Here are the winners of the Game Developers Choice Awards:

Innovation:
-Line Rider
-Okami
-Wii Sports

New Studio:
Iron Lore Entertainment (Titan Quest)

Writing:
The Legend of Zelda : Twilight Princess

Game Design:
Wii Sports

The Maverick Award:
Greg Costikyan of Manifesto Studios

Audio:
Guitar Hero 2

Character Design:
Okami

The First Penguin Award (for developers who show courage and bravery in testing new waters):
Alexey Pajitnov (creator of Tetris)

Technology:
Gears of War

Visual Arts:
Gears of War

The Community Contribution Award (for building community, sharing knowledge, and contributing to the art form of game development):
George "The Fatman" Sanger

Lifetime Achievement:
Shigeru Miyamoto (creator of Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros.)

Best Game:
Gears of War

I think the thing to take away from this is that if you haven't played Gears of War or Okami yet - go at least rent them. I was a little disappointed The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion didn't get any awards as I think it was very deserving of some recognition, but everything that won really deserved it. What do disagree with any of the winners? What was your game of the year for last year?

I think it's a sad day when such a simplistic shooter that only involves oversized guns, oversized body armours (without helmet, no less.. sigh) and every cliché in the book that American teenagers consider macho is voted as "best game" ahead of.. well, everything else.

I can agree with visual presentation and technical prowess.. but best GAME?! All you do for the 8-10 hours the game lasts for is DUCK and SHOOT. Nothing (and I really mean NOTHING) else. No puzzles, no thought, no variation, just duck and shoot. I felt the game was dumber than a rail shooter from the eighties.. If only they had opened up the maps a bit, incorporated believable physics (and destructible backgrounds) and given the players more to do.. and it could have been decent.

To me it was a very disappointing game.

I agree. I am not all that in love with Gears. So much so I didn't even bother to finish it. I doubt gears is really going to stand the test of time like HL2, CS or Unreal.

It's a fun game, but it's not all that, that's for sure.

I guess my major question here is how they defined technology separately from visual arts. While I can only make the most subjective of claims that Oblivion deserves Game of the Year, I do feel that a game that a game like Oblivion created with Gamebryo shows a further technological achievement than making a shooter with the Unreal 3 engine. More over, if it's the Unreal 3 engine you're out to award wait a few months - Mass Effect and Unreal 3 both are coming out, and I think I'd allow the former a win for this.

Also, Zelda for best writing?

Sigh.

Hm... I'm guessing Okami isn't a PC game. Or is it? I notice we don't have it in the database. :(

Btw, would you mind throwing in some links to the database for those? It would make it easier for people to check out the people and the games and the companies that are in the database already. :)

First Penguin Award last year sounds good to me. For this year's First Penguin Award, I submit Will Wright and if he doesn't get it, the awards suck. ;)

I'd also submit Spore for Technology and probably Best Game for this year (assuming it is released in October as it currently says).

it's here... http://www.mobygames.com/game/ps2/kami

Ah, I missed it at the bottom of the search results. Yet another thing needing improved in the search... if you search for accented characters using their unaccented counterparts and it's the exact spelling other than that, the result should be at the top.

I don't even pay attention to those awards. They are so biased towards certain popular genres... FPSs always take more awards because that's what most people play. A Zelda game wins best writing award? Geez... do those guys play RPGs at all? Do they want me to believe that a Zelda game can have better writing than Neverwinter Nights 2?

Final Fantasy XII wasn't even mentioned. Now that's a game that deserves awards.

The thing about games like Gears of War is no-one gives a crap about them after six months. A truly great game should be able to attract players even after it's been pushed out of the limelight by newer, flashier games.




Hmm yes...an interesting case that.

Always wondered, any Game awards out there that is even worth considering?

Games with double digits in their names are seldom deserving of any rewards.

Lol!! Bite on that fanboys!

Quite on the contrary, when a game with double digits manages to be fresh, original, and innovative, it is a much higher creative achievement than a good game that doesn't have tradition and lineage to deal with.

For the love of god Oleg... it has an "evil twin" plot twist! And the gameplay is ripped off from other games as you yourself said! Aghhh forget it.

