9th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards Announced

[fitbabits]

Thanks to Gamasutra (http://www.gamasutra.com).

The winners of the 9th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards have been announced at a ceremony in “The Joint” at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas during the D.I.C.E Summit yesterday.

Sony Computer Entertainment Interactive’s Shadow of the Colossus won three awards, including Outstanding Achievement: Art Direction, while Digital Illusions’ Battlefield 2 also won three awards, including PC Game of the Year.

Full list inside (http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showpost.php?p=196951&postcount=2) or click here for a complete rundown of the winners. (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=8121)

Aside from the obvious lack of Xbox 360 games, not a bad selection.

[Reanimated]

Piggy backing here - bap


GAMES OF THE YEAR
Overall Game of the Year:
God of War (P: SCEA, D: SCEA-Santa Monica)

PC Game of the Year:
Battlefield 2 (P: Electronic Arts, D: Digital Illusions)

Console Game of the Year:
God of War (P: SCEA, D: SCEA-Santa Monica)

GENRE AWARDS
Sports Game of the Year
SSX On Tour (P: Electronic Arts, D: EA Canada)

First-Person Action Game of the Year
Battlefield 2 (P: Electronic Arts, D: Digital Illusions)

Role-Playing Game of the Year
Jade Empire (P: Microsoft, D: BioWare)

Fighting Game of the Year
Soul Calibur III (P:/D: Namco)

Action/Adventure Game of the Year
God of War (P: SCEA, D: SCEA-Santa Monica)

Racing Game of the Year
Need for Speed: Most Wanted (P: Electronic Arts, D: EA-Vancouver)

Children's Game of the Year
We Love Katamari (P:/D: Namco)

Downloadable Game of the Year
Wik: Fable of Souls (P: Microsoft, D: Reflexive)

Family Game of the Year
Guitar Hero (P: Red Octane, D: Harmonix)

Simulation Game of the Year
The Movies (P: Activision, D: Lionhead Studios)

Strategy Game of the Year
Civilization IV (P: 2K Games, D: Firaxis)

Massively Multiplayer/Persistent World Game of the Year ***TIE***
City of Villains (P: NCsoft, D: Cryptic Studios)
Guild Wars (P: NCsoft, D: ArenaNet)

Handheld Game of the Year
Nintendogs (P: Nintendo, D: Nintendo EAD)

Cellular Game of the Year
Ancient Empires II (P:/D: Glu Mobile)

[TheKeck]

Aside from the obvious lack of Xbox 360 games, not a bad selection.

Yeah, it looks like pretty decent picks to me.

[Taco]

Out of that list I've only played Guild Wars and CivIV.

[fitbabits]

Uh...

Think maybe we could cut this post down a little?
Some people are just never happy!

[motorhappy]

Since when is Katamari a children's game?

[Reanimated]

Some people are just never happy!




It's just that my scroll finger is getting arthritic. :(

[Chimpbot]

Since when was God of War that damn good?

I have to disagree with a surprising number of those choices...such as the MMO of the year; City of Villians isn't the best MMO of the year, nor is Guild Wars(which isn't even technically in that genre). Personally, an expansion and a game that isn't even in the category would be hard-pressed to win...but they somehow managed to do so.

Wik: Fable of Souls is also one I'd have to dispute; it's certainly the most complicated of the Arcade games, but that doesn't make it the best. I'm not entirely surprised that this is the only Xbox 360 game in the entire list; since the system really only has a plethora of launch titles under its belt, it's no surprise that there wouldn't be many award-winning games yet. Give the system some time, folks.

[benig]

Aside from the obvious lack of Xbox 360 games, not a bad selection.I don't really think there are any 360 games that are game of the year candidates. And I noticed they didn't have a 'best graphics', and even then...
The lack of Resident Evil 4 is kind of revolting, however.

[jacktion]

Resident Evil 4!
It had to have gotten something?
Best non-zombie enemies?
A damn shame that SSX and Need for Speed win awards and this doesn't.

[Serapth]

WiK? How the hell could Geometry wars not have taken that category?

Jade Empire as RPG of the year? Meh... Then again, thinking back, it was kinda an arse year for RPGs. I have to assume something better the JE was released though, what about DQ8 ( never played ).

As to CiV4, I agree its an amazing game. That said, it shouldnt be on the list in its current form. Any game you cant finish due to bugs, no matter how good it is, shouldnt make the cut. If the end game didnt slow down to a *do turn, wait 30 minutes* fiasco, then I agree 100%. Otherwise I think I would nominate Warhammer 40K, or its expansion for the strategy game of the year.

