26th UK Annual Golden Joystick Awards

The 26th UK Annual Golden Joystick Awards took place yesterday, and the combat game "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" scooped many of the major prizes.

There were 17 categories of awards which were all decided by UK gamers, with more than 850,000 of them voting this year.

Call of Duty 4 received the "Ultimate Game of the Year", "PC Game of the Year", "Online Game of the Year" and "Multiplayer Game of the Year" awards. The next game in the series, Call of Duty 5: World at War, received the "One to Watch" award. And Activision, publishers of the series, won the "Publisher of the Year" award - so a resounding all-round success for them, then.

Rockstar, developers of Grand Theft Auto IV, the fastest-selling video game of all time, won three awards, picking up "Developer Of The Year" plus "Soundtrack Of The Year" and "Xbox Game of the Year" for GTA IV.

"Family Game of the Year" went to Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, while the "Handheld Game of the Year" prize went to Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on the Nintendo DS.

The "Nintendo Game of the Year" award went to Super Smash Bros. Brawl, while the "Playstation Game of the Year" was named as Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

Other award winners were Bejeweled 2 (Mobile Game of the Year), Fallout 3 (Most Wanted), Stickman Madness (Grand Master Flash) and Play.com (Retailer of the Year).