In case you didn't know, most of the plot twists were first introduced in myths and epic poems of various ancient civilizations. You are not going to bash Star Wars because the "son fights the father" twist was already introduced in the 2000-year old Iranian epic of Rustam, are you? Or go ahead and trash Shakespeare's "King Lear" because it has a plot about three daughters, of which only the young one is good. You surely know this plot twist was used million times before Shakespeare?

Story-telling depends on how you tell a story, not what plot devices you are using. Otherwise all the stories created in the last 500 years should be considered bad, because they are all variations on something that was told before. I didn't think I had to explain this to you.

As for the gameplay, it's not "ripped off", it combines Infinity Engine-like combat system with typical Final Fantasy elements. This is the first time a Japanese RPG attempts something like that, and it is impeccably executed.

Good god man, you are THE fanboy. Its really amazing how you twist and defend everything about these games and remain completely oblivious to their gaping flaws. You are like a Mac user furiously clutching his iMac :)))

And please, don't try to throw names at me dude, you know in your heart that plot-twist is absolutely fucking retarded, and that's just the beginning.

As for story-telling vs plot-devices its funny that you mentioned this here, because this was what we were talking about in the Half-life thread :) Backed yourself into a corner there pal ;)

Look, let's cut the crap. The game is nice and all, but it still follows the design logic and retarded/homoerotic sensibilities that have been the primary cause for all the flaws that plague the series. If you like it, that's just fantastic. Hope you enjoy it, but there's no way in hell you can say it's "revolutionary" or that it deserves any award besides the Golden KY for amount of yaoi doushinji its going to spawn.

I've never played a Final Fantasy game but even I remember the billions and billions of crappy Sephiroth worship pages and shrines made by swooning fangirls. I mean, WTF? It's a videogame!

Hahahahhahahaa. I agree with you but...

Do a google search for "Lara Croft". Hell, do an Image search for it.

I guess there will always be guys whose main crush is on a woman made of polygons. Next to digital supervixens with 32DD chests the real thing can't compete. But somehow it seems...wrong when girls show the same behavior.

Well, it isn't. :)

Usually girls like looking at handsome men even more than we like looking at pretty girls. The difference is that men normally associate staring at pictures with sexual desire. Girls are able to look at pictures of good-looking men without the slightest desire to sleep with them, purely aesthetically, so to say.

Man, that sounds like either you don't know many girls, or the ones I know are way more "red-blooded" than the ones you know, so to say...

The "red-blooded" ones are exceptions... at least among those I met. Most women don't associate sexual desire with appearance to the same extent as men do. I met many girls who collected pictures of handsome men, but when I asked them whether they wanted to have sex with a famous good-looking movie star, they usually said: "But I don't even know him". That's not an answer a man would usually give, don't you think? :)

Or maybe I've been hanging around Asian girls for too long, I haven't been in contact with any Western girl for six or seven years. I almost forgot the time when I was having Western girlfriends. So feel free to correct me and to enlighten me about the nature of Occidental women :-)

As far as my experience goes, at least with uruguayan women (or, again, at least with pretty much every single one I know) you just can't watch a movie like, say, 12 Monkeys and expect to have a healthy discussion of its plot or any other thing other than how blazingly hot Brad Pitt looked on that suit, or how he looks so cute when playing a deranged madman, or what a niece piece of ass Bruce Willis has and so on... :rolleyes:

I tell you, I'm all for turning any topic into a discussion on the merits of sexy girls and tentacle porn and whatnot; but these girls can get scary sometimes.

LOL, it sounds so much like my wife :) If we watch a movie, sooner or later she will say that Orlando Bloom is handsome, that Johnny Depp is an interesting man, blah-blah-blah... I'm getting angry, switching to sports channel, but alas - same picture: "David Beckham!! He's really sweet when he smiles!"; ooookaaay, how about news channel: "Look, it's the new UN president! What an attractive man!" - okay, I made this last one up.

She will also comment about the clothes the heroine is wearing in the middle of a suspenseful scene in a movie. And that's the best case, at least it has something to do with the movie. It's not uncommon that she'd suddenly say: "Remind me to hang the clothes outside tomorrow, it will be a sunny day", while the ultimate adversary of the movie hero gives away the most important plot points.

Anyway, the fact a girl says Bruce Willis has great ass still doesn't mean she's sexually attracted to him. It's just a matter-of-fact observation. Women like making irrelevant comments about everything, and their brain works in a totally different way, there's nothing we can do about that.

