Dead Head Fred wins new video game scriptwriting award

PSP game Dead Head Fred has won the Writers Guild of America's Videogame Writing Award at its annual awards ceremony in held in LA this month.

The Writers Guild Awards commend outstanding achievement across screen, television, documentary, radio and promotion, but 2008 is the first year video games have been added to that list. As such, Dead Head Fred's writers – David Ellis and Adam Cogan – are the first from the game industry to be recognised by the guild.

They beat off competition from the scribes of Crash of the Titans, The Simpsons Game, The Witcher and World in Conflict to win the award.

Eric Peterson, president and chief executive officer of Vicious Cycle Software said: "Dead Head Fred was something we had a lot of fun with and we are glad that players and fans are enjoying the game as much as we do."

The game, whose deliciously dark humour we praised in our review, takes place in a 1940s-inspired alternative universe with players controlling Fred Neuman, a private detective who is murdered then resurrected through a scientific experiment. But without his memory or, awkwardly, his head. Fred must solve his own murder, using the severed heads of his enemies as replacements for his own missing cranium.

If that doesn't sound like an award-winning story to you then take it up with the Writers Guild. Or, rather, don't. We don't want its members delayed from writing us new episodes of Heroes for a minute longer.