God of War III, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II round out the field of nominees. The winner will be named Feb. 5 at the annual Writers Guild Awards, which will take place simultaneously in Los Angeles and New York.
Writers who are Guild members or who have applied for membership are eligible, and they must have worked on a game that released between Dec. 1, 2009 and Nov, 30, 2010.
Last year’s winner in this category was Amy Hennig for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. The full citations for each nominee are:
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Story by Patrice Desilets, Jeffrey Yohalem, Corey May; Lead Script Writer: Jeffrey Yohalem; Script Writers: Ethan Petty, Nicholas Grimwood, Matt Turner. Publisher: Ubisoft
Fallout: New Vegas, Creative Design Lead/Lead Writer: John Gonzalez; Writers: Chris Avellone, Eric Fenstermaker, Travis Stout; Additional Writing: Tess Treadwell, George Ziets, Jason Bergman, Nick Breckon, Matt Grandstaff, Will Noble, Andrew Scharf. Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
God of War III, Written by Marianne Krawcyzk; Additional Writing by Stig Asmussen, Ariel Lawrence, William Weissbaum. Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands (Wii), Writer: Benjamin McCaw; Story Dialogue Editor: Marianne Krawczyk. Publisher: Ubisoft
Singularity, Written by Marc Guggenheim, Lindsey Allen, Emily Silver; Additional Story and Writing: Jason Henderson, Adam Foshko, Michael Cassutt; Story and Script Consultant: Adam Foshko. Publisher: Activision
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, Executive Producer-Writer: Haden Blackman; In-Game Script: David Collins, John Stafford, Cameron Suey; Additional Writing: Tid Cooney, Ian Dominguez, Tony Rowe. Publisher: LucasArts
2011 WGA Awards Video Game Writing Nominees Announced [News Release]
Alex Cullinan
Friday, January 7, 2011 at 3:28 PMWhat’s so special about the Wii port of PoP?
James
Friday, January 7, 2011 at 5:49 PMWell, it had a different story line compared to the game released on PS3 and X360. Kind of relevant for an award for best writing …
Ross Moir
Friday, January 7, 2011 at 3:30 PMOf the ones listed, I’d say AC:B for consistency and FO:NV for quantity.
Justin Robson
Friday, January 7, 2011 at 3:30 PMIt’s a shame Singularity was such a god awful, uninspired game.
The highlight of the writing was definitely the Borat reference… great success!
Andy
Friday, January 7, 2011 at 3:32 PMThat’s the best we have to show for games writing in the last year? Depressing. Very depressing.
googootz
Friday, January 7, 2011 at 4:02 PMit says that “Writers who are Guild members or who have applied for membership are eligible” so maybe that means some writers for games like RDR and heavy rain est. were excluded because they weren’t members.
MrBS
Friday, January 7, 2011 at 3:43 PMI more curious as to why Kotaku…
*puts on glasses*
….singled out one game in the headline…
Mark Serrels
Friday, January 7, 2011 at 3:44 PMYEEEEEEEEEEEAH!
Steve0
Friday, January 7, 2011 at 4:57 PMHow on earth can that horrid excuse for a game, Force Unleashed II, even get a nomination.
Asteroids had a more comprehensive story.
Jon
Friday, January 7, 2011 at 5:39 PMmy thoughts exactly. wtf up with that?
AC:B potentially (I’m embargoing myself from all AC:B content until PC edition is out, being a PC gamer), if it is comparable to AC1 or AC2.
No ME2 though? FO:NV maybe. kinda meh sometimes though.
RK
Friday, January 7, 2011 at 5:05 PMIt was a terrible year for games if you liked clever writing, eh? Geez that’s an uninspiring list.
TJ
Friday, January 7, 2011 at 5:05 PMNo Mass Effect 2, Red Dead Redemption or Alpha Protocol – this short list is a travesty. Marc Guggenheim has never written anything worth giving a damn about.
Sir_Sam
Friday, January 7, 2011 at 5:41 PMRe the heck is Red Dead Redemption and Mass Effect 2? Weird. Must have been too long for them to play through.lol
gman
Friday, January 7, 2011 at 9:37 PMagreed this is a pretty meh list right here
Flay
Saturday, January 8, 2011 at 12:23 AMWhere the heck is Heavy Rain?
Pakka
Saturday, January 8, 2011 at 3:08 AMI can agree with Brotherhood which is should go to out of these, but Mass Effect 2 and RDR should definitely be among the nominees at the VERY least!
rturtle
Saturday, January 8, 2011 at 10:05 AMNo ME2? Eh?
Trent Strickland
Saturday, January 8, 2011 at 11:08 PMThere’s a lot missing but it’s worth remembering that it’s pretty likely that all the actually, you know “well written” games weren’t done by guild members and are therefore ineligible.
Jon
Sunday, January 9, 2011 at 12:05 PMis it just me, or do those singularity zombies look like the Husks from ME?