Gamertell

Regardless of how you feel about most award ceremonies, you have to respect the Game Developers Choice Awards, in which actual working professionals (read: people who really know their stuff) pick the best and brightest games, ideas, and people of the past year. At this year’s eighth iteration of the ceremony, Valve’s innovative Portal was named the game of the year, with other big winners including Bioshock, Crackdown, Fl0w, Crysis, and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Also honored were Sid Meier with a lifetime achievement award, Jason Della Rocca with an ambassador award, and Ralph Baer with a pioneer award.

Click through for a full list of the winners.
Courtesy of a CMP press release, the winners are:

  2007 Best Game Design
  Portal (Valve)
  Kim Swift, Realm Lovejoy, Paul Graham

  2007 Best Visual Art
  BioShock (2K Boston/2K Australia / 2K Games)
  Scott Sinclair, Shawn Robertson, Andrew James

  2007 Best Technology
  Crysis (Crytek/Electronic Arts)
  Cevat Yerli, Douglas Binks, Timur Davidenko, Martin Mittring

  2007 Best Writing
  BioShock (2K Boston/2K Australia / 2K Games)
  Ken Levine, Emily Ridgway, Joe McDonagh, Susan O’Connor

  2007 Best Audio
  BioShock (2K Boston/2K Australia / 2K Games)
  Eric Brosius, Pat Balthrop, Emily Ridgway, Justin Mullins

  2007 Best Debut
  Crackdown (Real Time Worlds / Microsoft Game Studios)
  Ramon Gonzalez, Violetta Sanchez, Rafael Diaz, Jose Guerra

  2007 Innovation
  Portal (Valve)
  Kim Swift, Erik Wolpaw

  2007 Best Handheld Game
  The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo / Nintendo)
  Eiji Aonuma

  2007 Best Downloadable Game
  Flow (thatgamecompany / Sony Computer Entertainment)
  Kellee Santiago, Jenova Chen, Martin Middleton, Hao Cui, John Edwards,
  Nick Clark

  2007 Game of the Year
  Portal (Valve)
  Kim Swift, Erik Wolpaw

  Recipients for the evening’s special awards were:

  Lifetime Achievement Award
  Sid Meier

  Pioneer Award
  Ralph Baer

  Ambassador Award
  Jason Della Rocca

Read [Eurogamer]