Gears of War takes best game at GDCA, Aquaria wins IGF best game prize
by Ross Miller 
{ Mar 8th 2007 at 2:12AM }
At tonight's Game Developers Choice Awards, Epic Games' Gears of War took home three awards: best technology, visual arts, and the coveted Game of the Year award. On the independent side of things, Bit Blot's Aquaria won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize from the Independent Games Festival.Okami picked up a win in one of the four categories it was nominated in (take that, AIAS). Unfortunately, Loco Roco did not pick up any awards despite two nominations (character design and audio). Independent game Everyday Shooter won two awards and a distribution deal from GameTap.
View the full list winners and nominees from both events below.
Game Developers Choice Awards
New studio
- Gastronaut, Small Arms
- Naked Sky Ent, Roboblitz
- Iron Lore, Titan Quest
- Ready at Dawn, Daxter
- Wadjet Eye, the Shiva
- Bully
- Dreamfall: The longest Journey
- Sam & Max episode 1: Culture Shock
- Oblivion
- Twilight Princess
- Bully
- Okami
- Oblivion
- Viva Pinata
- Wii Sports
- Company of Heros
- Defcon
- Guitar Hero II
- Tomb Raider Legend
- Loco Roco
- FF XII
- Loco Roco
- Okami
- Rayman Raving Rabbids
- Viva Pinata
Best technology
- Company of Heroes
- Dead Rising
- Gears of War
- Table Tennis
- Wii Sports
Visual Arts
- FFXII
- Gears of War
- Okami
- Oblivion
- Viva Pinata
- Okami
- Oblivion
- Gears of War
- Twilight Princess
- Wii Sports
Lifetime Achievement Award: Shigeru Miyamoto
Maverick Award: Greg Costikyan.
Best mod:
- Darkness over Daggorford (NVN)
- Spawns of Deflebub (UT2004)
- Eternal Silence (HL2)
- Weekday Warrior (HL2)
- Base Invaders: Digipen
- Invalid Tangram: Guildhall at SMU
- Opera Slinger: Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy
- Gelatin Joe: Digipen
- And Yet it Moves: Tu Wien
- Rooms: Sungkyunkwan University
- Toblo: Digipen
- Euclidean Crisis: Stanford
- Ball of Bastards: Koln International
- The Blob: Hogeschool van de Kunsten, Utrecht
- Aquaria
- Bone: The Great Cow Race
- Everyday Shooter
- Fizzball
- Racing pitch
- Aquaria
- Golf?
- Samorost 2
- Castle Crashers
- Roboblitz
- Aquaria
- Everyday Shooter
- Armadillo Run
- Toblo
- Toribash
- Arcane Legions
- Armada Online
- Bang! Howdy
- Blast Miner
- Band of Bugs
- Bible Islands
- Gamma Bros.
- Samorost 2
- Aquaria
- Armadillo Run
- Bang! Howdy
- Roboblitz
- Everyday Shooter
Audience Award: Castle Crashers
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
GhaleonQ @ Mar 8th 2007 2:42AM
I still question "Gears Of War" winning BOTH art awards.
ill trooper @ Mar 8th 2007 3:19AM
"Gears of War takes best game at GDCA"
But of course it does! It's like when 'Titantic' won best picture, and a friend who works in the movie industry ranted to me:
"'Titantic' employed a lot of people, sold a lot of theater tickets, and encourages studios to continue to try to make epic experiences that people will only see in theaters. WHO CARES if it wasn't the best movie..."
Listen, before you start, I enjoyed 'Gears of War.'
When developers pick a game (a great game, but not my favorite) that has a young high-profile, high-strung, outspoken developer heading the ship, sold millions on a new gen's console, and got the 'first child/boss's son' treatment from Microsoft, it's NOT really a surprise to anyone, is it? They're all hoping they might get that same support and success too.
The developers all hope that their publishers will see the same potential in their games and encourage/finance/push the games to shoot for the stars and be the next 'Gears.'
I hope it goes well for everyone making games these days, it's often make-or-break.
CitizenGeek @ Mar 8th 2007 4:00AM
I can't believe my eyes! How, on earth, did FFXII win nothing? These awards are preposterous!
SeriousKriss @ Mar 8th 2007 4:17AM
Writing Award goes to Twilight Princess instead of Sam & Max? That's insane... Have they even played Sam & Max?
