Canadian Videogame Awards sees big winners in ‘Deus Ex,’ ‘Sword and Sworcery’

Canada's greatest contributions to the world of video games in 2011 were recognized on Saturday at the third annual Canadian Videogame Awards.

Held alongside Fan Expo (a major video game, sci-fi, comic book, horror and anime convention) in Vancouver, big and small studios alike came away from the event with some serious hardware.

Eidos Montreal won big for Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a game that received outstanding scores from reviewers throughout the gaming world. Eidos Montreal, who is owned by video game giant Square Enix, won five awards for their title: Best Console Game, Best Audio, Best Game Design, Best Writing and Best New Character for the game's embittered lead Adam Jensen.

But Toronto studio Capybara Games proved that you don't need to have a big studio to make a quality game. Starkly juxtaposed with the highly-definition graphics of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Cabybara's Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP took home just as many accolades as Eidos Montreal's game. The indie game studio won awards for Best Game on the Go, Best Downloadable Game, Best Indie Game, Best Original Music and the Innovation Award.

Despite both games being such strong performers, two sports games managed to score some of the top awards of the evening: Future Shop (major sponsor of the event) awarded their Gamers' Choice — Top Selling Video Game award to NHL 12 by EA. The biggest award of the evening, however, went to another EA title: FIFA Soccer 12 was the winner of Game of the Year. While all other categories were selected by a jury, Canadian video game fans were the ones to crown FIFA Soccer 12 as their top pick in an online vote.

Victor Lucas, executive producer of Canadian video game TV show The Electric Playground and co-founder of the Canadian Videogame Awards, was on hand to share his congratulations with the winners and nominees.

"The games we saw at the show this evening are world-class and illustrate once again that Canadian game developers are second to none," Lucas said in a Canadian Press story.

The event was hosted by David Hayter, who is best known in video game circles for his role as the voice of Solid Snake in the Metal Gear Solid franchise.

For those who couldn't be there but still want to see how the show went down, you can watch a condensed 60-minute broadcast of the Canadian Videogame Awards on April 28 on CityTV, or on G4 on April 28 and 29.