Video Games
‘Deathloop’, ‘Metroid Dread’ Nominated for 2022 BAFTA GOTY
This year’s BAFTA Games Awards nominees have been revealed, and as expected, genre titles are well represented. And given its performance at The Game Awards 2021, Bethesda’s Deathloop is in contention for the publicly-voted EE GOTY. However, it will face off against Nintendo’s Metroid Dread among the nominees.
Surprisingly, Deathloop doesn’t have the most nominations. That would go to EA’s It Takes Two with nine, followed by Housemarque’s Returnal with eight. Deathloop has six nominations overall, including GOTY, Audio Achievement, Best Game, Game Design, Music and Original Property.
Double Fine’s Psychonauts 2 also has six nominations, though it misses out on the EE GOTY and Best Game. 343 Industries’ Halo Infinite has three nominations, while Devolver Digital’s Death’s Door, Capcom’s Resident Evil Village, Square Enix’s Life is Strange: True Colors and ZA/UM’s Disco Elysium: The Final Cut have two nominations each. Turtle Rock Studios’ Back 4 Blood‘s lone nomination is in Best Multiplayer.
Presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), the BAFTA Games Awards will be take place on April 7th, and streamed live on YouTube and Twitch. Check out the full list of nominees here.
Bobby Prince, the composer who provided the soundtracks to legendary titles such as Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Doom II, has died. Prince’s family confirmed the composer’s death on June 16 late last week at the age of 81. No cause of death was released.
id Software, the company that gave Prince his first job in the industry, paid tribute to the composer, referring to him as a “video game music pioneer”.
Indeed, in addition to providing the soundtracks to id Software’s hits in the FPS genre, Prince also provided the soundtracks to other id Software classics, such as portions of the scores for Commander Keen series and the forerunner to the modern FPS, Catacomb 3-D. Prince also worked with Apogee Software and 3D Realms, providing the soundtrack for Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold, and teaming with Lee Jackson for Rise of the Triad and Duke Nukem 3D.
Prince’s death comes just after the Library of Congress announced back in May that his soundtrack for Doom would be preserved in the National Recording Registry.
The soundtrack for Doom and its sequel took inspiration from designer John Romero‘s collection of CDs at the studio, which included the likes of Alice in Chains, Pantera, and Metallica. In spite of the limitations composers faced with the sound cards of the era, Prince was able to replicate riffs from songs like “Master of Puppets” and “Painkiller” for tracks like “At Doom’s Gate”, the iconic opening track for Doom‘s first level, E1M1.
For Doom II‘s soundtrack, Prince continued to employ the same tactic, lifting rifts from songs like “Sex Type Thing”, “After All (The Dead)”, “South of Heaven” and more.
In addition to composing, Prince was also a practicing lawyer, and had pursued a career as an attorney before making his way into the video games industry.
Prince is survived by his wife Connie, and his sons, Robert Caskin Prince IV and Andrew (Cristy) Prince.