Three critically acclaimed first-person shooters won top honors at the video game industry's most prestigious awards show.
"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.
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."