Shortlist announced for the 2010 Video Game Awards

(All rights reserved - Electronic Arts)

The annual Video Game Awards show, run by the Spike TV network, have published their shortlist of nominees for the December 11 broadcast. While only the 'Most Anticipated Game' is currently open to a public vote, there are a total 63 titles across 30 categories ready for perusal.

Sci-fi adventure Mass Effect 2 leads the line with 10 nominations including Game of the Year, Best Role Playing Game, and Best Game on both Xbox 360 and PC.

Also up for Game of the Year are Red Dead Redemption with a total of 9 nominations, Halo: Reach (7 nominations), Call of Duty: Black Ops (7 nominations) and God of War III (6 nominations).

There's room for less serious fare, as Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Kirby's Epic Yarn are among those with two nominations, and the overlooked Blur and Transformers: War for Cybertron are also in the mix.

The Most Anticipated Game category is a blank slate, where visitors to the VGA website can nominate any previously announced project due out in 2011, though the VGA panel are ready with their own quartet of suggested titles: Batman: Arkham City, BioShock Infinite, Gears of War 3 and Portal 2.

The VGAs mark the start of the busy end-of-year awards period, where websites and magazines summarize the best (and sometimes the worst) of the previous twelve months - though most of those will come in the last two weeks of December.

To vote in the VGAs, visit http://vga.spike.com