Good evening and welcome to the very first edition of the Carnival of Video Game Bloggers! Tonight we pay tribute to the brightest stars in the world of game blogging and honour their achievements in categories such as Best Soapbox Post, Most Thought-Provoking Post and Best Post by a Sibling or Blood Relative.

Now, on with the night of a thousand stars!

Tonight’s first award is the prestigious Best Blog URL award. This award goes to the website address that most amused and entertained me, and continues to do so. The content has to be good too, and on that basis, the winner is… Gameslol.com, and Marek Bronstring‘s “A MySpace for games“, predicting success for indie developers through the Great Games Experiment!

Our second award tonight is for Best Objective Review of Addiction. The winner of this award did well to avoid being sucked in by the allure of his chosen game, and provided an in-depth review of the game and its new features. The winner is… Jaimie from Just Online Games, for Burning Crusade – World of Warcraft!

Next up we have the award for Best Article by a Sibling or Blood Relative. This was a hotly-contested category, but in the end there was only one real winner. And the winner is… Phil Newton, with his article “Computer Love“. Family ties aside, it’s also a tremendous article that poses a very interesting question for developers.

Thanks Phil, and might I say, that’s a lovely dress you’re wearing!

Coming up after the break, the award for Best Anti-Microsoft Post and a look at what this year’s nominees wore on the red carpet! Don’t go away!

Don’t forget to link to or trackback this post, comment on some of the articles featured and spread the word about the carnival!

Hey, welcome back! You know, a funny thought occured to me during that break.

The next award is one of my favourites: Best Writer of Rants and/or Reviews. In order to win this award, the writer has to be adept at balancing the fiery and articulate sides of blogging, and nobody did this better than the winner of this award: Jigsaw hc of Jigsaw hc’s Rants and Reviews! His posts “Top 3 Problems with Xbox Live Arcade” and “GameFly.com vs GameznFlix.com” both juggle constructive advice with a little healthy ranting. Watch that blood pressure, though!

Every once in a while, a blog article comes along that really makes you think, and think hard. I can’t think of a more suitable way to introduce our next award, Most Thought-Provoking Article. The winner did a great job of tackling a serious subject in a positive way, and had a top-notch interview and research too. It gives me great pleasure to award Most Thought-Provoking Article to… Alvaro Fernandez from SharpBrains.com! His article “ADD/ ADHD and working memory training: interview with Notre Dame’s Bradley Gibson” examines how “Serious Games” might actually be good for hyperactive children.

I teased you with this before the break, but now it’s time for that most controversial of awards, Best Anti-Microsoft Post. It’s a good job this carnival is opt-in, otherwise we’d have no chance deciding this one! Seriously though, this article takes a good dive inside Windows Vista and emerges, gasping for air but triumphantly clutching this award. That winner is… Akusai at VGMusings.com! His article “Microsoft Hates Gamers” details how Microsoft’s new anti-piracy measures might be counter-productive.

Another commercial break now, but the best is yet to come – top-quality mouthing off in Best Soapbox Post and the chilling Worst Attempt at Modesty in a Blog Carnival. Don’t go changing!

Submit your blog article to the next carnival of video game bloggers on March 19th using our carnival submission form!

The next award goes to the blogger who created the Most Frightening Alternate Reality. Frankly, if the winner’s prediction came true I think we’d all be imitating lemmings and running for the nearest cliff. The winner is… Gianfranco Berardi, for his article “If Old Games Were Made Today?“

Next on the agenda is Best Soapbox Post. The nominees for this category were all intensely opinionated and worthy, but in the end there could be only one winner. And that winner is… A Struggling Student, for “I Hate Ebay Sellers Selling Nintendo Wiis: Let’s Screw Them Over“!

Now our first special guest of the evening. To present the award for Worst Attempt at Modesty in a Blog Carnival… Me!

I’d like to give this award to myself, for my article “Five Games To Change Your Life In 2007“, featuring five games that will define your gaming year: Spore, Bioshock and more!

Thanks, James!

And now we come to our final award of this glorious evening, the Inaugural Jordan Bieber Award for Most Articles Submitted. The very first winner of this award has surprised us with his dedication to submitting blog articles, and entertained us with the results. Opening up my email every day to see his name in the inbox cheered me no end, and with his whopping eight articles submitted (at the time of writing) put him way ahead of his nearest competitors. They’re all on very varied subjects too, showing his capability and versatility.

No award could do the winner justice, but the Inaugural Jordan Bieber Award for Most Articles Submitted goes to… Jordan Bieber!

The Jesse Ventura Campaign Video Game – create a game about a wrestling governor!
How to sell your games – fund your addictions with recycling!
How I lost 90 pounds playing computer games – get the celeb look with Physicam!
Wii Play – Worth it – play about!
Tetris + Web Cam = TetroDance – make a move!
Why I am not buying Super Mario World on VC – make a stand!
Building a custom Arcade Machine on a budget – make a cabinet!
Zelda TP Ending – Not Epic Enough? – may contain spoilers. I haven’t read it as I haven’t completed Twilight Princess yet. You’ve been warned.

Yes, richly-deserved applause. Sadly that brings this wonderful evening to a close. I’m sure you’ll agree that they were all worthy winners, but I’d like to pay special tribute to them all – this was my first blog carnival but I was very pleased to see how many bloggers submitted high-quality articles. Eighteen for a first carnival is superb, so thanks to everyone who entered! Please add a link to this post on your sites and tell other bloggers about it, and everyone will reap the benefits.

The next Carnival of Video Game Bloggers is back here on March 19th, with the deadline of Friday March 16th. It’s another open mic free-for-all, so be creative and I’ll see you back here in a month!

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