The Spike Video Game Awards, one of the industry's biggest gaming award events, took place in Los Angeles this past weekend.

While the awards receive their fair share of criticism for being advertising-laden, two aspects of the show are traditionally looked forward to nonetheless. The first is the awards themselves, and the second is the first glimpse of upcoming titles.

For those interested in yet another top games of the year list, Spike awarded  Skyrim Game of the Year, while Batman: Arkham City won Best Xbox 360 title and Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception took the award for the best PS3 game of the year. Top honours on the Wii went to The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword while Portal 2 was awarded best PC game.

Somewhat vindicating the strength of the 3DS, Super Mario 3D Land was awarded the best mobile/handheld game, amongst contenders for iPad only such as Infinity Blade.  

The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim took top honours for Game of the Year.

The first of the Last

One of the titles that prompted much buzz ahead of its reveal was the forthcoming title from Naughty Dog, the developers of Uncharted, entitled The Last of Us.

The game, which apparently has been in development over the past two years, is set in a plague ravaged US. It is a bleak vision of its former self: nature is hard at work reclaiming the haunting and significantly emptier city, while the plague has decimated the population and produced mutated versions of human beings.

It centres around two survivors, Joel and Ellie, a teen that the developers have described as being wise beyond her years, and who apparently has only ever known this version of the world.

While little is known of actual gameplay at the moment, the trailer (see below) certainly looks enticing, while the game’s engine will appear familiar to anyone who has played Uncharted.

However, this was not the only as yet unseen game announced at the awards. Alan Wake: American Nightmare, is set in the Alan Wake universe (but apparently not a sequel) and will be a downloadable title next year. Additionally, trailers for Metal Gear: Rising, the Amazing Spider Man and Gears of War developers Epic Games’ latest title, Fortnite were also shown.

While the show offered just teasers at this point, there’s no doubt we’ll be hearing about and seeing a lot more of these titles as next year unfolds. Additionally, new trailers for games that we have known about for some time – including Darksiders 2 and Bioshock: Infinite  – further reminded us of what we have to look forward to on the games front in the year ahead.

Together, the awards show only further whetted our appetite for what looks like may well be another stellar year for gamers. For a first look at The Last of Us, hit the video below.