Topic: AIAS Award Winners

[Karl Castaneda #2]

The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has chosen its winners.

Winners are highlighted in bold.

Game of the Year Awards

Game of the Year
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
 Half-Life 2
Halo 2
 Katamari Damacy
 World of Warcraft

Console Game of the Year
Burnout 3
 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
 Halo 2
 Katamari Damacy
 Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal

Innovation Awards

Innovation in Console Gaming
Fable
 Halo 2
Donkey Konga
 EyeToy: AntiGrav
 Katamari Damacy

Craft Awards

Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction
Doom 3
 Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
 Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
 Sly Cooper 2
 Half-Life 2

Outstanding Achievement in Animation
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
 Sly Cooper 2
 Jak 3
 Rachet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal
Half-Life 2

Outstanding Character Performance--Male
Robert Guillaume, Half-Life 2
The Bard's Tale
 Metal Gear Solid 3
Demon Stone
The Chronicles of Riddick  

Outstanding Character Performance--Female
Demon Stone
 Judi Dench, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent
Zoo Tycoon 2
 

Outstanding Achievement in Soundtrack
Need For Speed Underground 2
 Tony Hawk's Underground 2
 Donkey Konga
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Outstanding Achievement in Original Musical Composition
Rome: Total War
NBA Ballers
Katamari Damacy
 Killzone
 Fable  

Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design
Rome: Total War
Halo 2
Doom 3
Rachet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal
 Sly Cooper 2  

Outstanding Achievement in Gameplay Engineering
Donkey Konga
 Spider-Man 2
EyeToy: AntiGrav
 Half-Life 2
Fable

Outstanding Achievement in Online Gameplay
Halo 2
Rome: Total War
 Unreal Tournament 2004
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War  

Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering
Doom 3
 Metroid Prime: Echoes
 Demon Stone
Rachet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal
Half-Life 2

Outstanding Achievement in Game Design
Fable
 City of Heroes
Katamari Damacy
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
 Half-Life 2  

Outstanding Achievement in Character or Story Development
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
 Half-Life 2
 Demon Stone
Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy
 Fable

Genre Awards

Console

Platform Action/Adventure Game of the Year
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
Rachet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal
 Jak 3

Action/Adventure Game of the Year
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Pikmin 2
Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy
 Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow
 Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater  

Action Sports Game of the Year
NFL Street 2
 Tony Hawk's Underground 2
 NBA Ballers
Mario Power Tennis

First-Person Action Game of the Year
Halo 2
GoldenEye: Rogue Agent
 Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
The Chronicles of Riddick  

Children's Title of the Year
Shrek 2
 Backyard Baseball 2005
 Mario Party 6
Pokemon Colosseum
Sly Cooper 2  

Console Family Game of the Year
Donkey Konga
Eye Toy: Anti-Grav
Karaoke Revolution Volume 3
Wario Ware Inc.

Fighting Game of the Year
Def Jam: Fight for NY
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3
Mortal Kombat: Deception

Racing Game of the Year
Burnout 3
Rallisport Challenge 2

Role-Playing Game of the Year
X-Men Legends
The Bard's Tale
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles
 Tales of Symphonia  

Sports Simulation Game of the Year
Madden NFL 2005
ESPN NHL 2K5
ESPN NFL 2K5
Winning Eleven 7  

Wireless & Handheld

Wireless Game of the Year
Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen
Super Mario 64 DS

Handheld Game of the Year
Metroid: Zero Mission
Super Mario 64 DS
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories

[Grant10k]

Are these the winners or the nominees? How do you have 5 game of the year? For the innovation in console category, I don't see how Halo 2 was innovative.
Bleh, this seems like another SpikeTV we-trade-awards-for-hype show for the most part.

EDIT: the winners wern't in bold before, now that they are, ignore my first two statements.

[Karl Castaneda #2]

Edit: There we go. It should be a little easier on the eyes now.

