Gears of War wins big at Interactive Achievement Awards

by Ludwig Kietzmann on Feb 9th 2007 12:15PM

The 10th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards have at long last confirmed a growing, industry-wide suspicion: Gears of War is pretty good. In a ceremony held last night at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences bestowed eight shiny statuettes upon Epic Games' monsters vs. testosterone epic. In addition to winning overall Game of the Year, it picked up gongs for Console Game of the Year, Online Game Play, Animation, Art Design, Visual Engineering, Outstanding Character Performance and Action/Adventure Game of the Year.

Wii Sports waggled three awards out of the academy, including ones for Outstanding Innovation, Gameplay Engineering and Game Design. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Guitar Hero II and Loco Roco all came away with double wins, whereas The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess made off with a single prize for Outstanding Story and Character Development (in your face, Saint's Row!). Inaugural Lifetime Achievement awards went to Minoru Arakawa and Howard Lincoln, for their involvement with the NES and the rebuilding of a shattered games industry during the 1980's.

Check out the full list of winners after the break.

Read -- AIAS press release [PDF]

Game of the Year

Overall
• Gears of War (P: Microsoft Game Studios, D: Epic Games, Producer: Rod Ferguson, Game Director: Michael Capps, Creative Director: Cliff Bleszinski)

Computer
• Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (P: 2K Games, D: Bethesda Softworks, Executive Producer: Todd Howard)

Console
• Gears of War (P: Microsoft Game Studios, D: Epic Games, Producer: Rod Ferguson, Game Director: Michael Capps, Creative Director: Cliff Bleszinski)

Handheld
• Nintendo Brain Age (P: Nintendo, D: Nintendo, Producer: Shinya Takahashi, Game Director: Kouichi Kawamoto, Creative Directors: Kouichi Kawamoto, Noriko Kitamura, Masamichi Sakaino, Shinji Kitahara, Yoshinori Katsuki, Tadashi Matsushita, Masura Nishida)

Outstanding Innovation in Gaming

• Wii Sports (P: Nintendo, D: Nintendo, Executive Producer: Satoru Iwata, Producer: Katsuya Eguchi, Game Directors: Keiza Ohta, Takayuki Shimamura, Yoshikazu Yamashita)

Outstanding Achievement

Animation
• Gears of War (P: Microsoft Game Studios, D: Epic Games, Producer: Rod Ferguson, Game Director: Michael Capps, Creative Director: Cliff Bleszinski)

Art Direction
• Gears of War (P: Microsoft Game Studios, D: Epic Games, Producer: Rod Ferguson, Game Director: Michael Capps, Creative Director: Cliff Bleszinski)

Soundtrack
• Guitar Hero 2 (P: Activision/Red Octane, D: Harmonix, Producer: John Tam, Game Director: Daniel Sussman, Creative Director: Josh Randall)

Original Music Composition
• LocoRoco (P: Sony Computer Entertainment, D: Sony Computer Entertainment, Producer/Game Director/Creative Director: Tsutomo Kouno)

Sound Design
• Call of Duty 3 (P: Activision, D: Treyarch, Producer/Game Director/Creative Director: Treyarch)

Story and Character Development
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (P: Nintendo, D: Nintendo, Producer: Shigeru Miyamoto, Game Director: Eiji Aonuma, Executive Producer: Satoru Iwata)

Game Play Engineering
• Wii Sports (P: Nintendo, D: Nintendo, Executive Producer: Satoru Iwata, Producer: Katsuya Eguchi, Game Directors: Keiza Ohta, Takayuki Shimamura, Yoshikazu Yamashita)

Online Game Play
• Gears of War (P: Microsoft Game Studios, D: Epic Games, Producer: Rod Ferguson, Game Director: Michael Capps, Creative Director: Cliff Bleszinski)

Visual Engineering
• Gears of War (P: Microsoft Game Studios, D: Epic Games, Producer: Rod Ferguson, Game Director: Michael Capps, Creative Director: Cliff Bleszinski)

Game Design
• Wii Sports (P: Nintendo, D: Nintendo, Executive Producer: Satoru Iwata, Producer: Katsuya Eguchi, Game Directors: Keiza Ohta, Takayuki Shimamura, Yoshikazu Yamashita)

