Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Nominees for Game Developers Choice Awards

The nominees for the Game Developers Choice Awards were announced this morning.

BioShock and Portal lead the pack, each with five nominations, including Game of the Year.

I'm very pleased to see Mass Effect (Game Design, Writing, Audio, Innovation) and Everyday Shooter (Best Debut, Best Downloadable), two of my favourites of 2007, getting some recognition.

Notable titles missing from this list? Surprisingly, not much. Maybe Heavenly Sword (pictured here) for Visual Art. Maybe Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction for Game Design. Looks like Uncharted: Drake's Fortune claimed the Sony Computer Entertainment quota.

And Vampire Rain. Kidding. I kid.

Mass Effect deserved a Game of the Year nomination, though. Certainly over Super Mario Galaxy, which was fine for what it was: a rehash of the franchise.

Anyone out there note any other glaring omissions?

Here's the complete list of categories and nominees, which will be handed out at GDC 2008 in San Francisco on Wednesday, February 20:

Best Game Design
BioShock
Call of Duty 4
Mass Effect
Portal
Super Mario Galaxy

Best Visual Art
Assassin's Creed
Team Fortress 2
Crysis
BioShock
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Best Technology
Halo 3
Crysis
Call of Duty 4
Portal
Assassin's Creed

Best Writing
Portal
God of War II
Mass Effect
Half-Life 2: Episode 2
BioShock

Best Audio
Call of Duty 4
Everyday Shooter
BioShock
God of War II
Mass Effect

Best Debut
Crackdown (Realtime Worlds)
flOw (ThatGameCompany)
The Witcher (CD Projekt)
Everyday Shooter (Queasy Games)
Aquaria (Bit Blot)

Innovation
Rock Band
Portal
flOw
Peggle
Mass Effect

Best Handheld Game
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Phase
Contra 4
Peggle (for iPod)

Best Downloadable Game
Pac-Man Championship Edition
Everyday Shooter
Peggle
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (XBLA version)
Flow

Game of the Year
BioShock
Call of Duty 4
Portal
Rock Band
Super Mario Galaxy

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are you kidding me? Super Mario Galaxy doesn't deserve to be in that mix? Yeah it is a rehash, but what isn't. Isn't Call of Duty 4 the same as call of duty 1 2 3 , but w/ jus a different setting? You know what? It sounds to me that you are just a microsoft fanboy. It's ok to be a fanboy, as long as you don't trash other games, particularly the very good ones.

Blaine Kyllo said...

Call of Duty 4 is the same as 1, 2, 3 only in name and the fact that it is a first-person shooter experience.

Other than that, it's a completely different game.

Super Mario Galaxy was fun to play, sure, but no more fun, I argue, that Super Mario 64.