Indie Games Festival awards.

Student Showcase award - Tag: The Power of Paint.

Techincal excellence award - Cortex Command

Excellence in visual art award - Machinariam

Excellence in game design award -  Musiac Box

Best audio award - BrainPipe

Innovation award - Between

Audience award - Cortex Command

Seamus McNally award (top IGF award) - Blue Garden

GDC Awards

Best iPhone game - Zen Bound

Best mobile game - Field Runners

Best debut game - Little Big Planet

Best audio - Dead Space

Best Game Design - Little Big Planet

Best Downloadable game - World of Goo

Best handheld game - God of War Chains of Olympus

Ambassador Award goes to Tommy Tallarico

Best Writing - Fallout 3

Best Technology - Little Big Planet

Best Visual Art - Prince of Persia

Innovation award - Little Big Planet

Kojima gets the lifetime achivement award and says he'll make games till the day he dies.

GDC Game of the Year - Fallout 3

Tim Schafer hosted the awards tonight and made for some good entertainment.  He made many jokes regarding the awards like "The other day I was swimming and a man waved at me and yelled but I couldn't hear him. And then a shark came and bit off my arm. That's when I learned the importance of audio."  Try to read up on some of the live blogs for more of his hilarious comments.

Some real surprises, one being Fallout 3 taking top spot after Little Big Planet taking so many awards, and World of Goo trumping Braid is a huge upset, as Braid was an obvious choice for many.  Overall some great picks for the top games in 2008, there was so much competition it made for some huge surprises in the awards ceremony, and it just goes to show how great of a year 2008 was for gaming.

Finally Kojima made some interesting comments at the awards ceremony.  The main one being he said he'd never retire from the industry and making games till he dies, which means Kojima fans should rejoice knowing they'll be many more years of Kojima games.  He also stated that he would love to direct a movie one day, perhaps Metal Gear live action movie one day?  And with the creator in charge we won't have horrid memories of movies like House of the Dead or Super Mario Bros. the movie... now if only we could get Miyamoto to direct a movie...

Patrick Maxwell

pmaxwell@vgchartz.com