Evidently the Japanese rewards season starts late. While all the American gaming publications practically announce their game of the year awards before the year is over,Famitsu, Japan’s foremost gaming magazine, wait s almost a full four months torelease their winners. Wait, you mean they give those end of year games a chance to percolate and actually get played through possibly more then once? This makes absolutely no sense at all! Awards should be handed out as near as possible to the holiday seasons so that judgments are made entirely on pre-release hype.
So after giving the games all this time to actually be played, what have they come up with? Well there is a hell of a lot more Nintendo love on the list. How aboutWii Musicgetting an award for greatest innovation? Not many Westerners are going to agree with that one. I can’tread moonspeak, but I’m guessing these awards only go out to Japanese game developers, since there is a World-wide Award that went toGrand Theft Auto. That would explain a lot of the missing big name games on the list. Then again Japan has very different gaming habits than America does so it could just be they love these games more.
Adventure & Puzzle PrizeProfessor Layton and The Last Time Travel
