Nintendogs Nintendo's best nominated game; Resident Evil 4 notably absent.
The Academy for Interactive Arts and Sciences have revealed the finalists for the ninth annual Interactive Achievements awards. The awards celebrate the best videogames of the year, as voted on by industry peers. The ceremony will take place at the Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel and Casino on February 9.
Nintendo's puppy-powered simulation Nintendogs is nominated in six award categories, half of which are for all the major awards it could possibly be up for: Handheld, Console and Overall Game of the Year. A first, for sure. Nintendo's other multi-nominated title was Mario Kart DS, looking to take the racing genre and online game awards.
Other Nintendo titles to win nominations include Super Mario Strikers in the sports genre, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance for role-playing, and DDR Mario Mix for family game of the year. Nintendogs will need to fight it out against Zelda: The Minish Cap and Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time for Handheld Game of the Year.
The biggest surprise on the list of nominees was the one that wasn't there. Capcom's Resident Evil 4, released in January of this year, did not recieve a single nomination. Our pick for GameCube Game of the Year seems deserving of at least a nod from the Academy. It turns out there's a reason for the omission, though.
According to GameSpot, RE4 was not considered because Capcom is not a member of the AIAS. Only games published by members of the Academy may be nominated, and since Capcom "chose not to play," Resident Evil 4 won't win anything.
For the record, the top three nominated games were all PS2 games. God of War has eleven; Guitar Hero and Shadow of the Colossus each have seven.