Game Developers Choice Awards 2003: And the Nominees Are ... Just like last year, Defunct Games is just about the only website covering the most prestigious awards conference of the year. For the last few years, the Game Developers Choice Awards have honored the best games of all genres and consoles. This year is no different. By now you should have read Game Developers Choice Awards 2003: the Pre Game Show, the article where we discussed the games I thought would be nominated this year. And that's not it. We also rounded up a rag tag group of people who have contributed to Defunct Games over the years, and after locking them in a room, we have come up with a three part special. It's a look at Who WILL Win, Who SHOULD Win, and Who Was SNUBBED! Three pages, five people, and a whole bunch of disagreement. Now that the nominations are out, I can justify bragging about my almost perfect accuracy at picking who would be nominated. I put forth a list of games that were SURE to be nominated, and of the nine games I listed, seven of them were nominated. I said that Metroid Prime was a shoe-in for the excellence in visual art, since it has some of the best graphics of all time. Regardless, the nominations are interesting in some respects, and a little frightening, too. While compiling this article, a few things became evident. The game developers who chose the five nominations per category seem to have something against games released in within the first five months of the year, with only four exceptions. That's four games out of the 21 games nominated this year. They passed over a good half dozen great games released in the first five months, including Maximo and Virtua Fighter 4. We've offered a chronological list of all the games nominated this year. January: Medal of Honor: Allied Assault February: Jet Set Radio Future March: Freedom Force April: Dungeon Siege June: Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, Neverwinter Nights July: The Mark of Kri, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos August: Mafia: the City of Lost Heaven, Super Mario Sunshine September: Battlefield 1942, Kingdom Hearts, No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy In H.A.R.M.S. Way, Sly Cooper & the Thievius Raccoonus, Syberia, Unreal Tournament 2003 October Blinx: the Time Sweeper, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City November: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Ratchet & Clank, The Getaway (U.K.) Besides discriminating against the first half of last year, there's another thing that sticks out like a sore thumb. For example, why was the Getaway included in the awards? After all, the game was released in the United States late January 2003, yet released in Europe last year. By this rationale, the new Zelda game, which was released in 2002 in Japan, should be up for something. Or how about Halo, which wasn't released until mid 2002 in Europe, that game is still as great now as it was then, right? Nonetheless, it would have been nice if the Game Developers could have kept their countries straight. In one week we will know who the winner is, and you can expect another great feature dissecting the whole ordeal. So, be ready for anything. I think it's time for you to head on over to the first award, the EXCELLENCE IN VISUAL ARTS AWARD. You'll find the five nominations, the game that was snubbed, who should win, and who WILL win. If you see name in italics you will know it's a game we predicted in our pre-game show. There are eight awards, so make sure you check them all out, and be here next week to see who the winner is. -Cyril If you are still interested in reading about the Game Developers Choice Awards, I suggest you take a look at our awards coverage last year. We called the article: Game Developers Choice Awards 2002 - Truths, Predictions, and Utter Lies. It makes for a good companion piece to this article, but I assure you, what we have going this month is much better than last year.