Enslaved, Blood Stone and Napoleon: Total War up for Ivor awards, News from GamePro

Three games from last year are in the running for a prestigious Ivor Novello Award in recognition of their excellent soundtracks.

The Ivor Novello Awards are presented annually to"celebrate honor and reward excellence in British music writing"and, according to the website,"continue to be acknowledged as the most widely coveted awards for British songwriters and composers in the world."UK newspaper The Times refers to them as"the Oscars of the music industry."

This year, three games are up for the Best Original Video Game Score award, all composed by British musicians. First up is Ninja Theory'sEnslaved: Odyssey to the West. Enslaved's soundtrack was composed by Nitin Sawhney, who previously worked on Heavenly Sword and a sizeable body of work for both film and TV. This isn't the first Ivor he's been up for, but it is the first for a video game.

The second nomination is Richard Jacques' score for Bizarre Creations'James Bond 007: Blood Stone. He's been responsible for a huge amount of music over the years, including parts of Mass Effect's score, a number of Sonic titles, Project Gotham progenitor Metropolis Street Racer and the Jet Set Radio games.

The final nomination is for Sega'sNapoleon: Total War, whose soundtrack was composed by the team of Richard Beddow, Richard Birdsall and Ian Livingstone. Sega released this soundtrack oniTuneslast week.

The inclusion of a Best Original Video Game Score category in an awards ceremony as prestigious as the Ivors is surely a sign that video games are being taken more and more seriously as a medium with each passing year. How long before we get our own event as high profile as the Oscars?

Source