Four of Best Six Games of the Year are on PC

By Marcus Yam
published

Fallout 3 has been selected by developers as the best game of 2008.

Many games can lay claim to being some sort of “game of the year,” depending on who’s opinion it’s based on. But winning such an accolade at the Game Developers Conference Choice Awards must be special, as winners are voted on by other developers.

Taking top honors was Bethesda Softworks’ Fallout 3, named as the game of the year and as well as having the best writing. The award applies  equally to the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Fallout 3

Although it wasn’t game of the year, Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet on the PS3 took home the most awards with four. The innovative platforming creation game was awarded with best game design, best technology, best debut game and best innovation.

The remaining awards were: best visual arts to Prince of Persia; best audio to Dead Space; best handheld game to God of War: Chains of Olympus; and best downloadable game to World of Goo.

The awards also recognized several key industry figures. This year, Hideo Kojima, creator of the Metal Gear series was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his “influence on the craft of game development and his twenty years of work on Metal Gear and other notable franchises.”

Harmonix co-founders Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy, co-developers the original Guitar Hero games and now the Rock Band franchise, received the Pioneer Award for their work.

Finally, Tommy Tallarico, co-founder of the Video Games Live concert series and founder of the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.), received the Ambassador Award for helping to advance the game audio community.

While the games industry does seem more focused on consoles these days, it’s interesting to note that, of six games recognized to be the very best in their respective areas, four of them are available on the PC -- and none of them were long-delayed ports.

Does this mean that PC gaming is still alive and well? Hopefully so.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
23 Comments Comment from the forums
  • tipoo
    Durr.
    Reply
  • duckmanx88
    i agree with you that L4D is a great game, but releasing the game with only two versus maps out of the 4 campaign maps totally takes away that award.
    Reply
  • Nuke_Meltdown
    L4D is the best if not one of the best......period
    Reply
  • L4D was one of the best... but the crappy console matchmaking system

    and the constant dumbing down of the game for noobs...

    and the poor net coding

    and the lack of good support via patches which often times break some part of the game severely which is CLEARLY not play tested...

    and the fact that the campaigns that are soon to be released 6 months AFTER the game released... SHOULD have been in the ORIGINAL release... is unacceptable... I mean how long can it possibly take to add one or two extra textures to the map... and some ladders.... like seriously...
    Reply
  • graviongr
    I 100% agree with Dead Space winning for best sound. While I was playing that game, I was just constantly in awe at the games sound design.

    So many subtle and cool effects, weapons sounded powerful, enemies were menacing, atmosphere sounds were moody and creepy, the whispering was eerie, the tram sounds, holographic inventory management sounds, the store sounds, upgrade bench, radio / video calls... it was all magnificent.

    If only all games had sound design that well executed.

    It's funny that this game won for best sound after I was musing about it to myself. Not surprising at all though.
    Reply
  • randomizer
    Left 4 Dead has serious bugs that would make me not put it at the top. The matchmaker is one of the biggest; if it works, you're growing 4-leaf clovers in your yard.
    Reply
  • falchard
    Developers are more predominantly PC gamers then console gamers. So it will be a bit biased towards PC games.
    Reply
  • eklipz330
    in b4 pcgamingisdead
    Reply
  • magicandy
    I'm wondering what, exactly, the GH/RB creators received a Pioneer Award for. As far as Guitar Hero alone, nothing new there when you consider it's basically just a ripoff (albeit a better-than-the-original one) of Guitar Freaks, which was made by Konami more than six years prior. Hell, Konami even debuted the multiple-instrument home game (Guitar Freaks/Drummania), so it doesn't make sense for Rock Band either.

    Usually GDC awards actually hold weight in my mind, but this one seems odd and questionable considering there's really nothing that those two actually pioneered.
    Reply
  • that_aznpride101
    demonhorde665P.S. I think Left 4 dead should have got some award , the game to me was jsut so revolutionary in how it told it's story and the game play of teh co-op and how teh ai director forces /rewaords team work and punishes non team work. i eman seriously this game told a story WITH OUT ACTUALLY having much of a story. left 4 dead to me will be one of teh greatest peices of game art for a long time if you ask me
    I have to disagree with this one, I feel like Left 4 Dead was very similar (almost too similar) to a Half Life mod called Zombie Master. I can't really give credit to L4D as a game that was "revolutionary" as ZM was already released way before L4D.
    Reply