The American videogame industry, and the majority of the people writing critically about it, has coalesced largely on the West Coast. But the New York scene has been ascendant in recent years, and the growing number of critical voices on this side of the country spurred longtime videogame critic Harold Goldberg, author of All Your Base Are Belong to Us: How Fifty Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture, to start a local group for those critics.
That group, the New York Videogame Critics Circle, held its first-ever awards show last night, hopefully the first of many, in conjunction with the NYU Game Center at the school's Cantor Film Center. I was pleased to attend the classy affair, joining many New York-area colleagues from some of your and my favorite publications as well as representatives from the developers and publishers behind the nominated games.
I had the honor of presenting -- along with new Kotaku recruit Tina Amini -- the "A Train Award" for Best Mobile/iOS Game, which went to Superbrothers and Capybara Games' Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. (I should note that, as one of the Critics Circle's newest members, I did not vote on any of the awards given out last night.)
Bastion narrator Logan Cunningham hosted the show, and attendees were treated to live performances of two songs from the game's terrific original soundtrack by Ashley Barrett and audio director Darren Korb. You can watch the second performance above; it's the song "Setting Sail, Coming Home," which plays at a pivotal point in the game's final stage. (Thanks to Russ Frushtick of Vox Games for the recording.)
It was a wonderful evening, and I look forward to playing all the great games that will be nominated for next year's show. Here's the full list of winners:
Samit Sarkar is a founding Destructoid editor and go-to Sports guy. Samit was the son of the Duke of Knees, rescued from a burning village in the afghan desert by a golden condor. He is an ace Backgammon player and lost both legs in a whaling tour. He lives for free in a nursery in Scotland where he teaches monks how to capture butterflies without hurting them.
Likes
Confuse Ray, Feel My Blade
A Mabari War Hound,
Snot,
Spiral Arrow,
Argo,
Dan Smith's critical hit bark,
Rolling things up into my life
Meet the rest of the team
I am on the fence when it comes to their Game Center events. They're hit (Chris Hecker's lecture) or miss (Richard Lemarchand promoting Uncharted 3). The main focus is on the industry (and it's "standards") and less about the medium. Bring in an indie developer and everyone acts like theyre about to see some obscure band to tweet about.
The intentions of the administration are in the right place, but whenever I interact with the student majority, i cant help but think their mindsets are much too focused on gaining the approval of guest speakers by speaking in memes.
That makes me worry about video games' creative future, a lot.
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Contest:
4:45 PM on 02.03.2012 | 
Not against the idea of the award, but it seems like it's heavily steeped in stupid criteria.
I am on the fence when it comes to their Game Center events. They're hit (Chris Hecker's lecture) or miss (Richard Lemarchand promoting Uncharted 3). The main focus is on the industry (and it's "standards") and less about the medium. Bring in an indie developer and everyone acts like theyre about to see some obscure band to tweet about.
The intentions of the administration are in the right place, but whenever I interact with the student majority, i cant help but think their mindsets are much too focused on gaining the approval of guest speakers by speaking in memes.
That makes me worry about video games' creative future, a lot.