Tyler's Choice Awards: 2009 Tyler's Choice Video Game Awards

(Boldface = winner; Italics = runner-up)

Game of the Year

Assassin's Creed II (Sébastien Puel & Vincent Pontbriand)
Batman: Arkham Asylum (Daniel Bailie & Nathan Burlow)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Mark Rubin)
Left 4 Dead 2 (Bill van Buren & Gabe Newell)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Evan Wells & Christophe Balestra)
(Honourable Mentions: Dragon Age: Origins, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Street Fighter IV, Wii Sports Resort)

Best Action/Adventure Game

Assassin's Creed II (Patrice Désilets)
Batman: Arkham Asylum (Sefton Hill)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Jason West)
Left 4 Dead 2 (Erik Johnson)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Bruce Straley & Amy Hennig)
(Honourable Mentions: Borderlands, Brütal Legend, inFAMOUS, Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, Resident Evil 5)

Best Game Design

Assassin's Creed II (Benoît Lambert & Patrick Plourde)
Batman: Arkham Asylum (Simon Hargrave, Ian Ball & Miles Macklin)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Steve Fukuda, Todd Alderman & Mackey McCandlish)
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (Shunsuke Kobayashi, Jun Iwasaki, Daisuke Goto & Yasuhiro Otsuka)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Richard Lemarchand & Neil Druckmann)
(Honourable Mentions: Flower, inFAMOUS, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Plants vs. Zombies, Scribblenauts)

Best Family/Casual Game [TIE]

The Beatles: Rock Band (Josh Randall)
Flower (Jenova Chen)
Guitar Hero 5 (Kragen Lum & Jeremiah Maza)
New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Shigeyuki Asuke)
Plants vs. Zombies (Sukhbir Sidhu)
Wii Sports Resort (Takayuki Shimamura & Yoshikazu Yamashita)
(Honourable Mentions: LEGO Rock Band, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, Scribblenauts)

Best Sport/Racing Game

FIFA 10 (Jeremy Wellard & Andrew Wilson)
Forza Motorsport 3 (Dan Greenawalt)
NBA 2K10 (Jeffrey J. Thomas)
NHL 10 (Andy Agostini & David Littman)
Wii Sports Resort (Takayuki Shimamura & Yoshikazu Yamashita)
(Honourable Mentions: Football Manager 2010, Madden NFL 10, Need for Speed: Shift, skate. 2, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10)

Best Technical Innovation

FarmVille (Devon Kim)
inFAMOUS (Chris Bentzel & Sean Smith)
Plants vs. Zombies (Tod Semple)
Scribblenauts (Marius Fahlbusch, Zachary Brown & David Devaty)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Pål-Kristian Engstad, Travis McIntosh & Dan Liebgold)
(Honourable Mentions: Assassin's Creed II, Demon's Souls, Flower, Forza Motorsport 3, Left 4 Dead 2)

Best Multiplayer

Best Strategy/Simulation Game

Best Use of Audio/Sound Design

Assassin's Creed II (Mathieu Jeanson, James Wearing, Hayden Whiting & Justin Phillips)
Batman: Arkham Asylum (Nick Arundel, Lee Banyard & Andrew Riley)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Mark Ganus, John Paul Fasal, Chrissy Arya & Stephen Miller)
Halo Wars (Kevin M. McMullan & J.D. Smith)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Bruce Swanson, Mark Jasper, Lydian Tone & Christopher Pinkston)
(Honourable Mentions: The Beatles: Rock Band, Brütal Legend, Dragon Age: Origins, Left 4 Dead 2, Red Faction: Guerrilla)

Best Music

Assassin's Creed II (Jesper Kyd)
Batman: Arkham Asylum (Nick Arundel & Ron Fish)
Flower (Vincent Diamante)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (James Hannigan)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Greg Edmonson)
(Honourable Mentions: Afro Samurai (Howard Drossin), Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Lorne Balfe), Dragon Age: Origins (Inon Zur), Halo 3: ODST (Martin O'Donnell & Michael Salvatori), PixelJunk Shooter (High Frequency Bandwidth, Alex Peterson & Dom Beken))

Best Handheld Game

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (Leslie Benzies & Gordon Hall)
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (Daiki Iwamoto)
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (Hiroyuki Kubota)
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box (Tatsuya Shinkai)
Scribblenauts (Jeremiah Slaczka)
(Honourable Mentions: Flight Control, Gran Turismo, LittleBigPlanet PSP, LocoRoco Midnight Carnival, Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor)

Best Fighting Game

Punch-Out!! (Jason Carr & Mike Inglehart)
Street Fighter IV (Takashi Tsukamoto)
Tekken 6 (Yuichi Yonemori)
(Honourable Mentions: BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, Fight Night Round 4, Madworld, Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny, UFC 2009 Undisputed)

Best Art Direction

Assassin's Creed II (Mohamed Gambouz)
Batman: Arkham Asylum (David Hego)
Brütal Legend (Scott Campbell & Lee Petty)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Richard Kriegler)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Erick Pangilinan & Robh Ruppel)
(Honourable Mentions: Borderlands, Flower, inFAMOUS, Machinarium, Resident Evil 5)

Best Animation

Assassin's Creed II (Alex Drouin, Dave Massicotte, Chi Chun Ng & Gaëlle Robert)
Batman: Arkham Asylum (Zafer Coban, Max Fanning, Niamh Tierney & Adam Vincent)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Mark Grigsby, Paul Messerly & Eric Pierce)
Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (John Meehan, David Weinstein, Travis Parks & Justin Falgout)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Josh Scherr, Jeremy Yates, Michael Yosh & Troy Slough)
(Honourable Mentions: A Boy and His Blob, Dragon Age: Origins, Left 4 Dead 2, Patpon 2, Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box)

Best Story/Writing

Assassin's Creed II (Corey May, Joshua Rubin & Jeffrey Yohalem)
Batman: Arkham Asylum (Paul Dini)
Brütal Legend (Tim Schafer)
Dragon Age: Origins (David Gaider)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Amy Hennig, Neil Druckmann & Josh Scherr)
(Honourable Mentions: Halo 3: ODST, inFAMOUS, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time)

Best Voice-Over Performance

Kristen Bell - Assassin's Creed II for voicing Lucy Stillman
Claudia Black - Uncharted 2: Among Thieves for voicing Chloe Frazer
Jack Black - Brütal Legend for voicing Eddie Riggs
Mark Hamill - Batman: Arkham Asylum for voicing The Joker
Nolan North - Uncharted 2: Among Thieves for voicing Nathan Drake
(Honourable Mentions: Tim Curry - Dragon Age: Origins, Vin Diesel - Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, Nathan Fillion - Halo 3: ODST, Samuel L. Jackson - Afro Samurai, Nolan North - Assassin's Creed II)

Tyler's Choice Awards