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The 2006 Game Developer's Choice Award Nominees

Posted by Zonk on from the it-is-on-now dept.

While most websites and organizations have already handed out their 2006 awards, arguably the most respected awards have yet to be decided. Early next month, the Game Developer's Choice Awards will be distributed in a ceremony at GDC. Today, the nominees for last year's best of the best have been announced. The best game category is another shootout between Gears of War, Twilight Princess, and Oblivion, with Clover Studios' Okami joining the other three in the fight for the ultimate award. Each of these games did very well otherwise; Oblivion netted four nominees, Okami and Gears three each, and Zelda following up with a respectable two.

35 comments

  1. Probably already out there... by faloi · · Score: 1

    But how about a system for consumers to vote on the games they actually...I dunno...enjoyed playing? I'd like to see games rated on things like best playability, best replay, best time waster (those little games that help you kill 10 or 15 minutes here and there), that sort of thing.

    --
    "It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
    1. Re:Probably already out there... by zoward · · Score: 1

      It's already out there. Consumers vote with their dollars - an award far more important to a studio than peer or critical recognition (just ask the developers at Clover).

      --
      "Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
    2. Re:Probably already out there... by Mongoose · · Score: 2

      It's a shame about Clover, but I think the problem was with it's other titles. It's one thing to be a critic's darling and still make a profit compared to making a huge profit on doing something that's easy to clone and not that inventive. A lot of the minigame and mario titles come to mind when I think about something you couldn't sell without the mario characters being in the game. The game itself is pretty bland, but the fanbase will support you. O-kami on the other hand rarely had a bad word from anyone -- execept for that one review I saw where this guy just blew up because he hated Japan.

      I guess what I'm saying is after what they did to Viewtiful Joe and released utter garbage like God Hand releasing a single, great game like O-kami wasn't going to help anything. They seemed to try and milk VJ like it was a mario style character with tons of bad games and even some Capcom crossovers. I don't know how I feel about mentioning Clover did God Hand to people that love O-kami. You'll have a lot less respect for the former studio. For the American audience the homophobia, racism, etc in God Hand can be pretty harsh -- since it's supposed to be funny. I can't really Capcom after all those horrible games and small profit too. It's not like you can make a direct sequel to O-kami anyway. It would be nice to see more games in the same vein with a focus on Shinto or some other interesting religion, but it would be hard to recapture all that was right with the O-kami art direction/writing/gameplay/story again.

  2. I kinda agree....kinda by Intangible+Fact · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Gears of War, Oblivion and Okami deserve to have awards. Not to be a troll or anything but zelda shouldn't get awards. Let me explain. Graphics wise, it doesn't set any new standards. Even the controls are nothing to jump for joy about(Wii sports and Raymond have better controls). The storyline is the same ol thing (get hookshot....get bow...). The new experience besides being able to use the wiimote is to change into a wolf. The muddy textures and horrible music pissed me off. Just because this franchise has been with us since we were young it doesn't mean we should write off the inaccuracies within the games. Sorry nintendo fans.

    1. Re:I kinda agree....kinda by niconorsk · · Score: 2, Interesting

      While I agree that Zelda: TP might not deserve award-winning praises(and this is coming from a Zeldaholic, so that's saying a bit), there are a few things I'd like to point out. I think Nintendo delivered exactly what fans of the series were hoping for which is a new Zelda with the graphical style of Ocarina of Time, only bigger and prettier. And this is hard to argue is not the case. Also, there is a difference between puzzle mechanics and storyline. Not that the story has changed that much, but after all the entire premise of the Zelda universe is history repeating itself. As for the puzzle mechanics, can you imagine the uproar if a Zelda game came out without the bow, hookshot and Master Sword. I think have made quite a brilliant move with the release of the Wii. On one hand, they have Zelda moving a lot of consoles. On the other hand they have Wii Sports demonstrating the potential of the control mechanics. I have hope that someone will soon come out with an absolutely brilliant use of the Wiimote, which will create a new genre in the same way that GTA3 did for the previous generation.

      --
      Nothing is impossible. We just haven't quite worked out how to do it yet.
    2. Re:I kinda agree....kinda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've never played any of these games, but I keep up with the gaming press, I have friends that I trust, and I've played a hell of a lot of other games that I can use for comparison when reading between the lines. I've consistently heard things like "incredible, "awesome," and "I wish it were longer, but it was totally intense" applied to GoW.

