Game awards honor ‘Skyrim’

LOS ANGELES – “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” flew away with the game of the year trophy at the Spike Video Game Awards.

The dragon-slaying epic also won as best role-playing game, and “Skyrim” developer Bethesda Softworks was selected as the studio of the year at Saturday’s ninth annual Spike Video Game Awards, which honors outstanding achievements within the gaming industry over the past year.

“We poured ourselves into this for the past three years,” said “Skyrim” game director Todd Howard.

Valve’s sci-fi puzzler “Portal 2” and Rocksteady’s superhero sequel “Batman: Arkham City” swept up the most awards, both winning four trophies.

“Portal 2” bounced away with the honors for best PC game and downloadable content, as well as best performance by female human for Ellen McLain as GLaDOS and male human for Stephen Merchant as Wheatley. Meanwhile, “Arkham City” unlocked trophies for best character for the Joker and best action-adventure, adapted and Xbox 360 game.

Other titles winning multiple trophies included Supergiant Games’ role-playing fable “Bastion” as best downloadable game, song and original score; and the latest entry in Nintendo’s “Zelda” franchise, “The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword,” which was chosen as the best motion and Wii game.

The fantastical 25-year-old “Zelda” role-playing series itself became the first gaming franchise to be inducted into the show’s hall of fame.