Outstanding Character Performance

Male
• Gears of War (P: Microsoft Game Studios, D: Epic Games, Producer: Rod Ferguson, Game Director: Michael Capps, Creative Director: Cliff Bleszinski)

Female
• Viva Piñata (P: Microsoft Game Studios, D: Rare, Producer/Game Director/Creative Director: Greg Mayles)

Genre Awards

Sports Game of the Year
• Tony Hawk Project 8 (P: Activision, D: Neversoft Entertainment, Producer; Chris Parise, Game Director/Creative Director: Brian Bright)

First-Person Action Game of the Year
• Rainbow Six: Vegas (P: Activision, D: Neversoft Entertainment, Producer; Chris Parise, Game Director/Creative Director: Brian Bright)

Role-Playing Game of the Year
• Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (P: 2K Games, D: Bethesda Softworks, Executive Producer: Todd Howard)

Fighting Game of the Year
• Fight Night Round 3 (P/D: Electronic Arts, Producer: Kudo Tsunoda, Game Director: Keith Morton, Creative Director: Darren Bennett)

Action/ Adventure Game of the Year
• Gears of War (P: Microsoft Game Studios, D: Epic Games, Producer: Rod Ferguson, Game Director: Michael Capps, Creative Director: Cliff Bleszinski)

Racing Game of the Year
• Burnout Revenge (P: Electronic Arts, D: Criterion Games, Creative Director: Alex Ward, Criterion Games)

Children's Game of the Year
• LocoRoco (P: Sony Computer Entertainment, D: Sony Computer Entertainment, Producer/Game Director/Creative Director: Tsutomo Kouno)

Downloadable Game of the Year
• Bookworm Adventures (P/D: PopCap, Producer/Game Director/Creative Director: Tysen Henderson)

Family Game of the Year
• Guitar Hero 2 (P: Activision/Red Octane, D: Harmonix, Producer: John Tam, Game Director: Daniel Sussman, Creative Director: Josh Randall)

Simulation Game of the Year
• Microsoft Flight Simulator X (P/D: Microsoft Game Studios, Producer: Shawn Firminger, Game Director: John Licata, Creative Director: Patt Cook, Jason Waskey)

Strategy Game of the Year
• Company of Heroes (P: THQ, D: Relic, Producer/Game Director: John Johnson, Creative Director: Sean Dunn)

Massively Multiplayer/Persistent World Game of the Year
• Guild Wars Nightfall (P: NCsoft, D: ArenaNet, Producer: Jay Adams, Game)

Mobile Game of the Year
• Orcs and Elves (P: Electronic Arts Mobile, D: Fountainhead Entertainment, Producer/ Game Director/ Creative Director: John Carmack, Katherine A. Kang)

Reader Comments (48)

Gears of War wins my Awards too man!!!!

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Hurray for space marines fighting monsters #243!

Gears of War got more awards than Zelda because it was a better game.

Ready? GO!

Ok fanboys this is the template.

This is so bias, they didnt even mention (instert your favorite game). I played (insert game that won) and it was just another generic (insert genre of said game)

Jeez, Okami couldn't get anything? Overall not bad selections though.

This is so bias, they didnt even mention XAVIX. I played WIISPORTS and it was just another generic XAVIX.

heh, this is fun.

Go Gears Go.

Hehe, it won for Action/ADVENTURE. It's too bad they don't make LucusArts type adventure games anymore, because those two genres really shouldn't be lumped together.

I use High-biased tapes in my PXL2000.

gears of war won for.... art direction? animation? online play? whats a strange awards show...

AirIntake: Wash your mouth out with soap and go play Telltale's Sam & Max!

They should have never won for online game play! It's broke! They don't want you to play ranked matches with your friends but you still can, causing the teams to be stacked on one side. Fix it and I will give you an award but right now I won't even pop the game in.

This is so bias, they didnt even mention Resistance. I played Gears of War and it was just another generic Resistance.

They have best FPS, but not best shooter? That makes no sense. Gears =/= Action-Adventure game.

I just love that Wii Sports stopped Gears from being perfect.

Wow, Gears beat a Gamecube game with Wii controls! I'm impressed! Not.

