It’s BAFTA season! Following the EE British Academy Film Awards 2013 earlier this month, March will celebrate the very best in video games as the nominations for the British Academy Games Awards 2013 have been announced.

With 18 categories that range from the usual best action, story, design to specific awards for the best family title, debut game, mobile/handheld game and for the first year ever, British Game, the BAFTA nominees are a heady mix of blockbuster and indie, console, PC and mobile titles that best represents how diverse the industry has become, more so than seen at any other award ceremony.

The past twelve months have seen an array of high quality, high profile sci-fi and fantasy titles consume the charts and it’s great to see some of our favourites picking up more than one prestigious nod. Joining the crème de la crème of talent on the red carpet this year, we’re looking forward to seeing if the dramatic conclusion in Bioware/EA’s space opera trilogy Mass Effect 3 can take home a prize in the action, story and best game categories. It will be a tough race as they are up against Halo 4 which has picked up 4 nominations including action, artistic achievement, audio achievement and online-multiplayer. We’re especially happy to see the addictive XCOM: Enemy Unknown by Firaxis/2K Games up for a Game Design and a Strategy BAFTA for which we think they are the favourite contender.

Elsewhere, though we found some niggling flaws, Borderlands 2 has bagged itself a place in 4 of the awards categories, whilst the Playstation Network exclusive indie title Journey doubled that with a whopping 8 nominations. Proving that not all zombie games have become dull, dumbed down affairs, The Walking Dead by Telltale Games closely follows Jounrey with 7 nominations including two in the Performance category for Dave Fennoy (Lee Everett) and Melissa Hutchinson (Clementine), and might come up trumps on the night with the prestigious Best Game award.

For the full list of categories and nominations, visit the BAFTA website where the awards will streamed live, hosted by computer game loving comedian Dara O’Briain on 5th March. You can also follow the results as they come through on Twitter via @BAFTAgames #BAFTAgames.