Angry Birds is AIA Award finalist for ‘Game of the Year’ 2010

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences’ list of finalists for the 14th Annual Interactive Achievement Award have been announced.

The prestigious awards have been running since 1997, and a ballot of industry experts from all facets of game design - from art to production - cast votes on the year’s top titles. There are awards for great design and individual categories for each genre, but the one ribbon every designer is gunning for is “Game of the Year”.

Previous winners of that highly sought-after prize have been PC and console games like Diablo II, God of War and, for 2009, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

But this year, a surprising title has joined the finalists. Alongside blockbuster, triple-A console releases like Call of Duty, God of War, Mass Effect and Red Dead Redemption is 10 million selling iPhone and iPad favourite, Angry Birds HD.

Portable games got a look-in for other categories too. DS vocabulary adventure Super Scribblenauts got a nod for “Outstanding Achievement in Game Play Engineering”, pocket size fantasy romp Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies is a finalist for “Role-Playing / Massively Multiplayer Game of the Year” and Angry Birds HD scooped up another finalist spot in “Outstanding Innovation”.

There are also categories for “Portable Game of the Year” (including iPhone’s Infinity Blade, next to PSP’s God of War and Valkyria Chronicles II, and Professor Layton and Dragon Quest IX on DS) and “Casual Game of the Year”, giving Angry Birds HD a third finalist spot, as well as Plants vs Zombies.