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Videogame Academy Awards name the top titles of the 2007

Call of Duty 4, BioShock and Orange Box were recognized with four statues at last week’s 11th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards. Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime and former Sony president Ken Kutaragi were also awarded for their contributions to the games industry.

"The Interactive Achievement Awards is the forum for the industry's best game makers to evaluate the merits of more than 160 titles submitted for consideration and honor the best in technical innovation and gameplay experience," said Joseph Olin, president of the AIAS. "This year's winners truly represent the best cross section of interactive entertainment, demonstrating the power of next-generation platforms that have come of age."

Overall game of the year went to Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty 4, which was also named as the console game of the year, action game of the year and outstanding achievement in online game play. Activision announced last month that Call of Duty 4 was the top selling game of 2007.

Computer game of the year was Valve’s mega-bundle, the Orange Box. Composed of an unbeatable value proposition of Half-Life 2, Episodes 1 and 2, Team Fortress 2 and the unforgettable Portal, Orange Box raised the bar on the PC well as consoles. Portal, in particular, was recognized specifically for its outstanding achievement in game design, game play engineering and character performance.

Released last summer, BioShock by 2K Boston and 2K Australia was an instant darling among both PC and Xbox 360 gamers. BioShock was awarded for its outstanding achievement in story development, original music composition, sound design and art direction.

Not surprisingly, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade was the multiplayer game of the year. The most popular MMO currently has over 10 million subscribers. Mike Morhaime, president, CEO and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, was inducted as the 11th member of the AIAS Hall of Fame.

Rock Band also picked up a trio of awards for its outstanding innovation in gaming, achievement in soundtrack and was also named family game of the year.

Besides Rock Band and Orange Box, EA published a number of other award winning titles. Its skate. game captured sports game and cellular game of the year. Crysis had little contest in attaining outstanding achievement in visual engineering and Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars was named the best strategy/simulation game of the year.

Nintendo’s own Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for DS was named the handheld game of the year, while Super Mario Galaxy on Wii was the adventure game of the year.

For a full list of awards and more information, see the official AIAS Awards document (PDF).

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Impressed
By TheDiceman on 2/11/2008 11:37:01 AM , Rating: 2
Mind you, I love CoD4 and it is the first multiplayer FLS I have connected to in years (I have been a long standing UT player until now), but I am rather suprised how popular the game has proven to me. I really didn't think anything could put a dent in the deticated CS player base as far as modern day shooters go.




RE: Impressed
By 1078feba on 2/11/2008 1:04:41 PM , Rating: 2
While obviously a problem with all FPS', and due to said poularity even more so for CoD4, but the hax have to stop. My clan streams PB, and the universal bans are nearly continuous. It is ridiculously sad.


RE: Impressed
By TheDiceman on 2/11/2008 1:10:05 PM , Rating: 2
Tha main hack that PB does not seem to catch is one that displays everyone's hit box. We too stream PB bans, but shockingly most of our server bans come from people being jerks and an admin banning them (largely for TKing) which is not bad considering that our server is in the top 300 on gametracker.


RE: Impressed
By AlvinCool on 2/11/2008 4:43:57 PM , Rating: 2
Anyone know when they might release actual new specifically for multiplayer maps for COD4?


RE: Impressed
By TheDiceman on 2/11/2008 5:13:10 PM , Rating: 2
IW said sometime this Spring several new official maps would be made available. The cusotm scene is just beginning to put stuff out there and thus far too many of them are either remakes or just poorly designed.


RE: Impressed
By Screwballl on 2/11/2008 7:33:40 PM , Rating: 2
I hope they fix a few bugs first and soon... I have had too many occurrences where I would blast someone about 3 feet away or less (like coming around a corner) with the grenade launcher attachment and it did nothing (this has been tested again and again)... or fire it a distance (like across from one building to another on Bloc) and if you die when the shot is more than 10 feet away from its target, it disappears. No boom, no hit, nothing on either occurrence.
Another thing is hitbox detection needs some work. Too many times have I hit someone on the head 3 or 4 times with any sniper rifle from any distance and it does nothing. Many times they don't even move since it doesn't hit them. No damage to them or if it does, it is as if the shot hit their pinky finger. I have to shoot them below the neck for it to register and then it usually takes 2 or 3 shots, even with the .50 cal. Only 1 out of 10 shots actually registers as a headshot. Very annoying
Now don't say lag because several of the servers I play on keep people's pings below 100 and mine is typically 30-60, plus many of these test (missed) shots have been on someone that did not move after several attempts so its not like there is a prediction branch in play for either of us.


RE: Impressed
By Borkil on 2/11/2008 8:09:29 PM , Rating: 2
" have had too many occurrences where I would blast someone about 3 feet away or less (like coming around a corner) with the grenade launcher attachment and it did nothing (this has been tested again and again)..."

the reason behind that is for the grenade to explode it has to travel a certain distance. So say the tips that appear when you load maps at least. for the other stuff idk.


RE: Impressed
By Screwballl on 2/12/2008 2:29:42 PM , Rating: 2
yes but if you shoot across the map with a nade launcher in Bloc and die, most of the time there is no explosion, whereas if you live, it does explode. Same for the close shot, I have hit plenty of people at close range (more than 3 feet away) and it doesn't explode, it just sends their body flying backwards with the little "taking a shell to the stomach" death icon. The problem I am saying is that within 3 feet it just disappears and does nothing, no stomach shot, no explosion, nothing.

