The Sims, Shattered Galaxy, others honored at Game Developers Choice Awards

Hundreds gathered at the San Jose Civic Auditorium on Friday night as nearly a dozen games were honored at the Game Developers Choice Awards.

	Will Wright picked up the award for Game of the Year for The Sims at the Game Developers Choice Awards Friday night.

The Game of the Year award went to Maxis' The Sims. "I've received a lot of awards for The Sims," said creator Will Wright. "But this matters the most because it was given by other developers. And most importantly I have entertained the hardcore, while the game is still enjoyed by my mother and sister, so it gives me a lot of hope for the industry."

Continuing the Independent Games Festival domination from the night before, Nexon grabbed both the Audience Award and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize Award for the RTS/RPG hybrid Shattered Galaxy. "We are so happy and thankful," the team said. "It is exciting to be up here with all the audience as excited as we have been about the game." Nexon also received the Game Design Award and Technical Award on Thursday night.

The overall vibe was quite different from the semi-serious IGF event the evening before, with the Choice Awards being more akin to the Oscar's ceremony than to a game awards show, featuring a live band (the loungy group TIPSY), flashing strobe lights and an official announcer. Also helping create the big-budget award feel were an eclectic set of award presenters, ranging from Microsoft's Channel Summers wearing 70s garb (including a fur coat, an oversized sunglasses and a tight t-shirt) to Sega's Masaya Matsuura, clad in dyed-blonde hair and a bright orange shirt.The 80-minute ceremony smoothly compiled 14 awards, five short video presentations of nominated games and substantial acceptance speeches.

The Sims' creator Wright received the Lifetime Achievement Award for his 20 years of excellent game design, starting with Broderbund's Raid on Bungling Bay and including the SimCity series. Westwood Studios' Louis Castle introduced him to a standing ovation, to which Wright wryly said "That's enough. Sit down." Despite his accomplishments with The Sims series, the top selling PC title of 2000 according to PC Data, he remained humble during the acceptance speech. "I feel like an astronaut, where I'm getting all the credit, but I'm just standing on the shoulders of others."

Diablo II took home the award for Excellence in Audio, over Michael Sweet's BliX, Sega's Samba De Amigo and Space Channel 5, and Eidos' Thief II: The Metal Age. "We would like to thank Blizzard and thank the people who bought the game and killed all the monsters," the team said.

The Counter-Strike team received the Rookie Studio Award for their Half-Life-based game, surpassing Free Radical Design (Time Splitters), Massive Entertainment (Ground Control), Nihilistic Software (Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption) and Planet Moon Studios (Giants: Citizen Kabuto). A representative received the award for the Counter-Strike team, mainly because the team itself is spread across the globe, but he was still able to articulate the beauty of the game. "A bunch of people who never built a game stationed all over the world that make a game with a larger viewer base than the Friends TV show - that is pretty amazing."