And that's why they should be chained inside the kitchen.

We need some females here pronto!

I'm just going to sit back and laugh while you guys argue it out!

I liked that "Women like making irrelevant comments about everything"... remind me to get advice on dating from you Rico Suave!

Avatar change time already...? Okay, well I may as well follow suit.

Speaking about avatars, does anyone know what Oleg his doing in his avatar. It looks like he`s having a divine experience. Letting his face shine under the brilliance of God.

I don't know, but my guess would be that it's him while sitting at the piano. But I've wondered about it too. Oleg...?

Now I am even more interested. In Oleg`s music I mean. Would like to hear him play... smooth jazz music to accompany his reviews. I wonder if Oleg is going to tell us, that that`s his face when he writes reviews. Would explain a lot, though.

EDIT: I kinda like it, that Oleg`s angry speech is right under my post. Or it was until someone decided to post a next post. It`s like no matter what we do, there is always angry Oleg waiting for us.

You might notice that angry Oleg usually requires a Zovni to pop out, otherwise he wouldn't be angry.

I don't dare post a picture of my face when I'm writing reviews, it's too awful to behold :)

Yes, it's a shot from a live concert.

So divine experience it is.

Oh, I'd bet you were shaving! =P

Don't you think I wouldn't hang the mirror so high then? ;)

I think WW may be kissing ass.

Your eyes are closed, but you could be looking forward to the mirror with the head leaned back that much, the effect would be the same. You know, when you're shaving up that fold under the neck, and you lean back the head to stretch the skin?

LOL, now you say that, I imagined I was really shaving on that picture, and it was very funny :) But no, in reality I was in the middle of a beautiful ballad, I only looked as if I were shaving ;)

Well, if you talk to women the same way you talk to most other people here on the forums, you're certainly going to need it.

But if you take a look at his web page you will see that he doesn't need a bit of help in that area of his life!

? I visited his website, expecting to see a catalog of Zovni's dating trophies, but there was nothing of the kind.

Seems to have many pics where he's being hugged by beautiful girls, doesn't he?

If I posted all the pictures of beautiful girls hugging me, the internet would run out of web space!! ;-))

No, I was looking for cold, hard proof of Zovni's victories, something like a Don Juan's diary, with numbers of women conquered per country :)

But I guess that among MobyGames people only Indra of the Clan Depari has something like that :)~

LOL! I don't kiss and tell ;)

Oh, but these girls I'm talking about do mean it in a sexual way, believe you me :P

Uruguayan girls... unstoppable Latin passion :)

You really amaze me. You simply have to to turn every discussion in which I participate into insults. You are unable to accept that I have a different opinion. You are even unable to accept that I have the same opinion as you! Look how you tried to trash me on Half-Life thread, even though I was literally quoting your review for my arguments!

So it's obvious that you have an obsession with me. What's the matter, man? Speak it out. Because I don't like taking this crap from you. In every thread it's enough for me to post a little message to attract your attention. Did you notice how you argue with me? It's never "I don't agree with you, because...etc.", but always expressions like "For the love of God!", i.e. showing me how stupid I am that I don't even understand simple things. And calling me fanboy just because I like a certain game.

You have a serious problem with your attitude. So stop throwing crap at me. If you want a normal discussion, speak like normal person, without "Geez, Oleg!" or "You know yourself it's crap!", or insults like calling me a fanboy. Or stay out of discussion if you can't control yourself. Either talk politely or shut up, really, I've had enough with you. There is a limit for everything.

Ok, ok don't go all emo on me! I'm just saying that the game is not the fantastic thing you make it out to be, and you DO press the issue. I mean, you even submitted it as a featured game... and every thread around somehow manages to get a post about FFXII from you... , are you on Square's payroll or something? Anyway, if it causes such a dramatic effect disregard my fanboy comments, and for the love of god, when someone discusses with you it doesn't automatically mean he's insulting you, I mean.... fanboy? So what? Okay, replace all my "oh gaaawd!! Fanboiiii!" with " I disagree with you because..." if you so desire.

What's so strange about submitting it as a featured game? I have an opinion about it, and this opinion is that it is a fantastic thing. Why do you have such a big problem with this? So I think it's great, you think it's nothing special, what's the big deal? There's place for different opinions in the world, isn't there? Why do you think someone must be on Square's payroll to love their games?

