Golden Joystick Awards announced

Following the completion of a ceremony at the Park Lane Hotel in London, the winners of the Golden Joystick Awards 2004 were announced. The video game award show, organized by Future Publishing, is in its 22nd year of recognizing outstanding achievements in the gaming industry.

Winners are voted on by the public through text messaging or online voting. Doom 3 took home the highest honors, winning the Game of the Year and PC Game of the Year, the only title to win two awards.

Electronic Arts and Nintendo both scooped up three awards, leading all publishers. EA grabbed awards for Publisher of the Year, PlayStation 2 Game of the Year for Burnout 3: Takedown, and Online Game of the Year for Battlefield Vietnam.

Nintendo earned GameCube Game of the Year for Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, Hardware of the Year for the Game Boy Advance SP NES Classic Edition, and Most Wanted Game for 2005 for the forthcoming Legend of Zelda title.

Other winners included Microsoft's Fable (Xbox Game of the Year), THQ’s Sonic Advance 3 (Handheld Game of the Year), and Amazon.com (Retailer of the Year). THQ led all publishers with nine nominations, but only managed to take home the one award. Warren Spector was inducted into the Golden Joystick Hall of Fame, joining Shigeru Miyamoto.

This year’s participation exceeded 200,000 voters, shattering last year’s tally of 88,000. The editors also had their say, granting Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer 4 the Editor’s Award for Game of the Year and Vivendi Universal’s The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay as their choice for Unsung Hero Game of the Year.

There was no three-peat for Rockstar and their Grand Theft Auto Franchise, as only games released between November 14, 2003 and October 28 were eligible (GTA: San Andreas was released on October 29 in the UK).