Mass Effect Sweeps Canadian Elans Awards

The winners of the 2nd Annual Elans award show have been announced at a gala event in Canada, with BioWare Corp.’s Mass Effect winning the main game of the year award, alongside locally developed titles such as Assassin’s Creed and Skate. A total of fifteen awards were under contention in the Electronic Games category, with most only being contended by Canadian companies. As a result, the Autodesk game of the year award was given to Mass Effect, with the game also winning the best character award for Commander Shepard, best art direction, best game design and best writing for a game production. Ubisoft Montreal’s Assassin’s Creed won two awards, for best console game and best original musical score in video gaming. Skate, from EA Black Box, also won two awards, for best sound design in video gaming and best mobile/casual/arcade game of the year. Company of Heroes from Relic Entertainment was awarded best PC game, with stand alone expansion pack Opposing Front receiving the Nokia award for outstanding innovation in gaming. SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals - Tactical Strike from Slant Six Games was named as best handheld game of the year, with the developer sharing the best new video game company award with The Bigs developer Blue Castle Games. The Ernst & Young award for international video game of the year when to Crysis, from German developer Crytek. Finally, Don Mattrick was inducted into the video game hall of fame. Mattrick was the former head of DSI/EA Canada, before leaving his eventual position as president of Electronic Arts Worldwide to become senior vice president of Microsoft’s interactive entertainment unit. A number of game related student awards were also announced, with student game of the year going to Bloom from Boring Games at the Vancouver Film School. The award for best student art direction – game production went to Seas of Europa, also from the Vancouver Film School.