Nintendo's Mario Kart DS heads the nomination list for this year's Golden Joystick Awards.
Mario Kart DS has been nominated in six categories, including game of the year, handheld game of the year and girls' choice.
Also nominated for game of the year are Call of Duty 2, Resident Evil 4, Guitar Hero, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, Shadow of the Colossus and Pro Evolution Soccer 5.
Mario Kart DS will go head-to-head with Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, Animal Crossing: Wild World, New Super Mario Bros, Metroid Prime: Hunters, Nintendogs, Advance Wars: Dual Strike, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Resident Evil: Deadly Silence and LocoRoco for the handheld game of the year prize.
Other contenders for the title of girls' choice include Nintendogs, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 50 Cent: Bulletproof, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend and Evil Dead Regeneration.
The 2006 Golden Joystick Awards will be presented at a star-studded ceremony at London's Park Lane Hilton hotel on October 27.
Role playing game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is in the running for the Xbox game of the year award.
The Bethesda Softworks title will face competition from the likes of Call of Duty 2, Project Gotham Racing 3, Black, Dead or Alive 4 and Perfect Dark Zero for the coveted accolade.
Quake IV has been nominated in the best online game category which also includes Perfect Dark Zero, Metroid Prime: Hunters, Age of Empires III and Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis.
The best PC game category features such titles as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Half-Life 2: Episode One, F.E.A.R, Call of Duty 2, Age of Empires III, Football Manager 2006 and Civilization IV.
WWE Smackdown! Vs. RAW 2006 leads the nominations for the best PlayStation game of the year award, while Call of Duty 2: Big Red One is in the running for the best Nintendo game of the year prize.
Other categories at this year's awards include best publisher, best retailer, best soundtrack and best family game.
The Golden Joystick Awards were first held back in 1982, when Atari, Commodore and Spectrum ruled the market and Sony were still best known for the Walkman.
This year, for the first time ever, the awards will be webcast on the Computer and Video Games website.
The video game sector is a $10bn industry in the US and more than 90 per cent of all American children and teenagers play video games, on average for about 30 minutes daily.
The article Mario Kart DS heads Joystick list originally appeared on 999 Today
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