      I have a friend who got together with another friend who was 360 owner for a day where they played through the entire game of GoW. These are both advanced gamers with wide experience over many genres. My friend was gushing. It was clear that this was one of his all-time favorite gaming experiences.

      This was before he got his Wii. He loves his Wii. He owns Zelda, as well as an almost alarmingly high percentage of the other launch titles. He's never bothered to mention Zelda. He had me over for bowling, and even showed me his DragonBall Z game, but Zelda never came up.

      I have no doubt that Zelda is a good game. I've read a bunch of posts and a few min reviews that have pointed this out. It was widely anticipated and widely enjoyed, especially by gamers who were already fans. But Zelda did not generate the huge excitement GoW enjoyed. The only reason GoW wasn't even bigger than it was was because only 360 owners could play it. I personally heard more than one acquaintance seriously contemplate getting a 360 so they could play this game (full discloser: none of them actually did). By comparison, though Zelda sold more than a few Wiis to Zelda fans, the biggest "must have" game for the Wii was included right in the box.

      In truth, for innovation, customer excitement, customer satisfaction and pure execution on Nintendo's part, I'd pick Wii Sports for an Award over Zelda any day. But of the candidates actually up for consideration, I don't think Zelda is capable of being a serious competitor to Gears of War.

    3. Re:I kinda agree....kinda by HappySqurriel · · Score: 1

      Sometimes a product, typically in entertainment, is greater than the sum of their parts ...

      Personally speaking, I thought The Legend of Zelda had an attention to detail and was very entertaining in its long single player campaign.

      At the same time a product, typically in entertainment, can be less than the sum of their parts ...

      FEAR was a beautiful game, with an interesting story, but seemed stale from the moment I started playing it.

    4. Re:I kinda agree....kinda by 7Prime · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I think "more than the sum of its parts" describes Zelda: TP, perfectly. People who haven't played it shouldn't comment. It's not "Just Another Zelda (TM)", and I'm not speaking of the little tweaks they made to gameplay and storyline. The game had heart, 'nuff said. It's as if it and FF12 (as good as it is) exchanged souls. Who cares if the story and gameplay are similar, what mattered to this game was that they finally decided to make characters worth fighting for, put emotion into the storyTELLING and created their own unique look & feel that other games in the series could only dream of accomplishing. The game is about subtlety, and you can't get that by just being an armchair critic. These are not the kind of comments usually reserved for Zelda titles, which tend to have stale characters, a fairly predictable look & feel, and pay very little attention to detail.

      Sure, it doesn't win any awards on originality. But I'm tired of originality. Games are original enough in their gameplay elements, where games lag behind are in things like subtlety of character, depth of emotion, and their own unique feel. Twilight Princess delivers in spades. Who cares if it looks like Ocarina, the similarities are only on the most superficial levels.

      --
      Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
  3. Gears of War? by hlomas · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wasn't exactly blown away by Gears of War. Sure, the art was stunning, but the game-play was rather simplistic and linear, and the bosses were jokes. Why is such a shallow title receiving so much fan-fare?

    1. Re:Gears of War? by Intangible+Fact · · Score: 1

      "LINEAR: 1. relating to a straight line or capable of being represented by a straight line 2. developed sequentially from the obvious without in-depth understanding" All these games metioned for awards are not linear. Even though I hate zelda at least I can point out some good thing about the game.

    2. Re:Gears of War? by ObiWanStevobi · · Score: 1

      Turn the difficulty up. The final boss takes longer to beat on insane difficulty than the entire game on casual.

  4. Re:A Complete And Utter Joke by Soygen · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Only thing funnier than a fanboy, is a rabid hater. Yeah, 360 owners hate GoW. All three and half million of the people who purchased the game. Anyone who thinks GoW looks shitty either is full of shit themselves or has never seen it running on a HD display. I imagine you're probably both. I agree Okami owned though.

  5. Not bad... by MrNash · · Score: 2

    The list of nominees is actually pretty well-rounded. It would be nice to see Okami win an award or two, especially in light of Clover getting shut down.

  6. Re:A Complete And Utter Joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Goes to Google.
    Searches around for numerous discussion boards filled with Xbox 360 owners talking about Gears of War.

    Sees almost nothing but bitching and complaints about:

    * Network disconnects
    * Lag, lag, lag
    * No one playing ranked matches
    * People desperately waiting for a patch
    * People angrily complaining about the patch
    * Fundamentally broken online gameplay

    Although you do have to hand it Epic, they did go head to head with a mediocre shooter with guys in shiny metal armor against the vast library of other quality Xbox 360 games last November/December like Viva Pinata, and, uh...