Look, I'm not saying that you're on LucasArts' payroll, am I? Just because you think their adventures are the best around, it doesn't mean you're a fanboy. Some people don't like LucasArts' adventures, even though many others think they are fantastic. It's just a matter of opinion.

The problem with you is that every time you have a discussion with me you don't actually bring valid arguments, but simply point out, in various ways, that I don't understand games well enough to judge them, that I can't tell a good story from a bad one, etc. This is what I don't like in you, you always provoke me to take the discussion onto a personal level, while in fact it shouldn't be, it's just about who likes which games and why. I don't want to speak about who has good taste in games and who doesn't, I'm only interested in hearing well-based "pro" and "contra". There is a difference between saying "I disagree with you because..." and "God, what a fanboy you are!".

I'd never tell you: "Zovni, you just like GTA because you enjoy mindless violence, geez, grow up already!" I know that you have your reasons for liking GTA, and I have my reasons for disliking it. Please accept the fact that people have different opinions, different judgment criteria, and different values.

Ok, I guess the thing that bugs me is how you go around trying to evangelize your stuff. You don't see me parading around telling people to get their hands on GTA3 (to use your example) or crying about how its being neglected of awards or whatever...Anyway, for the most part I try to bash the game and not the player so no offense, take it easy.

FFXII is pretty gay though ;)

You are just more cynical than me, probably because you've played more games, or maybe because you don't want others to think that you are a fanboy... I noticed that in your review to "Another World", it is obvious you love the game, yet in the end you say sorry for sounding like a fanboy. Why? If you love a game, then go all the way and say how you feel.

There's nothing wrong with loving a game, go ahead and advertise GTA, what's wrong with being enthusiastic about things you like? Blame it on my musician's temper, but when I'm excited about something, I want to share the joy with everybody, I think it's only natural.

More to the point, what exactly do you mean by saying FFXII is gay? I'm just curious.

I don't want to advertise anything! If someone asks my opinion fine there it is, but I don't believe in forcing it to others, that's why I stopped writing reviews for the most part.

And I'm not that far into the game (and after that whole evil twin thing I don't think I'm going to keep trying) but there's far to many effeminate prettyboys for my liking so far, and the whole "Liberace with fantasy & sci-fi" setting does not help :S Its clearly another entry in the series with a decidedly yaoi sensitivity.

That's your choice. My choice is to share my feelings with others. This site is a place where I can express my opinions about games, be it in form of reviews or forum messages. If somebody is not interested in those opinions, he is free to ignore my reviews and posts. Therefore you cannot say that I'm "forcing" something on someone.

Furthermore, it's not a problem if you provide some objective reasoning against a game (FFXII in our case), but remarks like "the game is gay" and "you're a fanboy if you like it" are highly immature, I'm surprised you don't notice it. There is nothing easier than trashing a game, but people mostly do that when they run out of argumentation and have no substantial criticism.


There is no "evil twin" there, if that helps. It's far from being that simple. Gabranth is a complex character with his own reasons and motivations. If you're not interested in them, then I'm sorry the story didn't captivate you, everyone has their own preferences in stories. I'm not going to convince you saying how great the story is, but I thought you might like it because it's quite different from other FF stories (which I know you dislike) and is more similar to Western RPGs.


Again, that's your personal stylistic preference, it has nothing to do with the quality of the game. You don't like effeminate men, you don't like fantasy/sci-fi mixture - there's nothing I can do, but that's not an argument against the game, it's just something you don't like for strictly personal reasons.

The most weird thing, though, is that FFXII doesn't have any effeminate men (at least none I encountered so far, I'm about 60% into the game). I don't know why you keep saying that. What's effeminate in Vaan? Do you think Balthier is effeminate? I could understand that if you were speaking about some characters from FF9, but FFXII? Very weird.

Isn't this obvious? It's when you fail to see things like that that you sound like a fanboy. It's the character design. Just as the women look like Playboy playmates, the boys look like men who like other men.

You have a rather immature idea of what gay men look like. Have you actually met gays? Gays usually don't look effeminate at all. And most of them don't like long hair. Characters in FF games look much more like womanizers than gays.

That's point 1. Point 2: suppose those characters look gay or even are gay. Do you have a problem with that? And, more importantly: does it affect the quality of a game?

I fail to see any connection between a character's sexual orientation and the actual quality of a game.

