Video Game Awards (Spike)
reviewed 2003

Mr. Milton may have thought this would be a simple, lighthearted toss borne of simple curiosity, but for me it was really something much more cruel. It was bad enough that the event was, in essence, a two-hour advertisement for Electronic Arts, but the presentation itself dragged the whole experience down to a level even I didn't think imagine possible.

David Spade hosted the show, and surprisingly, he was the only bright spot. Not because of his humor, but because it seemed he was trying to let the audience know that he didn't care one whit about what he was doing.

Counter to the typical awards show format, the VGAs started off with the most prestigious award, for best game, which went to Madden 2004. In fact, twelve out of the sixteen awards went to North American games, so that raises a lot of red flags as far as I'm concerned.

There wasn't even a tribute to Glen Campbell, whose death inspired one of the year's best games!

In the spirit of the Hot Potato, I want to continue, but in the spirit of the advancement of video games, I cannot allow the VGAs any more coverage than they have already received. They are a blight on the video game landscape, and the sooner they go away, the better off we'll all be.

The last thing we need is giving the bloated fatcats in the video game industry another reason to pat themselves on the back. There's also the fact that it's been about 40 days since I watched the awards, and I've blocked out almost the entire brain-recording.

Review by Illusion Master