It was awfully nice of Spike TV to spare us the effort of having to actually watch their Video Game Awards show by releasing a list of the winners weeks before the show’s Dec. 10 broadcast date.

Among the nominated sites attending the Friday taping and offering commentary over the weekend were:

Gamespot: “As much as Spike might have refined the show over its past pair of efforts, it was clear the network had not yet found a way to perfectly merge the subject matter, the celebrities, and the audience.”

1up: “Surprisingly, the show wasn’t half bad — in fact, it was by far the best VGA show yet.”

Kotaku Am I the only one who thinks [Game of the Year] should have been WoW? … Anyone else out there who thinks the VGA picked the wrong game?”

and Joystiq: “We’re usually not ones for award shows, (yawn) and this isn’t much different”

These sites even gave away some of the night’s best jokes and scripted banter, removing the last remaining reason for anyone to waste their Saturday night on this thing (My favorite reported line: Jack Black, accepting the award for best human performance by a male, thanking “all the people of the b******* academy over there … Who votes on this thing?” as reported by Gamespot).

Although the general consensus is that the show has taken a step forward in quality, it feels like it has taken two steps back by replacing the drama of last year’s live show with a taped farce.

Speaking of farces, the awards for best blog, gaming website and gaming magazine are still being decided by votes on Spike TV’s web site. Yes, you can still vote as many times as you want with a few clicks and yes, the awards are still squeezed in among detritus like “best boss character” and “best feel like a tough guy moment.” As of this writing, the current leaders are Electronic Gaming Monthly (64%), 1up (70%), and Slashdot Games (40%). Surprisingly, Official Xbox Magazine and GameSpot both have an embarrassingly low 4% of the current vote. Maybe they should emulate Ziff Davis and start begging for votes on the front page of their Web site and in the text of practically every EGM editor’s blog.