  7. Oblivion? by BigJoey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ok, oblivion was a nice game and finally brought an good RPG to the console, but lets be honest, it wasnt thát great. It had nice graphics and stuff, but way more could be pulled out of our Xbox 360's. If I could vote my vote would go to GoW, although its nothing more then a good looking shooter with some new actions. In my oppinion a game should win an award when its addictive and makes u wanna keep playing, and thats what GoW is and what Oblivion isnt.

    --
    http://rwk2.RaceWarKingdoms.com/cgi-bin/rwk.cgi?sw imsuitBigjoey
    1. Re:Oblivion? by Aladrin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Are you kidding? Oblivion was one of the best games of the year! I bought it for the PC, played it about 40-50 hours. I beat the mage and fighter guilds and the main storyline.

      After getting a 360, I decided to buy it for that, too, and play all the guilds. I played about 60 hours this time, and beat all the guilds and main storyline. I also bought the KotN expansion, and have another few hours fun from that.

      Any game that I spend over 100 hours on is beyond good, its amazing. I usually get bored with a game at the 20 hour mark for an above-average game. For an average game, its more like 10-15 hours. Even most great games, I get bored at 40 or 50 hours.

      I think a lot of people say RPG and think Final Fantasy 3. This is obviously not the same kind of RPG as that, and anyone who wants it to be will be disappointed.

      --
      "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
    2. Re:Oblivion? by glenrm · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I consider Oblivion one of the best games I have ever played (playing it on a PC), and that is going back all the way to text adventures on the TRS-80 and Ultima ][ on the Apple, and Wizardry Crusaders of the Dark Savant. It is a massive game, granted Gears is also an excellent tittle.

      --
      Onward to the Aether Sphere!
  8. oops.. I read that as 2600 game developer awards by crgrace · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I read that as "2600 game developer awards", and was looking forward to a fun nostalgic look at 6502 assembly programming. Oh well. I guess I can also look at the Atariage archives.

    I get so nostalgic about programming. It was just so much fun in the early 80s. I work in IC design now, and the programming is primarily Perl, Python, and proprietary scripting languages, but I really miss BASIC, Pascal, and Assembly on those early machines.

  9. HAHAHA by LKM · · Score: 1

    Come on. Admit it. You've never played the game. You don't even know how to spell Rayman, so I'm guessing you're just making crap up. Gears of War, by the way, may be a beautiful game, but it only takes a few hours to finish, and it's basically a third person shooter like with somewhat weird control (I hate the context sensitive button, I never know what is going to happen when I push it). Oblivion? Come on. It's a buggy online RPG without the online part. Okami should have won, though.

  10. OblivionZelda by Intangible+Fact · · Score: 1

    Gears of war a joke?? Go play zelda and tell me how thats so much better. Find hookshot, go to dungeon, find bow, go to dungeon, reapeat for 60hrs. Oblivion has more substance, prettier style, better graphics, longer gamplay than zelda and okami.

    1. Re:OblivionZelda by Emetophobe · · Score: 1

      Oblivion has a ton of flaws, I don't think it deserves all the accolades it has received. It was fun for the first 30-40 hours, but I couldn't make it any further. I've tried going back and playing it several times, but I quickly lose interest (this is on the PC version).

      I could deal with the repetitive voice acting and other minor flaws, but what really ruined Oblivion for me was the horrible fighting system. The list of magic spells was a joke, playing as a mage gets pretty boring. Playing as a warrior also sucked because there are only 3-4 different sword swings you could perform, this gets pretty boring to watch after 30+ hours. I kinda of wish Oblivion was more like Diablo 2 in the sense that you had a variety of spells or special moves you could perform.. If only the warrior could whirlwind around or your amazon/archer could have some special arrow shots, instead you get plain ol' boring attacks. Way too simplistic and dumbed down (most likely for the console version).

    2. Re:OblivionZelda by Mongoose · · Score: 1

      Ah, I don't mean to belittle you -- you actually can do both of those things when you reach a certain level. Once you're an Expert Marksman you have a chance to stun with your arrows, which is pretty brutal if you ever seen 2s stun enchantment on a bow. Basically, you can knock down and they never get up -- I'd say it's too over powering if it wasn't so expensive. Also I forget the skill and level needed, but you can spin / cleave whatever you want to call it with a sword. I love Oblivion, and I'm playing Knights of the Nine in Wine right now. I have all The Elder Scrolls games running under Linux. =)

    3. Re:OblivionZelda by IcyNeko · · Score: 1

      Oblivion, with its flaws, doesn't go so critical that you can lose your gameplay due to following the wrong quest. Twilight Princess DOES. My friend hit that point, and because Zelda's saving system only allows 3 saves (2 were occupied by his kids), he got screwed. Sure, he could have moved the save data around with the Wii data management, but then again, Zelda could not suck to begin with.

