Zachary Levi Will Host the Video Game Awards on Spike TV

Chuck star/video game fan Zachary Levi has been named as the host for Spike TV’s 2011 Video Game Awards taking place on Saturday, December 10th and broadcast on Spike TV, MTV2 and Spike.com. The Video Game Awards honor outstanding achievements within the industry, with the show featuring “notable names in video games, Hollywood, music, sports and more.”
 
“Zac Levi is an avid gamer who is truly a part of gaming culture and understands the fans,” stated Casey Patterson, Executive Producer and Executive Vice President, Event Production, Talent & Studio Relations for Viacom Entertainment Group. “He has great ideas about this year’s show. Zac is all about honoring the year in gaming and ushering in the future by showcasing massive world premieres at this year’s event. We’re excited to be working with Zac.”
 
The Black Keys will perform their video game hit, “Lonely Boy,” and Spike also announced Brooklyn Decker, Seth Green, cast members of Workaholics Blake Anderson, Adam Devine and Anders Holm, LL Cool J, Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott, Joe Montana, and Jerry Rice will take part in the show.
 
From the press release:
  
This year, Spike TV will be bestowing the Gamer God Award upon the three founders of Blizzard Entertainment for their immense contributions to the electronic gaming medium.   Creators of the “World of Warcraft,” “Starcraft” and “Diablo” entertainment universes, Blizzard is celebrating its 20th anniversary – as well as the 15th anniversary of “Diablo” – in 2011. Co-founders Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, and Frank Pearce will accept the award and treat Blizzard’s global community to the full never-before-seen opening cinematic of the company’s upcoming release, “Diablo III.”
  
The talent joins the already announced never-before-seen world premieres of the most anticipated games of 2012 and beyond, including BioWare’s next project, the next “Alan Wake” game and “Metal Gear Solid: Rising,” “Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6 Patriots,” “Transformers: Fall of Cybertron,” and Most Anticipated Game nominee, “BioShock Infinite” as part this year’s “VGA” festivities. 
  
Leading the way with 12 nominations at the 2011 “VGAs” is “Portal 2” by Valve.  Rocksteady Studios’ second adventure featuring the Dark Knight, “Batman: Arkham City” garnered 10 nominations, while the third chapter in the Nathan Drake adventure, “Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception” by Naughty Dog and independent game “Bastion” rounded out the top most- nominated games with 9 and 5 nods each, respectively.
  
Nominees for Spike TV’s 2011 “Video Game Awards” were determined by the VGA Advisory Council, made up of a group of some of the most well-respected video game journalists from media outlets including Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, Game Informer Magazine, Kotaku, Joystiq, GameSpot, IGN and WIRED.
  
Source: Spike TV – November 30, 2011