AIAS Finalists Announced

ACADEMY OF
INTERACTIVE ARTS AND SCIENCES (AIAS) ANNOUNCES FINALISTS FOR 2003 INTERACTIVE
ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS 

Interactive Achievement Awards will be presented on February 27 at the Hard Rock
Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, NV

Voting Among Academy Members Begins February 6

LOS ANGELES, CA
– FEBRUARY 4, 2003 –
The Academy of Interactive Arts
and Sciences today announced finalists for the 2003 Interactive Achievement
Awards, which will be held at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas,
February 27, 2003. The Academy will present awards in 30 craft, console,
computer, and online categories.  Award highlights include an overall Game of
the Year as well as Game of the Year in different genres, and the prestigious
Hall of Fame Award.  Academy members can vote for winners beginning February 6.

“Each year we see even more games
that demonstrate the innovation, creativity and diversity with which videogames
push the envelope of modern entertainment,” said Paul Provenzano, President of
the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.  “It is satisfying to see such an
exceptional mix of savvy veteran videogame developers and bold new studios among
the finalists.”

Metroid®
Prime from Nintendo of America Inc. and Retro Studios earned an Interactive
Achievement Awards record ten nominations.  Several games received six
nominations apiece including, Electronic Arts’ Battlefield 1942™,
Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Sony
Computer Entertainment of America’s Ratchet and Clank™ and
Ubi Soft’s Splinter Cell™.  Nintendo of
America and Electronic Arts lead the field of videogame publishers with 26 and
25 total nominations respectively.  

Finalists for 2003’s Game of the
Year include:

• 
  Animal Crossing™ for the
  NINTENDO GAMECUBE™, published by Nintendo of America Inc., developed by
  Nintendo Co. Ltd.;

• 
  Battlefield 1942 for the PC,
  published by Electronic Arts, developed by Digital Illusions;
  

• 
  Ratchet & Clank for the
  PlayStation ® 2, published by Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.,
  developed by Insomniac Games;

• 
  Metroid
  Prime for the NINTENDO GAMECUBE, published by Nintendo of America Inc.,
  developed by Retro Studios;

• 
  Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for
  the PlayStation 2, published by Rockstar Games,
  developed by Rockstar North. 

Finalists for 2003’s PC Game of
the Year include:

• 
  Age of Mythology™, published by
  Microsoft, developed by Ensemble Studios;

• 
  Battlefield 1942, published by
  Electronic Arts, developed by Digital Illusions;

• 
  Medal of
  Honor Allied Assault™, published by Electronic Arts, developed by 2015
  Inc.;

• 
  Neverwinter
  Nights™, published by Infogrames, developed by
  BioWare;

• 
  Warcraft
  III®:  Reign of Chaos, published and developed by Blizzard. 

Finalists for 2003’s Console Game
of the Year include:

• 
  Splinter Cell for the Xbox,
  published by UbiSoft, developed by
  UbiSoft Montreal;

• 
  Ratchet & Clank for the
  PlayStation 2, published by Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.,
  developed by Insomniac Games;

• 
  Metroid
  Prime for the NINTENDO GAMECUBE, published by Nintendo of America Inc.,
  developed by Retro Studios;

• 
  Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for
  the PlayStation 2, published by Rockstar Games,
  developed by Rockstar North;

• 
  Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s
  Requiem™ for the NINTENDO GAMECUBE, published by Nintendo of America Inc.,
  developed by Silicon Knights;

• 
  Animal Crossing for the NINTENDO
  GAMECUBE, published by Nintendo of America Inc., developed by Nintendo Co.
  Ltd.

SEGA^®’s
Yu Suzuki will receive the Academy’s coveted Hall of Fame award.

For a full list of finalists in
all categories, visit:

www.interactive.org/awards/6th_annual.asp

The Interactive Achievement Awards
will be presented as part of the 2003 D.I.C.E. Summit (Design, Innovate,
Communicate, Entertain), the only event presented to focus exclusively on game
design. 

About the
Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences

Located in Los Angeles, CA, the Academy of
Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) is an official professional academy of the
$7+billion interactive entertainment software industry.
AIAS is supported by the
industry’s leading companies and counts among its board of directors
representatives from Activision, Bioware
Entertainment, Electronic Arts, Ensemble Studios,
Infogrames, Insomniac Games, Interactive Digital Software Association,
Microsoft, Nintendo of America, Oddworld
Inhabitants, Sony Computer Entertainment America, Sierra Entertainment, and
Carnegie Mellon University. 

For more information about AIAS,
or to register for the DICE Summit, visit the Web site at

www.interactive.org, or

www.dicesummit.com.  

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