[Bloodworth]

I'm actually glad that I didn't bother going this year.  Halo has a good online structure, but I don't see why that should win an award for innovation.  And although I'm a Nintendo fan, there's no way Paper Mario should have beaten X-Men Legends, Tales of Symphonia, and Baten Kaitos (which didn't even get nominated).

[Famicom]

Quote
Originally posted by: Bloodworth
I'm actually glad that I didn't bother going this year.  Halo has a good online structure, but I don't see why that should win an award for innovation.  And although I'm a Nintendo fan, there's no way Paper Mario should have beaten X-Men Legends, Tales of Symphonia, and Baten Kaitos (which didn't even get nominated).

Well to be fair, Halo 2 didn't actually win the award. Funny that Samus Aran wasn't nominated Outstanding Character Performance Female. Seems like the had a shortage to begin with.

[Bill Aurion]

Hold on there, it deserves the award 10 times over, imo...Easily my favorite RPG ever, beating out even Tales...

(Ugh, I'm very disappointed that no Nintendo games were even nominated for music...What the heck?)

[Polemistis]

Ya they do look like another Spike TV Video Game Awards show LOL.

[Ian Sane]

Why the hell are Burnout 3 and Ratchet & Clank nominated for console game of the year and Metroid Prime 2 isn't?  And to the surprise of no one the overhyped Xbox game of the year wins console game of the year AGAIN.  An Xbox game has won console game of the year EVERY YEAR since the Xbox launched (though PoP is multiplatform).  Doesn't that seem kind of suspicious?

And what the hell is THIS?

First-Person Action Game of the Year
Halo 2
GoldenEye: Rogue Agent
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
The Chronicles of Riddick

F*cking Goldeneye: Rogue Agent?!  Why don't we just nominate Driv3r while we're at it?  God what a bunch of total BS these awards are.

[Hostile Creation]

I hate people, but Katamari Damacy sounds like a cool game and something Gamecube owners would really go for, I think it would've done well, maybe in even better, on the Gamecube.  It would have to be released for Playstation as well, because no one would acknowledge it if it were only on Gamecube, but it would've been better to have it on both.

[WuTangTurtle]

If only Resident Evil 4 came out in December...............................

Anyways this award show $ucks.

Innovation in Console gaming should have Zelda: Four Swords!

Outstanding Musical Composition should have Tales of Symphonia

Role Playing Game of the Year should not have X-Men Legends.  That game is the worst peice of cr@p i've ever seen.  And Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is not an RPG.  I'm shocked to see 3 GCN nominees though!  But Baten Kaitos should have been nominated over FF:CC.

[Famicom]

GC had so many nominees because GC dominated the RPG category in 2004.  

[ib2kool4u912]

Alien Hominid should have won "Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction". Even if it wasnt the most advanced thing ever, it still looksed pretty damn cool.

[mantidor]

I used to have respect for this awards, specially when they put Miyamoto in the hall of fame, but then I realized if any award organization wants to have at least the minimum amount of credibilty the must give an award to Miyamoto... now this awards are just stupid, for reasons you've already pointed out.

[TheYoungerPlumber]

Wow, and I thought our Louie awards had repetative award winners.  Also, why is Donkey Konga thrown into every other category?  And Dan is right, Paper Mario: TYD doesn't deserve to win by a long shot.  It is both shorter than etiher Namco RPG and, well....less fresh, at least for American gamers.  It's like the voters felt they had to give Nintendo something.

[Infernal Monkey]

They should of renamed the awards to 'Let's have sex with Half-Life 2'

And the winner for best everything:
Half-Life 2!

*Crowd is shocked*

Sly Cooper 2 for animation? I wonder if they even play these games.

[Gamefreak]

The thing is...
The AIAS are voted on by press, but mostly by developers themselves. And by that I mean American developers. Most of whom are not qualified to vote in awards such as these because they don't have enough experience with all games.

You'd think an awards show voted on by developers would be legit... but nope. Most (i said most) of these developers don't know anything beyond their narrow range of American games for whatever platform they happen to develop for.

