Half-Life 2 and Halo 2 emerged victorious at Tuesday night’s 8th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, held during the annual D.I.C.E. Summit in Las Vegas. The sequels were voted the best of 2004 by game industry peer panels from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS), a professional organization dedicated to the advancement and recognition of interactive arts.
Half-Life 2 from Vivendi Universal Games and developer Valve took the top prize of Game of the Year, as well as Computer Game of the Year and First Person Action Game Of The Year. Meanwhile, Console Game of the Year and First Person Action Game Of The Year went to sales record breaker Halo 2 from Microsoft and developer Bungie.
A grand total of nine awards went to Half-Life 2, including Innovation in Computer Gaming, Outstanding Achievement In Art Direction, Outstanding Achievement In Animation, Outstanding Character Performance–Male (Robert Guillaume), Outstanding Achievement In Gameplay Engineering, Outstanding Achievement In Visual Engineering.
Other kudos for Halo 2 include Outstanding Achievement In Sound Design and Outstanding Achievement In Online Game Play.
Katamari Damacy from Namco Hometek Inc./Namco Limited rounded out the innovation category with a win for Innovation In Console Gaming. The title also scored at hit in the Craft Awards category with Outstanding Achievement In Game Design.
Other Craft Awards winners were Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Rockstar Games/Rockstar North) for Outstanding Achievement In Soundtrack and Fable (Microsoft/Big Blue Box) for both Outstanding Achievement In Original Musical Composition and Outstanding Achievement In Character Or Story Development. In addition, Judy Dench took Outstanding Character Performance—Female for her role in Electronic Arts’ Golden Eye: Rouge Agent.
The 2005 D.I.C.E. Summit (Design, Innovate, Communicate and Entertain), is an interactive entertainment industry conference that brings together the top video game designers and developers from around the world and business leaders from all the major publishers to discuss the state of the industry, its trends and the future. More information on this year’s event can be found at www.DICESummit.org.
Other winners for 2005 are:
Console
Action/Adventure Game Of The Year
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Rockstar Games/Rockstar North)
Platform Action/Adventure Game Of The Year
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (Ubisoft/Ubisoft Montreal)
Action Sports Game Of The Year
Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 (Activision/Neversoft)
Children’s Title Of The Year
Sly Cooper 2 (Sony Computer Entertainment America/Sucker Punch)
Family Game of the Year
Donkey Konga (Nintendo/Namco)
Fighting Game Of The Year
Mortal Kombat: Deception (Midway/Midway Chicago)
Racing Game Of The Year
Burnout 3 (Electronic Arts/Criterion)
Role Playing Game Of The Year – Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (Nintendo/Intelligent Systems)
Sports Simulation Game of The Year
ESPN NFL 2K5 (Sega/Visual Concepts)
PC
Action/Adventure Game Of The Year
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (Ubisoft/Ubisoft Shanghai, Paris, Annecy Studios)
Children’s Game Of The Year
Backyard Skateboarding (Atari/Humongous Entertainment)
Downloadable Game Of The Year
The Incredibles: Escape from Nomanisan Island (Disney Online)
Family Game Of The Year
Zoo Tycoon 2 (Microsoft/Blue Fang Games)
Role Playing Game Of The Year
Neverwinter Nights: Kingmaker (BioWare/BioWare)
Sports Game Of The Year
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 (Electronic Arts/Electronic Arts Redwood Shores)
Strategy Game Of The Year
Rome: Total War (Activision/Creative Assembly)
Wireless & Handheld
Wireless Game Of The Year
Super Mario 64 DS (Nintendo)
Handheld Game Of The Year
Metroid: Zero Mission (Nintendo)
Online
Massive Multiplayer/Persistent World Game Of The Year
World of WarCraft (Vivendi Universal Games/Blizzard)
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