Remarks like "those characters look gay, therefore the game is bad" cannot be considered valid criticism of a game. I hope you see the failed logic in such remarks.

Well let's see if we can clear up my opinion at least: The game isn't good or bad because its gay or not, its good or bad for a whole lot of other things, but I can perfectly say that I'm not interested in it because of that. Same way I can say that those Pokemon games are really cool rpgs but it don't want to waste my time playing with fluffy little rodents.

As for the "gayness" itself you are right on the money. They are not gay as in homosexual, in fact I would be the first one to applaud Square-Enix if they took the step forward and presented a credible homosexual character. But the problem is that these guys are gay in the "twink" sense (and don't ask me how I know that). If you have no idea what I'm talking about look up the definition of "Yaoi", its the 16 year old girl's definition of what gay is. It goes beyond the Spelling-TV cliche of everybody being effeminate, hairless supermodels, and its as mediocre as Japanese melodrama can get. If you still can't see it... well, they say ignorance is bliss man :) But you can perfectly understand that for those of us in the know its kinda shocking to hear you ignore such things... hence the fanboi term.

As for the "gayness" itself you are right on the money. They are not gay as in homosexual, in fact I would be the first one to applaud Square-Enix if they took the step forward and presented a credible homosexual character. But the problem is that these guys are gay in the "twink" sense (and don't ask me how I know that). If you have no idea what I'm talking about look up the definition of "Yaoi", its the 16 year old girl's definition of what gay is. It goes beyond the Spelling-TV cliche of everybody being effeminate, hairless supermodels, and its as mediocre as Japanese melodrama can get. If you still can't see it... well, they say ignorance is bliss man :) But you can perfectly understand that for those of us in the know its kinda shocking to hear you ignore such things... hence the fanboi term.

I see your point, but I can assure you that the effeminate, hairless guys are not necessarily part of the yaoi style. The fact that yaoi fiction portrays effeminate, hairless men still doesn't mean that every portrayal of such men in Japanese pop culture has yaoi connotations.

It's as simple as it can get: the majority of Asian men are hairless and youngish. With long hair they often look perfectly effeminate to Western eyes. Those quasi-effeminate characters are nothing more but reflection of how a handsome man looks in the eyes of Asian girls. Hence the tendency to portray such men in Japanese games.

This explains a lot of things that Western people find weird. The fact is that Western and Asian people have different criteria for sex-appeal. As an example, I'll refer to the famous inclusion of Raiden as the protagonist of Metal Gear Solid 2. Most of the Western fans hated this typically "gay" (as you would call him) character. In reality, though, there was a reason for that. Many Japanese teenagers claimed they were unable to identify themselves with Solid Snake because he was so hairy and ugly. Whether you like this kind of taste or not is another problem, but there's nothing we can do about it.

If you ask me if I'd personally prefer to control a less "gay"-looking character, I'd say yes, but I don't see why such a minor stylistic choice should destroy my enjoyment from the game. It reminds me of a certain person who hated Final Fantasy VII only because the characters there were "blocky". You explained in your review very well that it's just a stylistic choice which has nothing to do with the actual content of the game. That's why I don't understand why the "gayness" is such a big deal. I'm not ignoring it, I just don't care, there are more important things that influence my judgment of a game.

Well I guess we agree then.




Couldn't have said it better myself, and that's the whole point: these are games designed to appeal to an asian female audience. And I am not part of an asian female audience. Is the whole thing enough to turn me off from playing the games? Quite frankly yes, I've had enough. It really breaks my suspension of disbelief when I see a character like Rayden in MGS to use your example...I could still play the games mind you, but there are other elements that bug me too, so the end result is negative for me.

And I have no problem with you liking it or not caring about it, that's precisely what NOT being a fanboi is all about....as long as you are able to acknowledge it and not fool yourself.

Aww gawd. (referring to the whole thread)

in your review to "Another World", it is obvious you love the game, yet in the end you say sorry for sounding like a fanboy. Why? If you love a game, then go all the way and say how you feel.

It's not possible to be an AW fanboy because it really is that good.

i fergot what i meant to say.

Best writing Award for a videogame feels a bit like a best action choreography award for a Shakespeare play. In any case, Zelda shouldn't have won. The storytelling has improved quite a bit, but it's hardly the best (or most important) part of the game.