'Modern Warfare 2', 'Assassin's Creed II' and 'Uncharted 2' up for Writers Guild awards

The Writers Guild of America have been steadily revealing the nominees up for recognition at this year's WGA Awards ceremony in February. Included among them are five videogames from 2009: Assassin's Creed II, Modern Warfare 2, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, WET, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

The WGA Awards ceremony will take place on Saturday, February 20, with ceremonies taking place simultaneously at two hotels on opposite sides of the USA: one at the Hyatt Century Plaza in LA, and the other at the Millennium Broadway in New York.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was the 2009 iteration in Activision's Call of Duty series. Developed by Activision subsiduary Infinity Ward, the story begins in Afghanistan but players soon find themselves controlling a number of characters in different fictional military operations. When an undercover mission goes horribly wrong, modern combat comes to American soil for the first time since the 1860s.

Like the first Assassin's Creed game, the sequel concerns an American bartender, an ordinary Joe, whose lineage is revisited under control of a sinister scientific corporation interested in recovering powerful artifacts that Desmond's ancestors came into contact with. Assassin's Creed II follows both Desmond's investigations and the adventures of the hitman Ezio whose Renaissance-era story intertwines with various historical figures such as Machiavelli, Leonardo da Vinci, the Medicis and Pope Alexander VI.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was the only platform exclusive among the list, with the other nominees available on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and Wolverine appearing on the Wii, PlayStation 2, PSP and Nintendo DS. Uncharted 2 for the PlayStation 3 continues the story of the confident, swaggering treasure hunter Nathan Drake who, after his escapades in the first, is now on the trail of Marco Polo's missing fleet. As well as stunning visuals and blockbuster set pieces, the game was noted for its cocky and amusing dialogue, picking up top marks from reviewers at 1UP, Eurogamer, and Giant Bomb. The French magazine PSM3 even gave it 21 out of 20.

WET and X-Men Origins: Wolverine did not fare as well as the others in terms of their general reception, but the WGA have noted their storytelling ambitions nonetheless. WET's acrobatic action plot was told in a manner reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino's films and recruited voice acting talent of Hollywood stars such as Eliza Dushku, Malcolm McDowell, and Alan Cumming.

The Wolverine game adopts the bulk of story elements from the movie that it was developed in support of, tracing the history of the popular comic character. Scriptwriter Marc Guggenheim has previously worked on episodes of TV series Law & Order and CSI: Miami as well as video games Call of Duty 3, Perfect Dark Zero, and numerous comics.

2009's WGA Videogame Writing Award was won by the LucasArts team that penned the storyline of multiformat action game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, while the inaugural 2007 winners were the two-man team behind PSP platformer Dead Head Fred.

Nominees for the 2010 WGA Videogame Writing Award
Assassin's Creed II, story by Corey May
Available for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, written by Jesse Stern.
Available for Xbox 360, Windows PC, and PlayStation 3

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, written by Amy Hennig
Available for PlayStation 3

WET, Written by Duppy Demetrius.
Available for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3

X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Script Writer Marc Guggenheim
Available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PlayStation 2, PSP and DS

www.wga.org