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.

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?

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.

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: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.

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.