SeriousKriss @ Mar 8th 2007 4:03AM
Writing Award goes to Twilight Princess instead of Sam & Max? That's insane... Have they even played Sam & Max?
Birdy @ Mar 8th 2007 6:00AM
gears of war won because it was truly the best game out there, thats all there is to it. it had by far the best visuals, by far the best new technology, and in the end the game well sold millions while impressiong both fans and critics alike. also, dont forget it did all this while under huge pressure from microsoft and impossible hype
HOW COULD IT NOT WIN?
Rubang B @ Mar 8th 2007 7:01AM
Saying "best new technology" and "anything other than Wii Sports" in the same sentence is just a little but stupid. Just a little.
Ed @ Mar 8th 2007 7:25AM
Gears is a deserving winner of the awards it won. Granted, it is not exactly my cup of tea (I prefer R6: Vegas)...but I thought it elevated the playing field, like no other game last year did. I know the Wii fanboys will cry foul, but they need to come to terms with the fact that not everybody thinks the Wiimote is revolutionary. Some of us think, with good reason, that it's fairly dated technology, at least conceptually. PS3 fanboyz...well, they have little to cry about. Nothing on that "system" touches anything on the other two. The fact is, whether you are a shooter fan or not, it's relatively easy to judege Gears for what it is: innovative, beautiful, and YES, original. No other game was more coveted last year. Congrats to Gears, Epic, and Cliffy B.
Jake @ Mar 8th 2007 8:12AM
Gears was easily the GoTY. It is that good. It was the highest critically rated, is the most played 360 game, has the best visuals, sold a ton of copies, lived up to impossible hype, and actually brought a totally unique gameplay experience to the shooter arena. Don't let fanboyism or your personal dislike for this kind of game cloud your judgement. Gears isn't winning this award all over the place because of some conspiracy or something. It's just that good.
Jack of No Trades @ Mar 8th 2007 8:14AM
Wiisports won best game design? Okami should have won that. Wiisports only has these stick figure idiotic looking characters and it won?
supersonic.com.mx @ Mar 9th 2007 1:43PM
How good is Gears?
Well, it just make us FORGET about any other GOOD shooter this year
- R6: Vegas its excellent
- Resistances FOM its a GREAT game, to bad it came out when Gears came out, Microsoft couldn´t have something better to counter PS3 launch
- etc
CaptNink @ Mar 8th 2007 11:55AM
I concur with the accolades that Gears is receiving. It is that good. What impressed me more than the gameplay and the gorgeous graphics, is the little things that they introduced to the 3rd person shooter genre. One of those little things being the 'Active Reload' system. A very simple idea, but it provided a new and fresh game mechanic.
Whether you are a fanboy or not, you can not deny that Gears is an outstanding accomplishment.
Earl @ Mar 8th 2007 11:56AM
Don't get me wrong: I own and enjoy GoW. Best Game award worthy? Not in my eyes, but maybe the judges haven't played GoW in single player mode.
The game has one of the WORST AI I have experienced in years. I can think of several FPS from last gen consoles that have much better AI than GoW.
Also, the game was too short and felt very incomplete when it got to the ending. The last statement is probably just my fault for actually expecting games to have a well written story to go along with the action (being more of the RPG fanbase).
Other than that, the game is visually stunning and truly does have an "epic" feel to it. Multiplayer and Co-op are also insanely fun. Co-op at least removes one of the bad AI characters, so you can actually kill some Locusts without having to save your whole damn team first.
smik @ Mar 8th 2007 11:59AM
Given that GoW was a Killswitch clone that got so much hype because of better graphics - I just wonder how much Gears gained from
1. The restricted play areas: try rendering large expanses like R:DOM or COD2 and obviously its more difficult to maintain consistency, which is also why the other GoW (God of War) looks so good
2. High intensity of funding: it was about 10mn USD(excluding engine cost) for a 5-hour game OR twice the budget for 2/3rds the length of a typical game.
3. Tailor made for one console
So if you spend 3 times as much for each unit of game, dont have to bother about massive areas and customise a game for a specific console
Why wouldnt it come out better looking?
FSK405K @ Mar 8th 2007 2:02PM
Why is no one talking about the independent games? It's all Gears this and that. Seriously, if you're tired of arguing about Gears and want to try something with more of a prisoners' dilemma feel, go download Defcon. It's like $20 and insane tense.