Mass Effect 2, Halo Reach, Others Vie For Spike's Game Of The Year Award

Cable TV network Spike has unveiled its sprawling list of nominees across 26 categories for its annual televised Video Game Awards, with popular sword- and gun-toting games vying for top honors. In the Game of the Year category, the nominees are Activision and Treyarch's Call of Duty: Black Ops, Sony Santa Monica's God of War III, Microsoft and Bungie's Halo Reach, Electronic Arts and BioWare's Mass Effect 2 and Take-Two and Rockstar San Diego's Red Dead Redemption. Mass Effect 2 had the most total nominations with six, while Red Dead Redemption had five, plus a related nomination in the DLC category for the Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare expansion. While most of the categories -- such as those focusing on best game by platform and genre -- highlight big-budget commercial titles, this year's awards once again feature a category for smaller indie games. Nominations in the indie category include Hello Games' Joe Danger, Playdead's Limbo, Team Meat's Super Meat Boy and The Odd Gentlemen's The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom. BioWare, Blizzard Entertainment, Bungie and Rockstar San Diego earned nominations in the Best Studio category. Other categories in this year's awards include Best Soundtrack, Best Song in a Game, Best Individual Sports Title, Best Team Sports Game, Best Performance by a Human Male, Best Performance by Human Female, Best Multiplayer, and Best DLC. Notable for their absence are any categories dedicated to writing or story in a game, areas recognized by other major video game industry awards. Winners of the 2009 Spike VGAs include Naughty Dog's Uncharted 2: Among Thieves as Game of the Year, Epic Games and Chair Entertainment's Shadow Complex as best downloadable game and Sony Santa Monica's God of War III as most anticipated game. The awards, selected through online polling, will be presented on Saturday, December 11 in Los Angeles, CA at the L.A. Convention Center and live on Spike. This is the show's eighth year of existence since debuting in 2003. The full list of nominees and categories can be seen at the official website for Spike's Video Game Awards 2010.