbox Live.

Recently, my standard headset that came with my Xbox gave up the ghost, so I started looking for a replacement. I would have normally picked up the standard Microsoft XBox Live Headset, but, as a huge Modern Warfare fan, I chose to semi-spoil myself and check out the Mad Catz headset instead.

NPD just released their monthly North America numbers for January 2010 and there were definitely a few surprises. On the software side, the Nintendo Wii continued its sales supremacy by taking five of the top ten spots. Leading the way was New Super Mario Bros.Wii, which sold over 650,000 copies, despite being released in November 2009. Mass Effect 2 also made an impressive debut by selling 572,100 copies in only six days, and Army of Two: The 40th Day made a better than expected debut, selling 246,500 copies for the Xbox 360. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 continued its strong performance as well on both the Xbox 360 and PS3. Somewhat disappointing, however, was that both MAG and Bayonetta did not rank in the top ten in sales, even though both had received a lot of buzz before their release.

On the hardware side, the Wii and the DS continued their dominance by taking the top two sales spots, selling 465,800 and 422,200 units respectively. The Xbox 360 sold 332,800 units and nudged out a win over the PS3, which sold 276,900 for the month. Overall sales for the month, however, were disappointing. Software sales declined 13% over last year and hardware sales were down 21%. With so many big titles slated for release in 2010, though, the gaming industry’s fortunes may improve as the year progresses.

Been upset with people abusing the care package glitch in Modern Warfare 2?  Then Infinity Ward has a gift for you.  Robert Bowling of Infinity Ward, aka “fourzerotwo” announced in a tweet that a patch for the problem, as well as a few others, would be coming soon.

According to a post on Infinity Ward’s website, the patch has already made its way to PS3 consoles, but is awaiting certification by Microsoft for the Xbox 360. The full details of the patch are included below.

Street Fighter: The Movie, Super Mario Brothers: The Movie, Mortal Kombat Annihilation, House Of The Dead, Postal, Resident Evil Apocalypse, Street Fighter Legend Of Chun Li and the list goes on and on. These were all extremely horrible films and, an abomination in the eyes of video gamers and movie goers alike. I have always been very optimistic about that one golden video game adaptation coming along and helping me to forget these blemishes on pop culture but this is fading fast.

I will admit that this summer’s Prince Of Persia is looking quite sweet but it just looks like Pirates of the Caribbean in Prince of Persia clothing and after the steaming pile that was World’s End this does not leave me hopeful. My dream job in the future is that of a screenwriter, so needless to say that when I hear horrible dialogue and truly terrible stories I want to throw up and scream “why!?” at the top of my lungs. So I started to wonder where could a good, if not excellent, video game adaptation could come from and it lead me to one form; the mini series.

An interesting article came up on Kotaku this week regarding game companies and spoilers in their marketing strategies and it brought about a very interesting point: Are developers giving away too much information prior to the game’s release?

Do yourself a favor and read their story on the matter in addition to the one I’m presenting here. Kotaku cited Mass Effect 2 as the most recent example – and it might be the most justified case for the argument.

Nathan Drake might pick up a bit more treasure next month.

Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 2: Among Thieves leads the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS) 13th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, netting 15 nominations including game of the year.

In the game of the year category, Uncharted 2 is up against Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed 2, Rocksteady Studios’ Batman: Arkham Asylum, Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and BioWare’s Dragon Age: Origins.

Contrary to the massive 3D movement in gaming and movies these days, 2D won this round.

Last month, Super Mario Galaxy (released in November 2007), widely considered to be Wii’s best game, was beaten by its little brother. Where the 3D Galaxy sold through 4.1 million copies since it released two years ago, the 2D New Super Mario Bros. Wii amassed 4.2 million in unit sales in about 45 days after its November 2009 release, according to numbers released by the NPD Group.

Thunder, stolen.

PS3 may have Blu-ray, but Xbox 360 gets a head start in playing the next set of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 maps! Microsoft has announced that the Xbox 360 will hold a timed 30-day exclusivity with the upcoming Modern Warfare 2 DLC.

Microsoft is sticking to their guns with the latest installment of the hugely popular franchise. At last year’s E3 they announced that the Xbox 360 will hold limited exclusivity with the first two DLC’s of Modern Warfare 2, and this spring (exact date TBD) they will make good on that announcement. At the conclusion of the 30-day time frame, the maps will be available for the rest of the platforms.

NPD recently released its list of the top ten best selling domestic non-PC titles and we have a surprise winner. It’s not an Xbox 360 title, nor a PS3 one; it is in fact a Wii release. And a mini-game compilation to boot.

The winner is: Wii Play.

When you think about it, the result isn’t too surprising. Being bundled with a Wii Remote and only being priced a few dollars more makes Wii Play an attractive option for Wii owners.

The PC version of Modern Warfare 2 has just received a new patch via IW-NET.

Robert Bowling, Community Manager over at Infinity Ward spilled the beans via his own personal blog; fourzerotwo.

Details of the update are as follows:

Coming soon is the Writer’s Guild of America award for excellency in “Videogame Writing” and you know, actual movies. The nominees are:

• Assassin’s Creed 2 – Story by Corey May, Script Writers Corey May, Joshua Rubin, Jeffrey Yohalem
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – Written by Jesse Stern, Additional Writing Steve Fukuda, Story by Todd Alderman, Steve Fukuda, Mackey McCandlish, Zied Rieke, Jesse Stern, Jason West, Battlechatter Dialogue, Sean Slayback
• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – Written by Amy Hennig
• Wet – Written by Duppy Demetrius
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine – Script Writer Marc Guggenheim

Major Nelson reported a few days ago on the top titles of 2009 on Xbox Live. His lists included the most played games of the year by connectivity, the most played Xbox Live Arcade titles as well as lists for top Windows games and Top original Xbox titles.

The notable call-outs include Halo 3 taking top honors as having the most unique users play the game over Live throughout the year. Following this, we have the latest three Call of Duty games and Gears of War 2. On the Arcade side of things, Battlefield 1943 and the still-awesome Castle Crashers took the number one and two spots respectively.

Check out the lists below.