GDC Game of the Year: Uncharted 2

By Geoff Duncan March 12, 2010

This week marked the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, and that includes the annual Game Developer Choice Awards. This year’s big winner: Naughty Dog‘s Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, which collected five trophies, including the coveted Game of the Year award. The wins follow Uncharted 2’s win at the 2009 Spike TV Video Game Awards, where it also took the top prize.

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Uncharted 2 is available only for the PlayStation 3, and follows the adventures of treasure-hunter Nathan Drake in a frenetically-paced adventure that’s part Indiana Jones, part James Bond, and part first-person shooter. Uncharted 2 also took honors for best writing, technology, visual art, and audio. The game beat out some notable competition, including Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham Asylum (which took best game design), Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed II, From Software’s Demon’s Souls, and BioWare’s Dragon Age: Origins.

Other significant wins at the Game Developer Choice Awards included 5th Cell, whose Scribbelnauts won Best Handheld Game and the Innovation Award. Zynga’s Farmville also won the debut award for Best New Social/Online Game. The Best Downloadble Game award went to thatgamecompany’s Flower, marking the company’s second win in the category: they previously won in 2008 with fl0w.

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Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…

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