Game Developer's Choice Nominees Announced

The International Game Developers Association has announced the nominees for the 2005 Developer's Choice Awards. The list includes some pleasantly surprising decisions, such as the inclusion of the quirky Katamari Damacy in the running for Best Game of the Year.

Comments

This has to be a joke

[Dragoon412]

Take a look at some of the nominees:

Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude for writing? I've seen more engaging plots in first-graders' short stories.

Prince Of Persia: Warrior Within and World of Warcraft for character design? Sure, maybe if they're talking about visual design only.

My dislike for a lot of the games listed aside, the ones above are just grossly out of place.

Re:This has to be a joke

[UWC]

wasn't there an upside-down skull with wings or something?

No, no, the upside-down skulls were on spider legs. And the flying skulls had jetpacks, not wings.

I'm not kidding.

Re:This has to be a joke

[Xentor]

(From the GDCA website)

"The Character Design award recognizes the overall excellence of (non-licensed) character design in a game - including, but not limited to, originality, character arc, emotional depth, etc. "

I haven't played Doom 3 (As sibling post mentioned), but do any of the characters really have personalities? WoW comes off as pretty cheesy at times, but many of the hundreds of speaking NPCs have stories behind them, different modes of speech, etc. I don't think WoW deserves the award (Can you really beat Alyx in HL2?), but the nomination seems appropriate to me.

As for the new Larry... I've boycotted that, because Al Lowe wasn't involved.

I can't take this list seriously...

[jvmatthe]

...when it doesn't have Metal Gear Solid 3 anywhere on it. I'd have put it in any of Best Game, Character Design, Game Design, Visual Arts, or Writing. I'd say it's probably the best game I've played in two years, maybe more.

It's got a great story (which manages to tie in well with all the other games), some of the most memorable characters I've ever seen, great music, good sound, impressive voice acting, and at least one really, really impressive one-on-one battle (versus The End, who feels like battling a real human at times). Then there is the whole camouflage mechanic which, while mostly unrealisitic, is pretty unique and interesting. And cut scenes that are actually interactive in a limited way, one that I found really appealing.

To top it off, the game is actually fun to play, which is what we all wanted anyway.

I also appreciated the fact that I could complete the game without killing any enemy soldiers and was able to use tranquilizer darts and stun grenades to defeat all the bosses. This gave me a special ranking at the end for not killing any humans (which apparently excludes bosses, since they do actually die, but that's a quibble). This is indicative of what I feel is one of MGS3's strengths: the freedom to get from point A to point B using any of a variety of methods. Despite being a completely linear game in the large sense, most players will have unique experiences because they'll do the various small tasks using different strategies.

To get back on topic...list is flawed when it doesn't include MGS3. Sorry.

Re:I can't take this list seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

Um... NO.

MGS3 was just like MGS2. It didn't do anything new, it just rehashed the same gameplay yet again. (Oh, it took away that radar. Yeah, that's exciting new gameplay. No, wait, that just makes it more like the various Tom Clancy games, minus the strategy.) Face it, if you played MGS2, you played MGS3. There was nothing new. Hell, you're playing the same damn character!

Oh, wait, that's right, the annoying camouflage and health system. Somehow, making the game play more annoying doesn't seem like an improvement to me. Instead of using one item to completely cure a gunshot wound, now I need to use six! That's six times as fun, right? Oh, wait, no - it's just tedious. The food thing was BS too, since there was food EVERYWHERE and yet again you could instantly chow down on a complete meal to regain your health in the middle of a firefight with ten guards. Yeah, that's good gameplay. I'll just keep taking hits, because once I've finished with the guards, I can just go on a small hunting spree to restock the small zoo of animal carcasses I'm carrying around with me.

The character design is just as lame as always, the story was just as pointless as always, the boss battles were just as lame as always. All around it was a C-grade game. That's probably why it didn't make the nominations - it was a lousy game, that was simply a rehash of previous lousy games.

Re:I can't take this list seriously...

[CrusadeR]

You're not Solid Snake in MGS3.

How is the camo system annoying? You mention it but then fail to explain what bothered you about it.

If you're in the Cure menu frequently, you're doing something wrong - this is a stealth game, not a first-person shooter. You don't want to be getting shot at constantly, much less removing bullets every area.

As mentioned by someone else, food does not cure you - it restores stamina.

