GTA3 sweeps the boards at the Golden Joysticks
Consumer-voted awards propel Grand Theft Auto to the top of the pile
Grand Theft Auto 3 is the big winner of the afternoon, taking home three awards - PlayStation 2 Game of the Year, Game Innovation of the Year and overall award Game of the Year, while developers Rockstar North add to the bucketload of awards by picking up the gong for British Developer of the Year. There's even an award for the unreleased GTA: Vice City, which picked up the Most Wanted Game for Christmas award.
Elsewhere, Electronic Arts picked up the award for Publisher of the Year, and online retailer Gameplay.com beat off competition from both other online stores and high street retailers to walk off with the award for Retailer of the Year. Microsoft's Xbox was voted Hardware of the Year.
Other awards recipients included Bungie's Halo (Xbox Game of the Year), Capcom's Resident Evil (GameCube Game of the Year), Nintendo's Golden Sun (Handheld Game of the Year) and EA's Medal of Honour: Allied Assault (PC Game of the Year). Fan-created Half-Life modification Counter-Strike picked up Online Game of the Year, somewhat unsurprisingly, while The Thing was voted Best Use of a Film Licence and Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer was Sports Game of the Year.
And now, those awards in full....
Xbox Game of the Year Winner: Halo (Microsoft Game Studios) Runners-up: Dead or Alive 3 (Tecmo), Max Payne (Take 2 Interactive)
GameCube Game of the Year Winner: Resident Evil (Capcom) Runners-up: Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader (LucasArts), Super Smash Bros. Melee (Nintendo)
Handheld Game of the Year Winner: Golden Sun (Nintendo) Runners-up: Mario Kart: Super Circuit (Nintendo), Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 (Nintendo)
PS2 Game of the Year Winner: Grand Theft Auto III (Rockstar Games) Runners-up: Final Fantasy X (SCEE), Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (Konami)
Online Game of the Year Winner: Counter-Strike (Vivendi Universal Games) Runners-up: Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (EA Games), Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (Vivendi Universal Games)
PC Game of the Year Winner: Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (EA Games) Runners-up: Grand Theft Auto III (Rockstar Games), Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (Vivendi Universal Games)
Best Use of a Film Licence Winner: The Thing (Vivendi Universal Games) Runners-up: Spider-Man (Activision), The Sum of all Fears (Ubi Soft Entertainment)
Sports Game of the Year (voted for by listeners to Radio 1's breakfast show) Winner: Pro Evolution Soccer (Konami) Runners-up: Championship Manager (Eidos), FIFA 2002 (EA Sports)
Game Innovation of the Year Winner: 'Open-ended play' in Grand Theft Auto III (Rockstar Games) Runners-up: 'Bullet time' in Max Payne (Take 2 Interactive), The D-Day landing in Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (EA Games)
Hardware of the Year (sponsored by Vivendi) Winner: Microsoft Xbox Runners-up: AMD Athlon XP Processor, Nintendo GameCube
British Developer of the Year Winner: Rockstar North Runners-up: Electronic Arts, Rare
Publisher of the Year (sponsored by Macrovision) Winner: Electronic Arts Runners-up: Activision/LucasArts, Microsoft Game Studios
Retailer of the Year (sponsored by Electronic Arts) Winner: Gameplay.com Runners-up: GAME, Amazon.co.uk
Most Wanted Game for Christmas (voted for by readers of The Sun and The Sun Online) Winner: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (Rockstar Games) Runners-up: Splinter Cell (Ubi Soft), Super Mario Sunshine (Nintendo)
Editors' Award (voted for by the editorial staff at Dennis Publishing) Winner: Pro Evolution Soccer (Konami) Runners-up: Grand Theft Auto III (Rockstar Games), Halo (Microsoft Game Studios)
Game of the Year (sponsored by Jungle.com) Winner: Grand Theft Auto III (Rockstar Games) Runners-up: Halo (Microsoft Game Studios), Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (EA Games)