Just a few weeks ago, Spike unleashed its Video Game Awards show on the unwashed masses, which, in turn, unleashed a whole slew of trailers, commercials, and (mini) announcements on… well, those same unwashed masses. How did they fare, especially compared to previous years? And just what, exactly, is the VGAs’ place in the ever-evolving gaming industry? 

What? You say we’re a little late in posting this? We say it's never too late to disect the abomination (spoilers) that is the Video Game Awards...

Peace out.

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Marc N. Kleinhenz, gaming ronin:

Command and Conquer: Generals 2. Fortnite. The Last of Us. Alan Wake's American Nightmare (hell, yeah!). Batman: Arkham World (?).

Was it a good VGA this year?

(And what the hell is up with Metal Gear: Rising? It's now Revengance and developed by... Platinum Games?)

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Sir Gordon Wheelmeier, (Total)PlayStation guru:

Yeah, I'm a little less interested in Rising now that it's less MGS and more Ninja Gaiden. It still looks cool, but maybe not as high on my list anymore...

Fortnite was certainly surprising, but also not – it's in line with stuff Cliff and other Epic folks are into (like the survival bit from Minecraft). I'm guessing it'll be fun and perhaps rather addicting, but it'll never do Gears or maybe even Infinity Blade numbers. Not that that means anything about the quality of the game, but in terms of it being a long-term, serious IP for Epic, who knows.

C&C will be great, and I'm sure Alan Wake will be fun, but neither of those did anything to make me want to play them any more than I would have beforehand.

That Transformers trailer, though? It looks better visually than what the game will be (so it didn't show what the actual game will be like) but obviously looks worse than the Michael Bay films, and it didn't have any crazy action... I really didn't see the point in that.

The Mass Effect 3 footage was awesome. It's a pretty far cry from what the first game was by the looks of it, but that looked damn awesome.

I have to say, though, that the trailer for The Last of Us was the best thing all night for me, hands down. The whole zombies thing has been done to death (lolz) in recent years, but with Naughty Dog at the helm, a survivalist focus, and, most importantly, what looks like a set of likable and relatable characters, I'm on board.

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Ryan Green, TotalPlayStation senior editor:

Let's get one thing straight: the VGAs is a complete waste of time, and I say this as someone who normally skips it and actually watched it. I'll wager that it was worse than any award show I've seen. If that nerd from Chuck would have stopped gushing over Modern Warfare 3, it would have been watchable.

As for the reveals... wow, what the hell happened to Metal Gear: Rising? Certainly it is different from when I first saw it at E3 two years ago. It didn't look like a MG game in the first few seconds (the art looks different and more cartoony), and the gameplay looks like Vanquish and Bayonetta. That isn't a bad thing, but I'm not sure I want to play a Metal Gear game like that.

I was a bit turned off by the Last of Us trailer. I'm glad Naughty Dog is behind the wheel, despite the Ellen Page-meets-I Am Legend vibe I get, so this could be a great new story for PS3 owners. But when talking to a friend about this last night, we came to the same conclusion: we could be faced with an entire game of the terrible part of the first Uncharted. Here's hoping the close-quarters gunplay has improved since then.

I might be dead on the inside, but Mass Effect 3 didn't do it for me, either. The only real surprising thing was how C&C will be in the hands of BioWare. The potential there, even with the stigma of being a C&C game, is huge. If anyone can breathe life into the underwhelming and stagnant RTS genre, it is BioWare. Hell, they made RPGs cool again while everyone else drove them into the ground. 

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Marc N. Kleinhenz, gaming ronin:

Here's an update from Naughty Dog on The Last of Us:

"Abandoned cities reclaimed by nature. A population decimated by a modern plague. Survivors are killing each other for food, weapons – whatever they can get their hands on.

"Joel, a brutal survivor, and Ellie, a brave, young teenage girl who is wise beyond her years, must work together if they hope to survive their journey across the US ."

I'm actually quite excited about the game, but I'm not entirely certain why; it is, for all intents and purposes, the same game that we've been playing for the past several years, as Sir Gordon so eloquently (lolz) put it. Which got me to thinking... what would Naughty Dog have to do in order to reinvent the (sub) genre?

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Ryan Green, TotalPlayStation senior editor:

Don't get me wrong; I have that same questionable excitement. I just emphasize that questionable part a lot. For me, having a new lead writer for this game will go a long way to making it different, but if we see a lot of traversal, gunplay, and puzzles, it will inevitably lead to harsher criticism of Naughty Dog.

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Dan "Shoe" Hsu, Bitmob editor:

I've always had this fantasy where an established developer would ask me to design a game of my choosing. I don't know how to code... or design a game, for that matter. That's why it's just a fantasy. I just want my ideas to come to life through the hard work of others.

Anyways, the game I've always wanted to make was a true zombie-survival story. It wouldn't be about getting bigger and better firepower, going after evil corporations, or using spice racks as weapons. It'd be 28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead... or, well, The Last of Us (I hope).

Sony and Naughty Dog beat me to the thing that I was never going to do anyways, so I'm crazy-happy and excited about that. I've been misled before, however, so let's hope this isn't another Dead Island scenario. I hope The Last of Us plays exactly like what that trailer portrayed. 

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Andre Segers, GameXplain editor-in-chief:

Ryan nailed it: the VGAs are a complete waste of time and really are an embarrassment to the industry.