10. This is so bias, they didnt even mention Resistance. I played Gears of War and it was just another generic Resistance.

Are you serious, Resistance better than gears of war? You are probably going stir crazy from playing Resistance so much because there are no other decent PS 3 games to play.

Grunge, you're the first person I've ever heard of that actually thinks Resistance is a better game than Gears.

Grunge, yes, the style of play is exactly the same. You know, kinda like chess is another generic checkers game.

"gears of war won for.... art direction? animation? online play? whats a strange awards show..."

Er, huh? The art in GoW was beautiful to say the least... Not one part in the entire game where you think "have I seen this corridor before?" You obviously have not played the game!

..and he didn't even get the template right.

Agree with Dave. I think resistence is good, but its not half the game gears is. multiplayer is garbage compared to gears. oh and who cares if teams are stacked? i like playing with my friends and generally not all of my friends are all that good. Plus ive played with people that can take out the entire team by themselves (even with host shotgun on our side etc). I wish gears had an option to play with a team of people vs another team of people so then it would make both sides happy.

How can best soundtrack go to guitar hero? The songs are built into the gameplay, its not really a soundtrack, if that makes any sense.

Wow... these games really make me want to run out and buy a $600 X-box with HD DVD or PS3 (note sarcasm) No wonder neither system has made it past the Sega Dreamcast Inseall Base Mark yet. Game designers really need to start making something that will appeal to a broaser market.

@ Kizzle

No, not really.

If you really wanted to be cynical, you should have said that Ocarina of Time already won. In 1997.

[/oh snap]

:P

Anyways, I think that WiiSports is much more important to the Wii's direction than a game that would have done well on any of Nintendo's other consoles.

And congrats to Gears. Not my cup of tea, but a lot of people liked it. I would have been pissed if it won Character Design, however. :P

And of course congrats to Minoru Arakawa and Howard Lincoln.

So I guess fight night isn't a sports game- its a fighting game!

This is so bias, they didnt even mention Resistance. I played Gears of War and it was just another generic Third Person Shooter!

Yay Gears!!

Guitar Hero shouldn't have gotten best soundtrack. They are kickass songs that you play along with. They are the game, not the soundtrack. It would be like "And this years Emmy for best soundtrack goes to...The new Nickleback CD."

14. "gears of war won for.... art direction? animation? online play? whats a strange awards show..."

Er, huh? The art in GoW was beautiful to say the least... Not one part in the entire game where you think "have I seen this corridor before?" You obviously have not played the game!"

The art was beautiful, and graphics amazing, and I think it totally deserves the 'visual engineering' award. But the art direction itself had little style or charm as compared to say, okami. It just didn't seem very... coherent or memorable in anything except its technical acheivement.

But yeah, I have actually never played the game :p but art direction can be judged from hi-def video, as can animation to some extent. Gameplay definatly not, but my comment on the online play derives from some fierce criticisms I've read on the cheapness and broken-ness of certain weapons, and the whole online ranked matching debacle. I can't really defend the point because I haven't played it, but I felt like it should be at least brought up.

What is Bookworm Adventures? Best Downloadable Game didn't go to something on XBLA or VC?

I think bookworm adventures is that game tycho was obsessed with a while back... about words and stuff...

tycho from penny arcade, that is

lol

@ Dave

And anyone who's giving Grunge a hard time (post 10) needs to take a look at Post #1 HE'S JOKING PEOPLE!

LOOK AT IT YOU'LL LAUGH.

@ shivr
You know it not smart to comment on something you no nothing about except from what you heard or saw on a video. Here's something you might not of heard about it's called a "patch" now this patch thing tends to fix stuff that is broken like the ranked issues in GoW and the whole patch thing has been done to fix this issue for over 2 weeks now! And about the art direction....it's the best looking game graphiclly out to date hands down! nothing that is available on consoles looks close to GoW yet.

Shivr,

Let me explain this to you, as I have actually played GoW, a lot. The online has a lot of problems. They aren't as major as most blow them up to be, and some are rather trivial, but they definately do exist.

However, the online is not broken. In spite of all of its problems that you have no doubt heard about, it is still hands down the best online shooter released this year. That says a lot if you think about it. The people that made these awards no doubt knew about the problems of the games they checked out, and Gears STILL won.

