KOTOR steals show at GDC's Choice Awards

SAN JOSE--Wednesday night, at the close of GDC's first big day of sessions, panels, keynotes, and lectures, a few thousand people showed up at the San Jose Civic Auditorium to hear who the winners were in this year's Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival awards.

The Fourth Annual Game Developers Choice Awards winners are as follows:

Game of The Year
Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic (BioWare Corp.)

Original Game Character of The Year
HK-47 from Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic

Rookie Studio of The Year
Infinity Ward for Call of Duty

Excellence in Audio
Chuck Russom for Sound Effects in Call of Duty

Excellence in Game Design
David Chateauneuf, Patrice Desilets, Jordan Mechner and Team for Game Design in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Excellence in Programming
Dominic Couture, Feng Quan Wang and Team for Graphics Programming in Prince of Persia: The Sands Of Time

Excellence in Visual Arts
Masanao Arimoto, Yoshiki Haruhana, and Satoru Takizawa for Art Direction in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Excellence in Writing
David Gaider, Drew Karpyshyn, Luke Kristjanson, and Peter Thomas for Writing in Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic

Winners in this year's Independent Games Festival included the teams behind Anito: Defend A Land Enraged; Savage: The Battle for Newerth; Dr. Blob's Organism; and Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates.

The special Project Goldmaster winner, a prize sponsored by both AOL and Cartoon Network's Power Play Games, went to the five-member team at Tempe, Arizona-based Flashbang Studios for its title Beesley's Buzzwords. AOL will is keep its subscribers updated on the prizewinner's progress in the development of a game using a Cartoon Network character online, Keyword: Project Goldmaster.