As for "noob tube" comments, there are challenges that can be accomplished with it and also some shots thatare fun to play around with. Some people complain about martydom but it is a part of the game so some people use it (like on Wet Work it works great).


RE: Impressed
By ioKain on 2/12/2008 11:56:58 AM , Rating: 2
Sniper bugs were fixed like two patches ago. I have no problem getting head shots with the R700, the .50 cal's range is not very good. As far as the noob tube is concerned, you should be ashamed of yourself. Try using a perk thats worth a crap like bandoleer. I really wish they would remove the "noob tube" from the game, but hey....thats what the comp mods are for.


RE: Impressed
By ziggo on 2/12/2008 10:25:58 AM , Rating: 2
I played RTCW and RTCW:ET before I moved to COD4. I was horribly burned by battlefield 2 and I dabbled in the other CODs, and but they never really got me to move. I didn't like CS because of the EGOs on every server and the rampant corner camping.

COD4 is good enough, but I would still like to see the hitboxes refined, and the anti-lag implemented better. as mentioned, before V1.5 hacking was rampant and you had to play on a server that had an admin on otherwise it just wasn't worth it. They have to get the key system secured and starting banning connect based on the keys to deter these people.


Where is the award for...
By UppityMatt on 2/11/2008 7:20:55 PM , Rating: 2
Shortest gameplay. Don't get me wrong CoD4 was an amazing game, but just over 5 hours of gameplay leaves me feeling shorted in the end. If they would have doubled the campaign i would have definitely agreed.




RE: Where is the award for...
By 4wardtristan on 2/12/2008 1:46:20 AM , Rating: 2
i havent played cod4 personally, but i can nearly guarantee that portals single-player campaign is just as, if not more, shorter then cod4's


RE: Where is the award for...
By ajfink on 2/12/2008 8:43:38 AM , Rating: 2
Try it on Veteran, you'll be there for days.


Bioshock?
By rainwalker on 2/12/2008 1:25:47 AM , Rating: 2
Ok, I obviously need some help understanding Bioshock's appeal. I like RPGs and fastasy and science fiction and great stories. I like FPSs and gritty, realistic, sharp-looking graphics. I like the latest, popular video games and ugly, outdated, cult video games. I'm a happy, flexible, usually not picky, easy-to-please gamer. By all reason, Bioshock should seem really cool and fun to me.

But I have to say - after downloading and trying the demo out on my P4 ATI X800 Pro Audigy 2 2GB RAM machine (which is obviously a little dated) - Bioshock ran pretty much flawlessly on mid-high graphics settings and somehow thoroughly failed to impress me.

Did I mention I'm a sociology student? Even the premise was very appealing to me. So can someone who loves this game explain to me what went wrong with my experience? Was it just the style of gameplay, the lackluster graphics, or something else? What is Bioshock's incredible appeal to every other gamer all about?




RE: Bioshock?
By Kaleid on 2/12/2008 6:30:36 AM , Rating: 2
You actually managed to get the game to run with a SM2.0 card?

Having played through the game three times I have to say that the demo is not as good as the game. It barely begins.

I give Kudos to Bioshock for having me actually enjoying taking out the bad guys (in many different ways), it's very rare that setting people on fire is as pleasing...

Unfortunaly though, the game has been dumbed down so that it's playable for the console crowd.


RE: Bioshock?
By ajfink on 2/12/2008 8:46:44 AM , Rating: 2
I can honestly say Bioshock is one of the most beautiful and artistically elegant video games that has ever been made, let alone in the FPS genre. It's combat methods and systems may not have been groundbreaking, but the story, the music, the characters, the atmosphere - all of it add up to deliver one of the finest video game productions I've seen.

I almost feel bad about trading it in, but the replay value is somewhat slim.


Yuck
By Griswold on 2/11/2008 5:00:24 PM , Rating: 1
Must have been a sad year if COD4 won the overall game of the year award.

Then again, awards like these are just as worthless as the oscars, emmys and grammys of this world. Maybe the year wasnt that bad after all if you ignore the mainstream hype?




RE: Yuck
By oab on 2/12/2008 8:19:49 AM , Rating: 2
And oh mr. guru of all video game awards, what was YOUR number one? I'm assuming you have played CoD4 so that you can say it is not game of the year. I also assume that you have played the Orange Box, BioShock, Crysis, C&C 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Rock Band, Guitar Hero III, Phantom Hourglass, and all the other AAA titles that came out last year for the various platforms so that you can say that. Especially if you are saying that because CoD4 won it meant that the whole gaming year was bad if all the brilliant games were ignored. That would of course mean that you are only considering little tiny independent developers like Introversion's DEFCON. Oh wait, that was released last year.

I guess you are stuck playing your Japanese imports on your h4x0red console that no-one has heard of outside Japan. Or perhaps you yearn for the days of the NES so that you can play duck-hunt with your friend in your parents basement again.

Last year was a killer year for gaming, and I don't think CoD4 should have won (but I never played it, I prefer single player games), but everyone I have heard from said that the game WAS in fact stunningly good.


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