IGDA award nominees announced

The 2006 Game Developers Choice Awards are just around the corner, and the group today announced the slate of would-be winners for its March 22 presentation ceremony.

Hosted by the Game Developers Conference and presented by the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), the nominees are chosen and voted on solely by developers, providing a look at what industry professionals think are praiseworthy games.

"Every year, thousands of nominations are submitted by developers from around the world," said IGDA executive director Jason Della Rocca in a statement. "Voting on the final recipients will be extremely competitive, and who can spot excellence and creative achievement better than the creators themselves?"

To make sure games were not overlooked and that the end slate of titles were representative of developers worldwide, all IGDA members were given the chance to nominate games free of charge. Five finalists in each category were then selected by a 20-person advisory board, and the IGDA membership then votes on the winner of each category.

This year, God of War leads all games with six nominations, followed closely by a quintet of nods for Shadow of the Colossus. Project Gotham Racing 3, Guitar Hero, and Psychonauts each received three nominations. GameSpot's game of the year for 2005, Resident Evil 4, only garnered a single nomination, that one in the Visual Arts category.

The 2006 Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony will take place Wednesday, March 22 at 6:30 p.m. at the San Jose Civic Auditorium. In addition to the voted award categories, Lifetime Achievement, First Penguin, Community Contribution, Maverick, and Innovation awards will also be handed out. A complete list of announced nominees follows:

Best Game

Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo EAD/Nintendo)
- Katsuya Eguchi, Hisashi Nogami, Takashi Tezuka, Kazumi Totaka

God of War (Sony Computer Entertainment America)
- David Jaffe, Shannon Studstill

Guitar Hero (Harmonix Music Systems/RedOctane)
- Rob Kay, Greg LoPiccolo, Alex Rigopulos

Shadow of the Colossus (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
- Kenji Kaido, Yasuhide Kobayashi, Fumito Ueda

The Movies (Lionhead Studios/Activision)
- Gary Carr, Peter Molyneux, Mark Webley

Audio

Call of Duty 2 (Infinity Ward/Activision)
- Mark Ganus

Electroplankton (Nintendo)
- Toshio Iwai, Koichi Kyuma, Yuichi Ozaki

God of War (Sony Computer Entertainment America)
- Dave Murrant

Guitar Hero (Harmonix Music Systems/RedOctane)
- Eric Brosius, Kasson Crooker

Project Gotham Racing 3 (Bizarre Creations/Microsoft Game Studios)
- Nick Bygrave, Guy Whitmore, Nick Wiswell

Character Design

City of Villains (Cryptic Studios/NCsoft Corporation)
- Ocala Bellows Kulig, Ryan Butts, Jay Doherty, Jeremy Mattson

God of War (Sony Computer Entertainment America)
- David Jaffe, Terry Smith, Charlie Wen

Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath (Oddworld Inhabitants/Electronic Arts)
- Lorne Lanning, Rich McKain, Iain Morton, Raymond Swanland

Psychonauts (Double Fine Productions/Majesco Entertainment Company)
- Scott Campbell

Shadow of the Colossus (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
- Atsuko Fukuyama, Hitoshi Niwa, Shunpei Suzuki, Fumito Ueda

Game Design

Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo EAD/Nintendo)
- Katsuya Eguchi, Hisashi Nogami, Takashi Tezuka, Kazumi Totaka

God of War (Sony Computer Entertainment America)
- David Jaffe

Nintendogs (Nintendo EAD/Nintendo)
- Tsutomu Kaneshige, Hideki Konno, Shigeru Miyamoto, Kiyoshi Mizuki

Psychonauts (Double Fine Productions/Majesco Entertainment Company)
- Erik Robson, Tim Schafer

Shadow of the Colossus (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
- Junichi Hosono, Fumito Ueda

Technology

Battlefield 2: Modern Combat (Digital Illusions/Electronic Arts)
- Fred Gill, Måns Vestin

Guitar Hero (Harmonix Music Systems/RedOctane)
- Eran Egozy, Eric Malafeew, Phil Winston

Nintendogs (Nintendo EAD/Nintendo)
- Tsutomu Kaneshige

Project Gotham Racing 3 (Bizarre Creations/Microsoft Game Studios)
- Edmund Clay, Roger Perkins, Phil Teschner, Ian Wilson

Shadow of the Colossus (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
- Jinji Horagai, Takuya Seki, Hajime Sugiyama, Masanobu Tanaka

Visual Arts

God of War (Sony Computer Entertainment America)
- Steve Caterson, Terry Smith, Charlie Wen

Project Gotham Racing 3 (Bizarre Creations/Microsoft Game Studios)
- Gren Atherton, Julie McGurren, Peter Roe, Kiki Wolfkill

Resident Evil 4 (Capcom Production Studio 4/Capcom Entertainment)
- Yusuke Hashimoto, Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, Yusuke Kan, Masaki Yamanaka

Shadow of the Colossus (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
- Koji Hasegawa, Hironobu Nakano, Masanori Kajita, Fumito Ueda

We Love Katamari (Namco Limited/Namco Hometek)
- Keita Takahashi, Takeshi Ugajin

Writing

Freedom Force vs. The 3rd Reich (Irrational Games/Vivendi Universal Games)
- Ken Levine

God of War (Sony Computer Entertainment America)
- David Jaffe, Marianne Krawcyzk, Alex Stein

Indigo Prophecy (Quantic Dream/Atari)
- David Cage

Jade Empire (BioWare Corp./Microsoft Game Studios)
- Drew Karpyshyn, Brian Kindregan, Luke Kristjanson, Mike Laidlaw, Peter Thomas, Mac Walters

Psychonauts (Double Fine Productions/Majesco Entertainment Company)
- Tim Schafer, Erik Wolpaw

New Studio

ArenaNet (Guild Wars)
- Mike O'Brien, Jeff Strain, Patrick Wyatt

Double Fine Productions (Psychonauts)
- Caroline Esmurdoc, Tim Schafer

New Crayon Games (Bonnie's Bookstore)
- Phil Steinmeyer

TellTale Games (Bone: Out From Boneville)
- David Bogan, Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors, Troy Molander

Wideload Games (Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse)
- Alexander Seropian