Celebrities are often wheeled out to add appeal to games launches, often without providing any sort of proof that they actually are gamers. However, the Bafta game awards offered a unique assembly of celebs who did have some sort of stake in the games industry.
Dara O Briain, in his third year as presenter, was a particularly safe choice – every year, the man manages to craft a glorious standup routine concentrating solely on games, which would be an impossibility if he was not an enthusiastic gamer.
So, is turning games into comedy difficult? "I find it surprisingly easy to come up with stuff based on games. Last night I had to tell jokes about the TV industry – that was infinitely harder. I've played five of the six nominees for best game this year, with the exception of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood."
So which ones was he rooting for? "Limbo and Heavy Rain. I'm intrigued to see if Heavy Rain will be awarded for the narrative leap it made away from the obvious blockbusters. And it will be interesting to see if Limbo will be awarded for gameplay that you couldn't sustain over 40 hours of play. I'm a 39-year-old with two kids, and that's the only sort of game I can play through these days."
The Gadget Show presenter Jason Bradbury, another noted gamer in the public eye, also lauded Limbo: "I was challenged on The Gadget Show to build a game, and I based it on the Limbo aesthetic."
But the game he was rooting for most enthusiastically was: "It might surprise you: Dance Central. Things like Call of Duty: Black Ops are such obvious vote-winners with the mass gaming public, but Dance Central does something unique in cahoots with an incredible piece of technology in Kinect."
Bradbury also singled out Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood: "Assassin's Creed has really grown over the years, and Brotherhood is fantastic ... [while] Halo: Reach [is] almost the perfect multiplayer experience."
Actor Sir Ben Kingsley proved pleasant and approachable, although he admitted: "I'm not really a gamer. But I have enormously enjoyed being on the creative side, starting off with my voice acting for Fable III. I think being able to get involved with games is very, very good for us actors."
One attendee, of course, has gone beyond voice acting, by appearing more or less as himself in Assassin's Creed II and Brotherhood: Danny Wallace. Indeed, it could be argued that Wallace has conjured an acting career from his Assassin's Creed appearances – he was fresh back from filming a pilot in LA.
The whole thing, he said, began at a Bafta games awards ceremony a few years ago: "The weird thing is that it was at one of these when a rather drunk man came up to me and said he wanted me to be in his game."
Actor Robert Llewellyn, known among other things for being Kryten in Red Dwarf, said: "I'm a very late convert to gaming – when I grew up, computers took up entire buildings. But now, I'm obsessed with Angry Birds."
Llewellyn also confirmed that a new series of Red Dwarf has been commissioned, with Doug Naylor doing the writing, although filming is currently being stymied by the cast's diverse commitments.
