In a fitting (almost) ending to my six day cross county road trip to move myself from Atlanta to San Francisco, I landed in glamorous Las Vegas last night just in time for the Spike TV Video Game awards. I wasn't quite sure what to expect having never attended a "major" awards show before, but I sat down fueled by five days on the road and a few drinks with my pad and paper to bring you all the big announcements.

One of the things I found amazingly odd was that the awards themselves really seemed to take a back seat to the musical performances, commercials, myriad non video game related guest stars, and occasional World Premier Trailers for games like Little Big Planet, Rainbow 6 Vegas 2, Borderlands, TNA Wrestling, Prototype and Gran Turismo 5. It was almost like the awards were an afterthought, tacked on to an evening of oohing and ahhing over the next big name to take the stage. But, they did eventually get around to the awards and while there were no huge surprises, in general the winners seemed pretty in line with most people's guesses.

*Caution: Spoilers ahead. If you don't want to know any of the winners until the show airs tonight, read no further!*

BioShock took home three awards including Best Original Score, Best Xbox 360 Game and the big daddy of them all, Game of the Year. Fan favorite Halo 3 had two wins with Best Multiplayer Game and the highly dubious Most Addictive game fueled by Dew. Seeing as Mountain Dew launched a full fledged advertising campaign that revolved around a new soft drink devoted to Halo 3 this was hardly a surprise even though this category was allegedly voted on by the fans.

Call of Duty 4 and The Orange Box were the other big winners with two awards each and Harmonix rocked the house by taking Studio of the Year as well as Best Rhythm Game and Best Soundtrack for Rock Band. Nintendo games in general were highly underrepresented although they did manage to net three awards: Best Handheld Game for The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Best Action Game and Best Wii Game for Super Mario Galaxy. The Best PS3 Game was given to Insomniac's Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction and a special award was given to Kristen Bell for Best Newcomer for her work on Assassin's Creed although there didn't really seem to be any other nominees in the category and if there were, they weren't mentioned.

The evening was also marked by celebrity appearances by the likes of show host and badass Samuel L. Jackson, freaky magician Criss Angel, "TNA" wrestling stars Kurt and Karen Angle, the still smokin' Tia Carrere, legendary Marvel comics god Stan Lee, the godfather of skateboarding Tony Hawk, Simpsons creator Matt Groening, flag toting boxing promoter Don King, much too pretty reality stars Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, NFL quarterback Matt Leinart, complete douchebag Dave Navarro, diminutive bisexual Tila Tequila and comedians Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn and Raphie May. Musical guest performers included multiple performances by the Foo Fighters, a song from southern fried rocker Kid Rock and a far too short old school game medley by Tommy Tallarico's Video Games Live Orchestra.

Some of the other hilights of the evening were great quotes by Samuel L. Jackson ("Mr. Miyamoto, lay off the weed!") and Matt Groening ("Thanks to the game industry for proving that game executives aren't nearly as big assholes as TV executives.") and a particularly funny video clip parodying anti-video game violence commercials. It showed Kim Jong Il, Stalin, Saddam Hussein and other dictators playing violent video games with the punchline "Paid for by the friends of Jack Thompson." Ah Jack, such an easy target...

All in all it was a pretty entertaining event (if not somewhat predictable) with the only real ants-at-the-picnic moment coming at the very end. I had seen the guys from Gamecock roaming about in the audience in costume all night and wondered if they were going to do some sort of performance of speech and as it turns out, they did although it wasn't really part of the scheduled show. Just as Ken Levine was taking the stage to accept the Game of the year award for BioShock, the feisty Gamecockers leapt on the stage, hijacked the mic with some of self promotional banter effectively taking up the time that had been alloted for Ken's acceptance speech. I have been a big proponent of Gamecock and what they are doing for independent titles, but this was seriously bad form on their part. Briefly hijacking the show to make a point is one thing, but stealing another man's hard earned thunder is quite another.

After it was all over, quite a few of us were milling about in the lobby area and I got a chance to see Ken and congratulate him. As usual he was gracious and didn't seem to be ruffled at all by what had happened to him on stage. His lovely wife whom I had met at the BioShock launch party was also present with her parents and they all seemed very proud and happy with the big win. The Insomniac boys rolled by, slightly tipsy and happy as two kids on Christmas morning with their award although they did express some disappointment in not being able to take the award with them (they mail it to you later) on their tour of the strip. Super foxy Helen McWilliams and her dapper cohort Daniel Sussman arrived and the cheerful mood of booze and camaraderie was high. Helen was quite the bombshell in her tight black dress and heels although once the crowds had passed, the shoes came off. When some fans asked to take a picture with her I graciously accepted the duty of holding the goddess of video game rock's shoes and having hit the bar a few times myself throughout the night, I just couldn't help taking a token lick. Tiff may lay claim to her famous PSP licking picture, but who else can say they licked Helen McWilliams' shoes?

Stay tuned later today when I bring you all the action from the red carpet where I spoke with some of the nominees and celebrities and took a ton of pictures. For the full list of all the nominees and winners, merely scroll down the page. The winners of each category are in bold.

Game of the Year
BioShock
Halo 3
Mass Effect
The Orange Box

Best Shooter
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
BioShock
Halo 3
The Orange Box

Best Action Game
Super Mario Galaxy
Assassin's Creed
God of War 2
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

Best Rhythm Game
Rock Band
Guitar Hero Encore: Rock the 80s
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
Jam Sessions

Best RPG
Mass Effect
Eternal Sonata
Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3

Best Driving Game
Colin McRae: DiRT
Forza Motorsport 2
Need for Speed ProStreet
Project Gotham Racing 4

Best Military Game
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas
World in Conflict

Studio of the Year
Harmonix
Bungie Studios
Irrational Games
Valve

Best Graphics
Crysis
BioShock
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Mass Effect

Breakthrough Technology
Portal
Crysis
Halo 3
Rock Band

Best PS3 Game
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
Heavenly Sword
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Warhawk

Best Wii Game
Super Mario Galaxy
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Super Paper Mario

Best Xbox 360 Game
BioShock
Halo 3
Mass Effect
The Orange Box

Best PC Game
The Orange Box
BioShock
Crysis
World in Conflict

Best Individual Sports Game
Skate
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08
Tony Hawk's Proving Ground
Virtua Tennis 3

Best Team Sports Game
Madden NFL 08
NBA 2K8
NHL 08
Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer 2007

Best Handheld Game
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions
Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords

Best Game Based on a Movie or TV Show
The Simpsons Game
Naruto: Rise of a Ninja
Stranglehold

Best Soundtrack
Rock Band
BioShock
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
Tony Hawk's Proving Ground

Best Original Score
BioShock
God of War 2
Halo 3
Mass Effect

Best Multiplayer Game
Halo 3
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Rock Band
The Orange Box

Most Addictive Game Fueled by Dew
Halo 3
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
Team Fortress 2
Wii Sports

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