Finally, do you get the impression, they really really liked God of War. Maybe I should dust off my PS2 and actually give this one a shot.

[King Drewsky]

It's kind of funny that the majority of gamers that I know and play with, spent most of 2005 playing Halo2 or WoW. And since those two games came out in 2004, they don't qualify for the awards. GTA:SA should have won something, though. It was released on the Xbox in Summer 2005 with better graphics and the custom soundtrack option so it should qualify for 2005 awards.

Jade Empire as Best RPG is a good call.

[LilEvilFish]

Since when is Katamari a children's game?

The following is a true story, a friend goes into HMV to buy a copy of We <3 Katamari (we've just played on my copy for about 3 hours). He's anxious to get hold of it but can't find it anywhere in the store, he asks the clerk

Clerk - "Oh we only got 6 copies in, we thought it was an unheard of childrens game"

Then he died.

[Citizen Philip]

...

As to CiV4, I agree its an amazing game. That said, it shouldnt be on the list in its current form. Any game you cant finish due to bugs, no matter how good it is, shouldnt make the cut. If the end game didnt slow down to a *do turn, wait 30 minutes* fiasco, then I agree 100%. Otherwise I think I would nominate Warhammer 40K, or its expansion for the strategy game of the year.
..

Unfortuately for you, the game works for lots of people. Like me. As a member of the overwhelming majority of happy CIV 4 players: I siege your statement with rank 5 artillery obliterating your defenses and I assualt your hapless argument with my modern armour.

I don't even capture your argument, I BURN IT DOWN.

[LilEvilFish]

oh and nice to see it's totally devoid of a certain MMORPG, guild wars forever yo

[outontheporch]

there aren't any 360 games out deserving an award. Not that they're all horrible, they're just all so so, nothing special.

My fav 360 game right now is NHL2k6. holy crap what a blast multiplayer

[Serapth]

Unfortuately for you, the game works for lots of people. Like me. As a member of the overwhelming majority of happy CIV 4 players: I siege your statement with rank 5 artillery obliterating your defenses and I assualt your hapless argument with my modern armour.

I don't even capture your argument, I BURN IT DOWN.

How patched though? Unpatched the end of the game was unplayable. I have had 4 friends report the same to me, and I had the game slow to a crawl on both my ath64 1 gig ddr laptop, and my 4 gig p4 3.4ghz desktop.

So, in my random sampling of 6 machines, 6 slowed to a crawl during the end game ( starting around 1800ad or so ). That to me isnt an overwhelming majority! :D Maybe theve fixed it with patches... or maybe it was just all the disks they sent to my area were bad ;)

[Serapth]

there aren't any 360 games out deserving an award. Not that they're all horrible, they're just all so so, nothing special.

My fav 360 game right now is NHL2k6. holy crap what a blast multiplayer

Hard to say. NFS:MW was best on the 360 of all the ports and won the best racing game. WIK won best downloaded game, and is also available on the 360.

CoD2 could easily have one, and I could see an argument for PGR3 over NFS:MW. ( I own both, still trying to decide which I prefer ).

[fitbabits]

For those too lazy to check out the full list on Gamasutra:

As previously noted, a number of favorably reviewed 2005 titles, such as Capcom’s Resident Evil 4 and Majesco’s Psychonauts were not included in the list of nominees, as the publishers in question are not AIAS members and/or have not paid the $1,000 submission fee for separate nominations to the awards.

So that's why RE4 and Psychonauts didn't make the cut.

[captainstrombosis]

Serapth Civ 4 Has worked fine for me and all of my friends from launch, so sucks to be j00.

[Citizen Philip]

How patched though? Unpatched the end of the game was unplayable. I have had 4 friends report the same to me, and I had the game slow to a crawl on both my ath64 1 gig ddr laptop, and my 4 gig p4 3.4ghz desktop.

So, in my random sampling of 6 machines, 6 slowed to a crawl during the end game ( starting around 1800ad or so ). That to me isnt an overwhelming majority! :D Maybe theve fixed it with patches... or maybe it was just all the disks they sent to my area were bad ;)

Gaming laptops are a myth. My system slowed down a bit when I got to the end, but that because of the amount of information that was being transfered around because of unit movements.

If all of your friends were using laptops to game: they shouldn't. If you PC game you should use a desktop, for any number of reasons.

[Nite_Moogle]

I was going to say this looked good until I saw there was a submission fee. That's gay. I give them credit for having kid game and family game categories though.

[YoungAlCapone]

I don't even capture your argument, I BURN IT DOWN.

Let it burn baby...