With that said, it is good for game trailers, and I actually share a very similar vantage point with Shoe: Naughty Dog seems to be making the game I've long wanted to play. But I also share Ryan's concerns about the gameplay... hell, I'm pretty sure I already saw an Uncharted-style barrier in the final landscape shot, suggesting another extremely limited, on-rails experience.

I really do hope they take the opportunity to offer a more free-form style of gameplay. I don't necessarily want an open world, but surely something that allows for a little more creative freedom on behalf of the player, that avoids funneling them down restrictive paths.

As for Metal Gear: Revengance... well, I can't really say I much cared for it when it was known as Rising, but I care even less now that it took a drastic turn for the hack-and-slash genre. It is disappointing to see that the free-cutting seems to have been dumbed down and seemingly turned into a fancy finishing move.

So, all in all, another mostly uneventful awards show.

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Marc N. Kleinhenz, gaming ronin:

Have the VGAs been cemented as another major step on the gaming timeline to more established stops like E3 or TGS, or is it more like a "Hallmark holiday"? This is the second roundtable I've chaired on the show, but I can honestly – and happily – say that not only have I never watched it, but I more than likely never will, as well. (Contrast this with E3, where I'm on G4 and various websites every glorious second of every merciful day.)

All this actually reminds me of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 reveal, hosted by Elijah Wood, on MTV. I wonder if any of the manufacturers will be showing off their shiny new systems on next year's broadcast...

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Shaun Mason, TotalPlayStation mascot:

As the general sentiment has been expressed, the awards show is crap. If you have every celebrity immediately come out and try to present gamer cred by saying over and over how much you love games, you're trying too hard and you're full of crap. The industry deserves a big show, but it's getting perverted by some need for false "legitimacy" by inviting every celebrity under the sun to walk down the red carpet. That being said, the real stars, like last year, were the trailers. I'm intrigued by Ellen Page versus Rage-infected humans (aka The Last of Us), and I'm sure Naughty Dog's got a twist or two from the standard zombie survival game, but I'm definitely hoping for a heavy dose of despair, dystopia, horror, and harsh choices in gameplay. Ditto with Rainbow 6: Patriots – the toss of the guy through the window before detonating him on the street was a hell of a way to kick off that game. Alan Wake's sequel looked great, the commercial for Darksiders got me more jazzed than Spider-Man did, and Fall of Cybertron sparked my hope for an awesome Autobot/Decepticon showdown.

Diablo III looked great, like all Blizzard trailers, but I'm really ready for that game to just be released instead of the regular high-production-value clips we always see for it. BioShock: Infinite, on the other hand, had a great and subtly haunting glimpse into the action of that game, and it's going to be awesome.

I never thought I'd say it, but I didn't care one bit for BioWare's trailers. I've been a bit leery of the heavier shift towards action instead of RPG for ME3, so the trailer didn't do anything to make me pumped for March. Ditto with Generals 2 (and I love the C&C franchise) – I'm worried that it could be as disappointing as the last C&C game.

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Sam Bishop, TotalPlayStation editor-in-chief:

I'm going to do something uncharacteristically me and actually plug the site for just a second, and trust me, I feel a little slimy about it, but trust me, it's for a point. We whipped up a story a while back about the BAFTAs and how they're not just promoting games as a key part of their Guru initiative (here's where I point to the story to explain that whole thing), but are actively asking developers to explain the whole process in a way that educates those that might want to get into the biz. The Brits get games; they honor them literally as equals to film and television in a way that should be mirrored by everyone else. They get their dues alongside the best of what's seen on the big and small screen. It's a black-tie affair; it's not filled with celebs trying to prove they play games, too (who gives a shit – everyone plays games now), and it's all treated with respect.

The VGA are and have always been a ratings grab. They're a chance to get people to tune in and watch the commercials, not the show itself, and literally nothing short of doing it like a proper awards show is going to legitimize games – not that it's needed. In fact, as everyone else has said, what this does is completely counter to all the momentum that games have right now. They're already mainstream; everyone plays some kind of game, be it a social one on Facebook or a portal like Yahoo, or on an actual dedicated system/phone. There is no cred to be earned; everyone is doing it, and trying just makes you look retarded.

By far, the most egregious part of the whole thing was the idea that the developers – y'know, the guys that were supposedly "honored" at the start of the show – were cut short from thanking the people that helped the games get made by a dude fucking tea-bagging them. It was intensely disrespectful, and I'm just going to stop before I start making comments about the production of the show or the judges' panel or something that might get me in trouble. It's an ad sales vector for Spike (same as all their other awards shows), nothing more, and it needs to stop.

Previous roundtables:

Miyamoto’s Last 1-up…? He’s in, he’s out.

Swimming with Dolphins for ten years.

Is the Vita’s Vitality in Trouble? The PS Vita gets delayed… out of our hearts? Our longest – and most contentious – roundtable yet.

3DS Woes? Cutting prices – and pride.

All-star Wii 2 Discussion Wii who? Wii U!

Nintendo in the Third Dimension… and Beyond! Our first (official) week with the 3DS, headaches and all.

The Day the Music Died Rock-n-roll legends never die – they just fade away. Or something like that.

3DS Announcement Edition The gang's all here – in threeeee deeeeeees!

Xbox Li$e GameXplain, TotalPlayStation, and IGN join forces to take on the high cost of (online) gaming.

BioShock: Infinite To walk among the giants in the clouds…

Marc N. Kleinhenz has covered the gaming industry for a dozen publications, including Gamasutra and TotalPlayStation, where he was features editor. He also co-hosts the Airship Travelogues podcast for Nintendojo.