The winners of the 25th Golden Joystick Awards, as voted by thousands of international gamers, have been announced.

Tens of thousands of gamers voted for the true people's awards, held Friday in London, which highlighted the elite titles from the past year across a diverse range of categories.

Undoubtedly the big winner at this year’s awards was Microsoft and Epic’s stellar third-person shooter Gears of War, which took four top honors. Gears triumphed in the Ultimate Game of the Year, Xbox Game of the Year, The Nuts All-Nighter and the Editor’s Choice categories. It also placed third in the 1Xtra Soundtrack of the Year and The GameTribe Online Game of the Year categories.

Codemasters received the UK Developer of the Year award for 2007 sponsored by Next-Gen.biz, while Game took the prize for Retailer of the Year. Nintendo took the Publisher of the Year award ahead of Microsoft Game Studios and Codemasters, while the Wii was labeled Innovation of the Year.

The second most prominent game winner was Guitar Hero II from Activision and Harmonix, which scooped the 1Xtra Soundtrack of the Year and The Bliss Girls’ Choice Game of the Year, while taking second spot in The Sun Family Game of the Year category and receiving nods as fourth best PlayStation Game of the Year and fourth best Xbox Game of the Year.

Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Wii Sports each picked up one gong, the former edging out the latter to walk away with the Nintendo Game of the Year award, while Wii Sports took top prize in The Sun Family Game of the Year category. Twilight Princess was also voted to have the second best Soundtrack of the Year, and came second in the Ultimate Game of the Year category, while Wii Sports came second in The Nuts All-Nighter category and finished as fourth Ultimate Game of the Year.

On the PC front, The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar and World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade split the honors. The former was voted PC Game of the Year 2007 while the latter came second. However, The Burning Crusade did pip Shadows of Angmar for The GameTribe Online Game of the Year award.

The Games Radar Handheld Game of the Year award went to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories ahead of Pokémon Diamond/Pearl, while Final Fantasy titles took first and third places in the Mobile Game of the Year category.

Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed was dubbed The One to Watch 2007 ahead of Grand Theft Auto IV and Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

The Golden Joystick Awards winners in full: Winners are written first, followed by runner-up, third, fourth and fifth placed entrants.

News-Source: Next-Gen