Just looking at what games get nominated and the fact that games are often nominated for the wrong genre tells you the AIAS is simply a bad awards show. I mean, Pikmin 2 for best action/adventure? o_O It could be understandable if there weren't enough console RTS's but in 2004 there were more than enough console strategy games to warrant their own category.

[RABicle]

Halo 2 for best Online Design? World of Warcraft hello?

Good to see the overated Tecmo got what it deserved: not even a nomination.

Half Life 2 really does deserve all that, it's an amazing game in every department.

The Paper Mario RPGs are the freshest, most innovative and enjoyable RPGs ever made. Both Japanese and American RPGS are stuck in a bottomless rut, Paper Mario destroys this, the only thing that Tales did to avoid the rut was it's battles and they had their own set of faults. PM2 won the IGN award too. Paper Mario deserves the world.

the AIAS is the same awards that OOT won nearly everything in isn't it? Or was that something else?

[KDR_11k]

Good to see the overated Tecmo got what it deserved: not even a nomination.

What did they make that would deserve a nomination?

Hostile Creation: Hell, yeah, Katamari should've been on the GC , if just for the fact that NoE would've released the game here, unlike SCEE.


So the most hyped games, Half-Life 2, Halo 2 and GTA:SA take all the cakes? No wonder I couldn't find anything interesting to buy during the christmas rush. Hell, I uninstalled HL2 already without playing it farther than 1/4th to make space for Beyond Good & Evil (hey, Ubi sucks but if they were to release all of their games for 9 euros I wouldn't mind their viciousness!). Wish I had not bought it now and waited two years so there are mods out... Damn those people talking about how "awesome" HL2 is. Kururin owns it front to back to front again.

[Djunknown]

Its interesting how AIAS was nice to Nintendo in times past; now that not too many Nintendo titles picked up hardware from a more-or-less legitmate source, the fans go "Ah screw it, AIAS sucks anyways..." *Rolls eyes*

I too have a couple WTF's but I won't get into super-anger mode. First off, I really wasn't aware that Tecmo was even on the proverbial radar for American gamers. Its a shame that Ninja Gaiden didnt' even get nominated for best action game;maybe because of its initial difficulty, or they just couldn't handle that much action.

Katamari Damacy seems to be the most pleasant surprise not just here, but many other sources as well. I definately should check this out to see what's all the hub-ub about.

I'll claim ignorance on Half Life 2, since I haven't gotten my hands on it, but if you're working on something for over 6 years (Even I jabbed at them), its got to pay off somehow. This ain't no Daikitana to say the least....

Next year, the Handheld category should prove to be a true battleground with the upcoming PSP, Nintendo will no longer have that whole genre to itself.

[darknight06]

Fighting Game of the Year
Def Jam: Fight for NY
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3
Mortal Kombat: Deception

So much for the credibility of these awards.  As much as I can't stand Capcom Fighting Evolution, I'd have put that leagues ahead of Mortal Krap- I mean Kombat Deception or any of them for that matter.  SvC Chaos as broke as it was is even better.  Budokai 3 actually had a decent engine this time, and Def Jam in no way is worse than MK anything!  MK hasn't had a passable game since the second and Deception is a joke.  I've seen more people play that game for the chess game than anything else.    

[Hostile Creation]

Quote
Its interesting how AIAS was nice to Nintendo in times past; now that not too many Nintendo titles picked up hardware from a more-or-less legitmate source, the fans go "Ah screw it, AIAS sucks anyways..." *Rolls eyes*

You don't think maybe that has anything to do with the fact that Nintendo was the market leader then?  AIAS is just a follow the herd company, that's what's pathetic.

As for me, I don't care about awards like this even if I happen to agree with them.  And there are so damn many nowadays they don't even matter anymore.

[Ian Sane]

"You don't think maybe that has anything to do with the fact that Nintendo was the market leader then? AIAS is just a follow the herd company, that's what's pathetic."

I believe AIAS gave Game of the Year awards to Goldeneye and Ocarina of Time.  The N64 was not the market leader.