It is much more unique of an experience than you likely think, too. People like to just group it into the "shooting aliens" catergory. I mean, there aren't even any aliens in the game. They're mutants/monsters actually, since they don't come from outerspace. I hope you get a chance to play it sometime. Not everyone I know likes it, but many think it is just friken awesome.

As for art, that is always subjective. Okami obviously takes a more unique approach than Gears and is more "artsy", but I think Gears looks "cooler". Art is impossible to really judge. I honestly wouldn't say that Gears has that impressive of an art scheme. It is presented great, and has has so much variation in textures and objects. I mean, it damn near maxes out the DVD9 with an 8 hour game. That is crazy.

But I really think the "art" of gears is more just technical prowess. Other than a few bosses and mini-bosses, most of the stuff in it is fairly unoriginal in the sense that it looks like Earth. The Locust have two arms and two legs.

It is often difficult to tell if Grunge is being a smart-ass or not. But, in this case, it is pretty obvious. I lol'd to be honest.

I can't believe that Killzone Liberation didn't win best handheld. Brain Training is obviously just another Brain Training game.

GoW FTW, literally.

I played Gears online on my neighbor's 360 and it is awsome. That i'll admit. Still, in one month Marcus' lil reign will have no significance once Kratos re emerges onto the PS2!! Get ready for a 'game of the year' repeat. Heh, heh..

Ive yet to play gears, but I know it must be shit-hot to beat out TP, which is the best game ive ever played.

Probably a matter of, whats that thing called?

Taste?

@ Azorean

Well technically the patch was released in 2007, and these awards are for 2006 games, eh? And there are still the issues with weapons, which I don't think were all fixed with the patch. And yeah, I'm really not qualified to talk about this much since I've only read about it, but like I said, I wanted to bring up the point of the complaints. Then again it might just be that no other game offered a superior online experience last year, but with the praise I've been hearing for rainbow 6 vegas... again, I digress, I don't own these games, It just seemed to me based on these reports, that GoW was getting awarded based on hype more than reality.

@Jake

Thanks for agreeing with me about the art thing :3 And while art is difficult to judge because of the subjectivity of it, this is an awards show, they -did- judge it, and I think they judge incorrectly, or at least mistook good "art direction" for "good graphics." Or mashed them into sorta the same category :/ Just because they're part of the academy of interactive arts doesn't mean they can't make mistakes :)

Better luck next year Sonyfans. You're launch was Gundam-awful! Maybe MGS and FF will compete in 2008.

*sigh.....*

Here is another sign that the industry is still leaning too far towards hollywoodization. It doesn't matter if it has no story, short as hell, and has nothing compelling past shooting random enemies as long as it is extra shiny and 'mature'. When winning the award for art direction means being able to make a wall look extra bumpy compared to something tangible like Okami where the entire game had a unique style. But nope... have to go with the wall there...

Says alot about gamers as well...

Well I just sit back and watch as you and everybody else slowly kills the spirit of gaming. Or until the Game Developers Conference happens. That I can get behind since those people understand for the most part.

I would of been satisfied if Okami beat Twilight Princess, but this is just wrong.

In other news my ongoing quest to count every PS3 I see on stores shelves has increased to 22.

Gears deserves the respect it's getting, it's NOT riding on hype at this point. How long must a game receive praise before you guys realize it's truly a great game instead of claiming overhyped BS and conspiracy theories?

As far as art direction, yes, it's subjective. Therefore whining about the objectivity of the judges is asinine. Aparently the majority of the judge's subjective opinions favored Gears' art direction over its competitors. Just because Okami was more "artsy" doesn't mean it has BETTER art. I'd take a Rembrandt over a Picasso any day.

Art direction in Gears is old, déjà-vu, unimaginative & frankly quite horrible, the character design is atrocious... suits well brainless kids & teenager that lack culture...

The word is "biased," and not "biased." The error was in the template, so I forgive everybody but Bangbang...

I think Chromehounds offered a superior online experience to that of Gears. The clan support and matchmaking are hands down superior.

What? No Okami? No FF? Only one award for Zelda? What is this world coming to?

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