Reminiscent of “Crash” surprising “Broke Back Mountain” at the recent Oscars, Shadow of the Colossus beat out favorite God of War as the Best Game of 2005 at the IGDA Awards. The Japanese-developed action game also edged out its American rival by bagging the awards for Visual Arts, Game Design, and Character Design.

Here are the complete list of winners::

Best Game
Shadow of the Colossus (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
Kenji Kaido, Yasuhide Kobayashi, Fumito Ueda

Best Audio
Guitar Hero (Harmonix Music Systems/RedOctane)
Eric Brosius, Kasson Crooker

Character Design
Shadow of the Colossus (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
Atsuko Fukuyama, Hitoshi Niwa, Shunpei Suzuki, Fumito Ueda

Game Design
Shadow of the Colossus (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
Junichi Hosono, Fumito Ueda

Best Technology
Nintendogs (Nintendo EAD/Nintendo)
Tsutomu Kaneshige

Best Visual Arts
Shadow of the Colossus (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
Koji Hasegawa, Hironobu Nakano, Masanori Kajita, Fumito Ueda

Best Writing
Psychonauts (Double Fine Productions/Majesco Entertainment Company)
Tim Schafer, Erik Wolpaw

Best New Studio
Double Fine Productions (Psychonauts)
Caroline Esmurdoc, Tim Schafer

Innovation Award
Nintendogs (Nintendo EAD/Nintendo)
Tsutomu Kaneshige