The 2006 Game Developer's Choice Award Nominees

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.

Comments

I kinda agree....kinda

[Intangible Fact]

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.

Re:I kinda agree....kinda

[niconorsk]

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.

Gears of War?

[hlomas]

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?

Not bad...

[MrNash]

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.

Oblivion?

[BigJoey]

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.

Re:Oblivion?

[Aladrin]

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.

Re:Oblivion?

[glenrm]

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.

oops.. I read that as 2600 game developer awards

[crgrace]

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.

Re:Probably already out there...

[Mongoose]

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.

Huh?

[ObiWanStevobi]

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.

FF XII?

[Sciros]

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?