Game Developer Magazine Unveils 2009's Front Line Awards Finalists

With the annual award season now underway, Game Developer magazine has unveiled the finalists for the various categories of its annual Front Line Awards.

"The Front Line Awards are an official way of recognizing one specific aspect of the industry: the tools that developers need to do their jobs," writes the magazine. "Front Line Award finalists represent the most innovative, user-friendly, and useful products from behind the scenes of the world's best video games."

This year, the nominees were based on surveys of Game Developer magazine subscribers and Gamasutra community members, with the finalists then selected after "Consultation" with Game Developer's advisory board and editors.

To determine the winners, which will be announced come January 2010, "professional developer were polled via an invitational survey." Until then, place your bets on the following finalists in art, audio, middleware, engine, programming, and book:

Art Tool

Autodesk 3ds Max 2010, Autodesk

Corel Painter 11, Corel

Modo 401, Luxology

Autodesk Mudbox 2009, Autodesk

ZBrush 3.12b, Pixologic

Audio Tool

FMOD Designer 4.27, Firelight Technologies

Miles Sound System 7.2e, RAD Game Tools

ProTools v8.0.1, Digidesign

Vivox Precision Studio SDK v. 3.0.6, Vivox

Wwise 2009.2, Audiokinetic

Middleware

Havok Physics 6.6.0, Havok

morpheme 2.0, NaturalMotion

Scaleform GFx 3.0, Scaleform

Havok Behavior 6.6.0, Havok

SpeedTree 5.0, Interactive Data Visualization

Engine

CryEngine 3, Crytek

Gamebryo Lightspeed, Emergent Game Technologies

Source 1.6.1.6, Valve

Unity 2.5.1, Unity Technologies

Unreal Engine 3 Build 37xx, Epic Games

Programming/Production Tool

Adobe Flash CS4 Professional v10, Adobe Systems

Hansoft 5.3, Hansoft

Perforce 2009.1, Perforce Software

SlickEdit 2009 ver 14.0, SlickEdit

XNA Game Studio 3.1, Microsoft

Book

Game Coding Complete 3rd Edition by Mike McShaffry, Charles River Media

Game Engine Architecture by Jason Gregory, AK Peters

Mastering Unreal Technology: Vol. 1 by Jason Busby, Zak Parrish, and Jeff Wilson, Sams Publishing

Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System by Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost, The MIT Press

Real Time Cameras: A Guide for game designers and developers by Mark Haigh-Hutchinson, Morgan Kaufmann