Game Developers Choice Awards Finalists Named

Okami and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion lead the way

The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) has named the final nominees for its annual games awards. The finalists at the Game Developers Choice Awards, hosted at the Games Developers Conference, will be lead by Okami and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Both Bethaesda's Elder Scrolls and Capcom's Okami have got four nominations including Best Game.

Also cropping up a few times in the list of finalists is Nintendo, with Wii Sports and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess scooping up five nominations between them. Both appear in the Best Game category. Similarly, Rockstar performs well, with three nominations under its belt. Canis Canem Edit (which IGDA doesn't seem to have realised has been re-named from 'Bully') is listed for Game Design and Writing. and Rockstar Presents Table Tennis grabs a nomination for Technology.

The Game Developers Choice Awards are nominated and voted for exclusively by members of IGDA, which boasts nearly 12,000 industry professionals in its ranks. Speaking on the nominations Jason Della Rocca, executive director of the IGDA, said:

"Nobody knows what goes into game development better than the developers themselves, so we are excited to see who the community votes to receive each of these very competitive awards."

"Nobody knows what goes into game development better than the developers themselves, so we are excited to see who the community votes to receive each of these very competitive awards."

The awards will be held on March 7th at GDC in San Francisco.

Who is worthy? Who has been left out? Tell us in the Forum below...

Keep your eyes on SPOnG for our review of Okami later today. Here's the full list of nominees:

Best Game

Gears of War (Epic Games / Microsoft Game Studios)
- Cliff Bleszinski, Michael Capps, Rod Fergusson
Okami (Clover Studio / Capcom Entertainment)
- Atsushi Inaba, Hideki Kamiya
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda Game Studios / 2K Games/Bethesda Softworks)
- Todd Howard
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Nintendo EAD / Nintendo)
- Eiji Aonuma, Satoru Iwata, Shigeru Miyamoto
Wii Sports (Nintendo)
- Satoru Iwata, Shigeru Miyamoto, Keizo Ohta, Takayuki Shimamura, Yoshiaki Yamashita

Audio

Company of Heroes (Relic Entertainment / THQ)
- Crispin Hands, John Johnson, Jennifer Lewis, John Tennant
DEFCON: Everybody Dies (Introversion Software)
- Alistair Lindsay, Michael Maidment
Guitar Hero II (Harmonix Music Systems / RedOctane)
- Jeff Allen, Eric Brosius, Izzy Maxwell
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend (Crystal Dynamics / Eidos Interactive)
- Troels Folmann, Karl Gallagher, Mike Peaslee, Gregg Stephens
LocoRoco (Sony Computer Entertainment)
- Kemmei Adachi, Tomonobu Kikuchi, Kouji Niikura, Nobuyuki Shimizu

Character Design

Final Fantasy XII (Square Enix)
- Hideo Minaba, Hiroshi Minagawa, Akihiko Yoshida
LocoRoco (Sony Computer Entertainment)
- Tsutomu Kouno, Keigo Tsuchiya
Okami (Clover Studio / Capcom Entertainment)
- Mari Shimazaki, Sawaki Takeyasu, Kenichirou Yoshimura
Rayman Raving Rabbids (Ubisoft Montpellier Studio / Ubisoft Entertainment)
- Michel Ancel, Charles Beirnaert, Hubert Chevillard, Florent Sacre
Viva Piñata (Rare / Microsoft Game Studios)
- Ryan Stevenson

Game Design

Bully (Rockstar Vancouver / Rockstar Games)
- Michael Skupa
Okami (Clover Studio / Capcom Entertainment)
- Hideki Kamiya
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda Game Studios / 2K Games/Bethesda Softworks)
- Todd Howard
Viva Piñata (Rare / Microsoft Game Studios)
- Justin Cook, Gregg Mayles
Wii Sports (Nintendo)
- Keizo Ohta, Takayuki Shimamura, Yoshiaki Yamashita

Technology

Company of Heroes (Relic Entertainment / THQ)
- Drew Dunlop, Shelby Hubick, David Swinerd, Ian Thomson
Dead Rising (Capcom Entertainment)
- Shinya Ikuta, Tomofumi Ishida, Yasuhide Sawada, Tomohiro Ueda
Gears of War (Epic Games / Microsoft Game Studios)
- Michael Capps, Ray Davis, Tim Sweeney, Daniel Vogel
Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis (Rockstar San Diego / Rockstar Games)
- Ted Carson, Eugene Foss, Wil Paredes, Steve Reed
Wii Sports (Nintendo)
- Takuhiro Dohta, Takeshi Miyamoto, Keizo Ohta, Kenta Sato

Visual Arts

Final Fantasy XII (Square Enix)
- Isamu Kamikokuryo, Hideo Minaba, Akihiko Yoshida
Gears of War (Epic Games / Microsoft Game Studios)
- Jerry O'Flaherty, Chris Perna
Okami (Clover Studio / Capcom Entertainment)
- Naoki Katakai, Kenichirou Yoshimura
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda Game Studios / 2K Games/Bethesda Softworks)
- Matthew Carofano, Christiane Meister, Istvan Pely
Viva Piñata (Rare / Microsoft Game Studios)
- Ed Bryan, Ryan Stevenson

Writing

Bully (Rockstar Vancouver / Rockstar Games)
- Dan Houser, Jacob Krarup
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (Funcom / Aspyr Media)
- Dag Scheve, Ragnar Tørnquist
Sam & Max Episode 1: Culture Shock (Telltale Games / GameTap)
- Brendan Ferguson, Dave Grossman, Steve Purcell
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda Game Studios / 2K Games/Bethesda Softworks)
- Ken Rolston
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Nintendo EAD / Nintendo)
- Kyogoku Aya, Nate Bihldorff, Mitsuhiro Takano

New Studio

Gastronaut Studios (Small Arms)
- Jacob Van Wingen, Don Wurster
Iron Lore Entertainment (Titan Quest)
- Paul Chieffo, Jeff Goodsill, Brian Sullivan
Naked Sky Entertainment (RoboBlitz)
- Joshua Glazer, Tian Mu, Sam Thibault
Ready At Dawn Studios (Daxter)
- Didier Malenfant, Andrea Pessino, Ru Weerasuriya
Wadjet Eye Games (The Shiva)
- Chris Femo, Dave Gilbert, Peter Gresser, Ian Schlaepfer