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Canadian Game Studios Heavy Contenders For Golden Joystick Awards

Canada [1]Canada – The vast nominee lists [2] for the UK’s 27th Annual Golden Joystick Awards [3] has been released, and mixed amongst the hundreds of titles are a good portion of Canadian-made titles – led by Ubisoft and EA Canada (see below). The Golden Joysticks is the oldest gaming awards ceremony in the world, with every winner voted upon by the gaming public. In 2008, over 850 000 votes were cast to decide the winners. The Golden Joystick Awards Ceremony will be held on October 30th, the Grand Finale to the London Game Festival in the UK.

Awards categories include Family Game of the Year, Handheld Game of the Year, Mobile Game of the Year, Multiplayer Game of the Year, Nintendo Game of the Year, Xbox Game of the Year, PlayStation Game of the Year, Multiplayer Game of the Year, Online Game of the Year, Publisher of the Year, PC Game of the Year, Retailer of the Year, Soundtrack of the Year, UK Developer of the Year, The One To Watch, and the Ultimate Game of the Year.

Only those games which were (or will be) released between May 22 2008 and May 22 2009 are eligible for the main awards categories (but I think I saw a few games which are more than a year old in those lists). Games in The One To Watch category must be scheduled for release after May 22 2009.  The public is encouraged to vote in as many or as few categories as they wish. The Online Game of the Year Award is for PC multiplayer gaming and can include MMOs already released (I find that a bit confusing), while the Multiplayer Game of the Year is for console games only. Registration is required for voting.

While I started off with the best intentions of listing every Canadian game on the nominations list, there are hundreds of games in the running, and there are just too many games and studios I am not yet familiar with. If I miss mentioning your game or studio below, and you find it on the nomination lists, please let me know. I wish all of the studios the best of luck in making it through the voting process, and look forward to announcing the winners at the end of October.

By far the Canadian studio with the highest number of games nominated is Ubisoft Montreal, followed closely by EA Canada – including both EA Sports and Black Box. Relic’s Dawn of War 2 and Radical’s Crash Bandicoot: Mind Over Matter both made the list, and Radical’s PROTOTYPE is one of the games nominated in The One To Watch category. Also nominated in The One To Watch category were Deux Ex 3, Dead Rising 2, Assassin’s Creed 2, FIFA 10, Fight Night Round 4, Ghost Recon 4, Ghostbusters, Grand Slam Tennis, Mass Effect 2, Max Payne 3, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Need for Speed World Online, Need for Speed Shift and Supreme Commander 2. Golden Joystick Awards [3]

Other nominated games (in no particular 0rder) include Far Cry 2, FIFA 09, Need For Speed Undercover, Need For Speed Pro Street, EA Sports Active, Dogz Fashion, Kung Fu Panda, Hell’s Kitchen, My Horse & Me 2, Trivial Pursuit, Transformers Animated, Battle of Giants: Dinosaurs, Igor The Game, My Weight Loss Coach, N+, Quantum of Solace, Shaun White Snowboarding, Skate It, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Tom Clancy’s Endwar, Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.,   Brothers in Arms Hell’s Highway, Bully: Scholarship Edition, NHL 09, NBA Live 09, Skate 2, Supreme Commander 2020, Too Human, Grey’s Anatomy, Jewel Quest Expeditions, Monster Lab, Turok, 3 on 3 NHL Arcade, Monsters vs Aliens, Prince of Persia, SOCOM: Confrontation, Mass Effect.

Many of these games are nominated in multiple categories – good luck to all of you!