It worked fine both patched and unpatched on my PC. I see a bit of slow down in animations (for units working or fighting) but not in the actual game itself, if you understand my meaning.

Plus, laptops are no good. You need to play it on a decently set up desktop. I don't mean a supercomputer, just a more recent setup.

I have a P4 @ 3.0ghz with HT, a gig of ram and a 9800xt. I run it with everything cranked at 1280.

[bapenguin]

Shortened the post a bit. :)

[Stormwatcher]

Wow, mind your homophoby... The fee is not "gay", it's bad. And I'm not gay.

I had no big problems playing Civ4, I gave it a high score on my published review. It has some strange hiccups on the videos... and was certainly slower on endgame. BUT I finished more than one game on huge maps.

[Lodin]

For those too lazy to check out the full list on Gamasutra:

As previously noted, a number of favorably reviewed 2005 titles, such as Capcom’s Resident Evil 4 and Majesco’s Psychonauts were not included in the list of nominees, as the publishers in question are not AIAS members and/or have not paid the $1,000 submission fee for separate nominations to the awards.

So that's why RE4 and Psychonauts didn't make the cut.It also means that this list is complete bullshit and should be ignored.
Meh I say!

[Serapth]

Well I played it on both a modern laptop and a desktop, so it wasnt directly to the machine. The odd thing is, the game itself ran fine, its just at the end there was a looooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnggggggg pause between turns. Like 5 to 10 minutes pauses, and the game went from not having them, to having them at every turn. The only other major bugs I encountered were some video playback stutters, but that I dont care about.

If it was just me, that would be one thing, but I honestly saw this on every other pc I saw the game on ( most of them being PC's, not laptops ).

Oh well, dont mean to threadjack. Oh, and dont get me wrong, civ 4 kcik as.

[Reanimated]

Shortened the post a bit. :)



Thank you kind sir. Your good will towards man will not go overlooked on the day of judgement.

[Serapth]

Thank you kind sir. Your good will towards man will not go overlooked on the day of judgement.

You insensitive Clod! Bap's a budhist didnt you know!!!

[jeffool]

Sucks that Psychonauts wasn't entered, but I'm actually happy that RE4 wasn't. I felt that both GoW, SotC, Guitar Hero, and CivIV were better games than RE4. Though, I never had any problems with CivIV? *shrug*

Though, they say Shadow of the Colossus won three awards, yet they only list two? Anyone have a "full" full list of the awards?

[fitbabits]

Thank you kind sir. Your good will towards man will not go overlooked on the day of judgement.
It's not my fault you're scared of whole paragraphs and lots of text. Next time I'll add a picture for you to make it easier. ;)

[Kelegacy]

Jade Empire is NOT RPG of the year. What a crock.

[Serapth]

Jade Empire is NOT RPG of the year. What a crock.

Yeah but... how many good rpg's were there last year. Generic jrpg # 723 - 785, Jade Empire and possibly DQ8 ( never played ). PC wise, I cant think of anything really good, unless you count MMORPGs. Frankly, this year was pretty suckish on the RPG front.

JE may have won by default. DEFAULT!!! Yay rod.

[Kefkataran]

Personally, an expansion and a game that isn't even in the category would be hard-pressed to win...but they somehow managed to do so.

City of Villains isn't an expansion. It's a stand-alone that connects with the original game.

how many good rpg's were there last year. Generic jrpg # 723 - 785, Jade Empire and possibly DQ8 ( never played ).

DQ8's totally better than Jade Empire. :p

[Reanimated]

It's not my fault you're scared of whole paragraphs and lots of text. Next time I'll add a picture for you to make it easier. ;)




It's just that I don't like scrolling for 10 minutes to get to the front page posts that I'm posting in.

[YoungAlCapone]

Yeah but... how many good rpg's were there last year. Generic jrpg # 723 - 785, Jade Empire and possibly DQ8 ( never played ). PC wise, I cant think of anything really good, unless you count MMORPGs. Frankly, this year was pretty suckish on the RPG front.

JE may have won by default. DEFAULT!!! Yay rod.

Radiata Stories and Riviera were both better.

[mister_slim]

For those too lazy to check out the full list on Gamasutra:

As previously noted, a number of favorably reviewed 2005 titles, such as Capcom’s Resident Evil 4 and Majesco’s Psychonauts were not included in the list of nominees, as the publishers in question are not AIAS members and/or have not paid the $1,000 submission fee for separate nominations to the awards.

So that's why RE4 and Psychonauts didn't make the cut.
Hence why the AIAS awards have barely more credibility than Spike's.