      But that's asking too much.

      Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to be the hero of cyrodil.

  11. Okami. by acomj · · Score: 1

    I'm playing that game right now. When I first heard about Okami I was confused about what it was about.

    It makes a lot more sense once you start playing, its a lot of fun and really stunning to look at and has a different feel from almost any game. The fact you do things by drawing them is neat different. The story is good enough to keep things moving and the translations where excellent, adding some humor among other things.

  12. Huh? by ObiWanStevobi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maybe I'm the only one to put hundreds of hours into Oblivion, but I doubt it. I will admit that after playing through several characters at a couple hundred hours each, you do eventually tire of the game. To say the graphics are nice is a bit of an understatement. I was blown away when stepping out of the sewers. Perhaps, and hopefully, it's not all the 360 can do, but it has to be said that the game raised the bar immensly for RPGs.

  13. Re:A Complete And Utter Joke by The+Orange+Mage · · Score: 1

    Well, how many players do you think posted on those forums that DIDN'T have any problems? Happy gamers are too busy gaming to post at message boards.

  14. FF XII? by Sciros · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I have Oblivion, Zelda, and Gears, and all three of these games are worthy nominees for Game of the Year. But what about Final Fantasy XII? This game has many strengths as well, and although I admit that it competes with Oblivion for the long-as-heck single-player RPG niche, Okami does the same with regards to Zelda. In any case, its art direction, unique combat system, musical score, and storyline are top-notch.

    Personally I'd give it to Oblivion, but all four of those games (haven't played Okami) deserve high praise.

    Really, it's been a great year for gaming! I mean, besides those games, I'm busy with Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin for DS and Guild Wars: Nightfall for PC. Most years have far fewer deserving candidates for "best game" than 2006. 2005 had what? Shadow of the Collossus and Guild Wars/WoW?

    --
    I like basketball!!1!
    1. Re:FF XII? by 7Prime · · Score: 1

      You haven't played the one that really should win awards. Play Okami... it's incredible. For originality of concept and art design (different than grahical prowess), there's nothing else like it. Now, I'd give game of the year to "Twilight Princess", but if we're talking awards for originality and follow through, Okami has everything else beat into a pulp. I loved FF12, but it has to take a 3rd place this year in my book. Haven't played Oblivion or Gears of Ware, but neither of them seem remotely like things I would like.

      --
      Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
  15. Wii Sports as Best Game by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From looking at the website, it appears that Wii Sports is meant to be listed as a Best Game contender. The formating makes it look like its part of the Zelda group.

  16. Medieval II by Cothol · · Score: 1

    This latest addition to the Total War series has keept me up all night for the past week, I am supprised that noone talks about it. But I guess strategy games aren't that hip nowdays...

    1. Re:Medieval II by Nimrangul · · Score: 1

      Oh, they're hip, as long as they're not buggy piles of shite - M:TW2 came out as one. It still has big bugs in it, and Sega's not getting those fixes out fast enough. Creative Assembly should never have let themselves be bought up by the company, all Sega has done is hurt CA's image.

      --
      I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
  17. Re:oops.. I read that as 2600 game developer award by crgrace · · Score: 1

    That is so interesting that you come from a completely different place. An entire Atari 2600 game would only be a couple of hundred lines of code, but each line was important, and usually somewhat deep. It's kind of like that phase "being the machine". I just loved the way you could almost "feel" how the 6502 worked when you programmed in assembly. Many things were just not possible in Basic, Pascal or C. Nowadays it's the opposite. I imagine only a true expert could write a better x86 game in ASM than in C. I certainly couldn't. I bet I would do best in Python, which is the closest I can get to the kind of "fun" I remember in the early 1980s. The joke in college, though, when people would argue between C, Lisp, and Turbo Pascal as their favorite programming language, I would always reply "My favorite programming language is solder!"

  18. Writing - Oblivion??? by tdelaney · · Score: 1

    How the hell does Oblivion get nominated for *writing*? Does writing simply mean that it's got text? Because there sure as hell isn't any story worth mentioning, nor is there any quality writing in any of the quests.

    Ridiculous.