Having finally invested in a PS3 a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity last weekend to play and complete Naughty Dog's Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, touted as one of the highlight's of the system's software library.

Though my experiences with the game were largely positive, Uncharted led me to a very sudden and unsettling realization concerning my take on the current direction of game development: I absolutely abhor cover systems.

Last year, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, or BAFTA, announced it would from 2006 onward consider video games of equal importance to both film and television. In prior years, BAFTA had hosted fairly minor video game awards of some form, alongside their flagship British Academy Film Awards and British Academy Television Awards. As stated in the auspicious announcement, this would make the British Academy Video Games Awards "the most independent and valued awards in this arena."

It was an encouraging move from one of the most well-known recognizers of the world's art, lending legitimacy to the artistic merits of video games, merits long-deserved by an industry filled with terrifically imaginative world-builders and artisans of the highest degree.

This makes it all the more disappointing that in only their second year of supposed platform parity, the Video Games Awards have become a joke.

Things looked up after the 2006 awards, as the increased significance they gave the game industry's works with a televised... Read more