Dragon Age conquers Canadian Videogame Awards

While Dragon Age: Origins received a wealth of year-end award nominations, BioWare's latest walked away from the awards season with little in the way of high-profile hardware aside from the Interactive Achievement Award for role-playing or massively multiplayer game of the year. However, the Edmonton-based developer did add a couple of honors to the trophy case last night, as its critically acclaimed PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 game took home Game of the Year and Best Writing honors at the inaugural Canadian Videogame Awards in Vancouver.

Produced by The Digital Media and Wireless Association of British Columbia, the CVAs were established to honor the finest Canadian-made games that went gold in 2009. Only full games were considered eligible, with expansions, upgrades, and mission packs explicitly ruled disallowed.

Other Game of the Year contenders included Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II (Vancouver-based Relic Entertainment), FIFA 10 (EA Canada), Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes (Toronto's Capybara Games), and Assassin's Creed II (Ubisoft Montreal). While the Ubisoft action adventure missed out on the biggest prize of the night, it won more categories than any other game, with awards for Best Console Game, Best Game Design, Best Visual Arts, and Best Technology. (Assassin's Creed II actually shared the Best Technology award with Prototype, from Vancouver-based Radical Entertainment.)

Capybara also won multiple awards, with its regurgitation-centric puzzler Critter Crunch leading the Best Downloadable Game category, and the Game of the Year nominee Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes for the DS named Best Handheld Game.

For more on the awards, check out the official CVA Web site.