You're entitled to your opinion on the game, but it sounds fairly ill-informed. Did you get to the boss fight with The End? Did you beat the game and see the conclusion of the story (which won best story of 2004 from Gamespot incidentally, with the Boss winning best new character)?

hmm

[Staplerh]

The choice snippet above caught my attention:

The list includes some pleasantly surprising decisions, such as the inclusion of the quirky Katamari Damacy in the running for Best Game of the Year.

We keep beating this drum - I think Katamari Damacy looks like a cool game, but believe it or not, most of my friends think that as well. While my friends are nerds (engineers, mostly), they aren't slashdot fans and such. I should ask my far younger brothers and sisters...

What I'm trying to say is that Katamari Damacy is pretty mainstream now, and although it looks like a victory for the 'little guy', I think that victory came a long time ago.

Meh, good call for the awards people anyways, just chippin' in my two cents.

Correct me if I'm wrong...

[Tepshen]

..but isnt this the "DEVELOPERS CHOICE" awards? everyone is going to be posting about how they agree or disagree with the picks. However, If your not a developer your opinion doesnt really mean squat. now if it was awards for popular choice I could understand.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong...

[th1ckasabr1ck]

Well, I AM a developer so I suppose that makes my opinion more valid:

Best Game: Ratchet and Clank 3. This is the most fun I have had playing a game in a while. What game has been made recently that's more fun than R&C3?

Audio: Doom 3 is the best use of audio to create atmosphere that I have ever experienced in a game.

New Studio: What Crytek did with Far Cry as their first game is extremely impressive.

Character Design: Katamari Damacy. Your father in that game is one of my favorite characters of all time.

Technology: Doom 3. There were more than a handfull of moments in that game where I almost could not believe that what I was seeing on my screen was really there.

Writing: Ratchet and Clank 3. Most of the nominees have really terrible writing. HL2? Give me a break. The game was awesome, but the writing? R&C3 was funny and quirky, and did quite a bit to make the overall experience of the game more fun.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong...

[shoptroll]

"Writing: Ratchet and Clank 3. Most of the nominees have really terrible writing. HL2? Give me a break. The game was awesome, but the writing? R&C3 was funny and quirky, and did quite a bit to make the overall experience of the game more fun."

How LSL:MCL made the writing list is beyond me. Especially when you consider that the original creator is pretty much disappointed with Sierra's blasphemous creation. The writing was horrid from what i've heard, which is a major departure from the series since it's always had top notch writing and humour.

WoW being on the visual list is impressive considering that it has the least cutting-edge graphics out of everything on that list.

I think you nailed most of the winners dead on.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong...

[DA_MAN_DA_MYTH]

Where you a developer for Ratchet and Clank 3?

Cool :) This sounds like a fair contest

[Killjoy_NL]

Because the last contest I read about had only EA games listed as nominees and winners.
Like The Sims, Fifa "pick a number", etc

I believe these to be well thought out nominations.

I just hope my current favourite game WoW will win :)

I have no idea what I would have nominated...

[Moryath]

but I would have hoped to see more variation than just "Doom 3, Half-Life 2, GTA, WoW, Doom 3, Half-Life 2, WoW...."

I mean, seriously. There are thousands of games released in a given year, and at least half of every category's nominations are just repeating the same tune.

I'm not going to whine about what I think they should have nominated, that'd be pointless. But I will point out that maybe, just maybe, there should be more variation in where they're looking for their nominations.

KotOR2

[aurum42]

I must say, I'm a tad surprised at the nomination of Knights of the Old Republic 2. Admittedly, I'm only halfway through the game at this point (playing intermittently over a period of months), but IMO the game is a pale shadow of the original Bioware title.

The story seems to lack cohesion with the original's (which was a satisfying Star Wars style archetypal good vs. evil thing - simplistic perhaps, but fun), and they apparently failed to run the game's dialog through a spellchecker, let alone a grammar checker. This ruins the sense of immersion, for me at any rate. There are several seemingly gaping plot holes, that I'll detail in a reply, for anyone who's interested (some mild spoilers, so I'll leave it for now). Also, the music is quite banal compared to the original's haunting melodies (Jeremy Soule did the first one's music, I believe - not sure if it's him again, or someone else, but I liked his music in Dungeon siege too). You'd think that building on KotOR1's game engine would result in fewer bugs, but that's sadly not true either - I've already encountered a few (generally minor, but very annoying).