Kate Russell has dished out the gongs at the annual ceremony here at London's Earls Court, and once again it's a confusing mish-mash of sponsored categories and conflicting opinions - which should at least mean that everyone that wanted or deserved an award of some sort got one. Ubi Soft will perhaps be proudest with their tally of five successes, and given that we've been very impressed with Far Cry, Prince of Persia, Everquest 2 and a couple of other interesting titles on the their stand, it seems fair they've been rewarded for consistent excellence. Indeed, Ubi Soft's showing overall is perhaps one of the best on offer here, with bigger company's like and Vivendi failing to get us quite as excited with what they've got.

Needless to say, it was still the big publishers that picked up the vast majority of the recognition, and we were sad to see that D-Gate's excellent Ping Pong title failed to get some form of recognition (unlike last year's success as multiplayer game of the show); though this might be because a dedicated multiplayer award of some description was omitted from the proceedings. Anyway, here's the categories and their respective winners in full:

Sponsored awards, voted by the publication editors or readers:

  • Game of the Year (gamer.tv) – 2, Konami
  • Game of the Year France (JDLI) – 1942, Electronic Arts
  • Game of the Year (Gamigo.de) – Splinter Cell, Ubi Soft Entertainment
  • Game of the Year Italy (Multiplayer.it) – Mafia, Gathering
  • Game of the Year Spain (Game Live) – GTA: Vice City, Games
  • Game of the Year Scandinavia (Manual) – Battlefield 1942, Electronic Arts
Sponsored awards, voted by editorial teams:
  • The Gamer Best PC Games Developer Awards – Creative Assembly
  • The PC Format Best New Games Kit award – Shuttle's Small Form Factor PCs
  • The Edge Award – Viewtiful Joe, Capcom
  • The Loaded Award – GTA: Vice City, Rockstar Games
  • The Times Award – EyeToy
Voted by readers of ECTS.com:
  • Best Console of the Year – Xbox
  • Best Publisher of the Year – Nintendo
  • Best PC Hardware of the Year – ATI 9800 Pro
Vote by a Press Panel:
  • Best PC Game of the Show – Far Cry, Ubi Soft Entertainment
  • Best Console Game of the Show - XIII, Ubi Soft Entertainment
  • Best Handheld Game of the Show – Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising – Nintendo
  • Best Online Game of the Show – Everquest II, Ubi Soft Entertainment
  • Overall Best Game of the Show – XIII, Ubi Soft Entertainment
  • The London Games Week Award – Half Life 2, Vivendi Universal Games

By Luke Guttridge