"BioShock," "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" and "The Orange Box" garnered four prizes apiece Thursday night at the 11th annual Interactive Achievement Awards.

"Call of Duty," praised for its unique online multiplayer leveling system, was named overall game of the year and console game of the year. It was also honored as the top action and online game. It features an intense single-player mission revolving around global terror as well as a diverse set of multiplayer modes.

"BioShock," which had a record-setting 12 nominations, won awards for art direction, story development, music and sound.

"The Orange Box," a compilation of five distinct games, was named computer game of the year. Its mind-bending physics puzzler, "Portal," was honored for game design, character performance and game play engineering.

The awards were handed out by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences at the D.I.C.E. (Design Innovate Communicate Entertain) Summit. Winners were selected by panels of engineers, designers and others in the industry.

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Winners in other categories included:

Innovation in Gaming: "Rock Band."

Handheld Game: "The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglas."

Massively Multiplayer Game: "World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade."

Cellular Game: "skate."

Role-Playing Game: "Mass Effect."

Racing Game: "MotorStorm."

Adventure Game: "Super Mario Galaxy."

Sports Game: "skate."

Strategy-simulation Game: "Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars."

Family Game: "Rock Band."

Downloadable Game: "Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords."

Animation: "Assassin's Creed."

Visual Engineering: "Crysis."

Soundtrack: "Rock Band."

seems the biggest games to win in the states were.........FPS Yeah.....well color me surprised

but good news about rock band

Sweet to see The Orange Box get so much appreciation! The game really didn't sell well (especially on the PS3)...

Meh, I can't really agree with that. Even if it was going to be one of the big FPSs of the year to win, it should've been bioshock. COD4 just didn't impress me much. I am glad Bioshock got so much recognition, but I really hope that 08 won't be the year of the FPS part 2. Hopefully the market is so saturated now that they won't be considered the be all end all of games anymore.

@ Vagabond

I was truly impressed by Bioshock, but afterward, I was like 'Why the moral choice?' It was an awesome ride, but I never, ever picked it back up after playing COD4. Any game that makes me want to replay missions gets my vote. Shoot, I still love playing COD2!

Innovation in Gaming: "Rock Band."

At first I was annoyed at the Wii being ignored here, but there wasn't anything unbeliveably innovative during 2007. Lots of stuff that debuted in 2006, and lots coming in 2008, but less in 2007.

The jury is still out on Wii Fit, and the Yanks probably won't count it before it's released on their little island anyway. =P

Adventure Game: "Super Mario Galaxy."

Adventure game?

Yahtzee really hit the nail when he said just about every game these days that doesn't completely fit into a pre-set stereotype gets pegged into "action adventure" or something equally vague. I can understand it with a lot of stuff, but Galaxy is the purest example of a platformer in at least 5 years.

Btw, "cellular game" refers to games on cell phones, right?

btwbtw StarcraftManiac: I hear it sold many times more on the PC than consoles. SSJ12 knows more than me about this stuff, and I remember him saying he's sure it sold twice as much as Halo 3. Probably a bit high, but don't underestimate Steam.

madskillz said: LAS VEGAS - Three critically acclaimed first-person shooters won top honors at the video game industry's most prestigious awards show. LAS VEGAS - Three critically acclaimed first-person shooters won top honors at the video game industry's most prestigious awards show.

The first line is printed twice for some reason?

Anyway,  kind of surprised rock band won for best soundtrack. I mean sure the songs are great, but it's kind of like a compilation album... Were there any original songs in the game?

Bioshock really deserved, this game hook me up.
COD4 did not impressed me the game was to short and the History is confused and forced.

Good for Bioshock

The Orange Box needs even more attention, if only to spurr Valve into motion and keep giving us the goods!
I've yet to play CoD4, partly because I haven't bothered looking for anything besides the demo (which reminded me of DF: Black Hawk own) but also because I'm afraid I'll be let down since I've never really liked any of the sequels.
Bioshock is certainly a good game, but undeserving of the "revolution" label its been given.
The way I see it; Half-Life invented the modern FPS standard (not genre, standard) and Half-Life 2 re-invented it by using advanced physics and realistic AI for the first time. Bioshock, in my eyes, did not so much invent anything as it borrowed and reworked some older elements from past games.
It has brilliant production values, sizzling visuals and sound and an original story. But, Bioshock is perhaps the only incentive for keeping FPS games as short as they normally are, becoming more and more a chore to play rather than fun. When you've played 3-4 levels, you've basically encountered all the enemies, met with or talked too all the main characters and seen most variations (where such is present) in the environment.
And when you've unlocked and basically solved most of the mystery that is Rapture, you're just halfway through the game!
It reminds me of when I played NFS: Underground 2 on PS2 and had unlocked everything after 65% game completion (!), I never bothered to finish the game, since doing so meant repeating what I'd been doing for hours on end already without much of a reward.
It would be fun, though, if they took RocketPig's idea of making a Bioshock prequel set in Rapture on the new years eve it all went wrong, with buzzing halls and rooms and full life and texture to everything everywhere in all its dazzling glory!

Ken Kutoragi also received the Lifetime Achievement Award.


Nice Job Ken, You deserve it.