'The Last of Us' takes Game of the Year at GDC

(Credit: Naughty Dog)Screen capture from Naughty Dog's riveting gaming saga, 'The Last of Us'.

Naughty Dog's riveting gaming saga, The Last of Us, took top honors as Game of the Year at the 14th annual Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony held during the 2014 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The game also won the Best Design and Best Narrative Awards.

Irrational Games' BioShock Infinite took the awards for Best Audio and Best Visual Art. Papers, Please by Lucas Pope received the Innovation Award. It also won as Best Downloadable Game in recognition of Pope's compelling gameplay design. Other winners include The Fullbright Company, creators of the emotionally moving adventure, Gone Home.

Nintendo took the Best Handheld award for The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. It was the fourth win for the Zelda franchise since the Choice Awards began in 2000. Indie developer Squad scored the inaugural Audience Choice Award for their creative sandbox space flight game, Kerbal Space Program.

Long-lived blockbuster, Grand Theft Auto V, won the award for Best Technology. The game was praised for the massive amount of game content and high visual fidelity.

The Game Developers Choice Awards honor the very best games of the year. It was created for and voted on by developers. Winners are selected by the Game Developers Choice Awards-specific International Choice Awards Network, which is an invitation-only group consisting of over 2,200 leading game creators from all parts of the video game industry.

The Ambassador Award, which recognizes those who help video games "advance to a better place" through advocacy or action, went to media critic Anita Sarkeesian, creator of Feminist Frequency, a video series that explores representations of women in game and pop culture narratives. Sarkeesian is the first woman to win the Ambassador Award.

This year, the Lifetime Achievement award was given onstage to the "Father of the PlayStation," Ken Kutaragi.

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