Where in North America we get the prestigious Spike TV Video Game Awards, which will be taping in December, as a way to get your vote counted for the best games of the year, Britain has the Golden Joystick Awards. In its 26th year and still going strong, the winners have just been announced and it looks like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has taken home the “Ultimate Game of the Year” award, adding to a long list of medals already donned by the veteran solider. While the Golden Joystick Awards aren’t necessarily the spectacle that the VGAs are, it is considered a pretty big honour to grab one, and definitely one of the biggest in the U.K. next to the Baftas.

The voting was set-up not too long ago, giving gamers an opportunity to cast their online ballots for their favourite forays into the digital realm. Considering the wild popularity of the series, it’s not surprising that CoD4 took home the goods not only as the game of the year, but also the “All-Nighter” award, meant for that “just one more round” game that sucks away all your sleep. On top of that, CoD4 won the PC Game of the Year, and the next iteration in the series won the “Most Promising” award. So, it was a good year for the folks at Activision-Blizzard, who graciously accepted all their prizes with many thanks to the folks over at Infinity Ward, the studio that developed the game.

To avoid some confusion for those stumbling through the list of winners, each category of the Golden Joysticks is sponsored by a specific group, which makes it almost seem a bit skewed. So “Future UK Publisher of the Year” is actually referring to the company Future Publishing, a major publication that is in charge of a lot of the official console magazines and gaming websites and is also in charge of the Golden Joystick Awards as a whole. As a result, a lot of the categories are broken up by company, with Nintendo having its own group and Xbox having its own as well, instead of breaking them up by genre. Super Smash Bros. Brawl took home the honours for Nintendo, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots for Sony and Microsoft had the only third party software victor in GTA IV. It’s a good list, and considering the fact that it doesn’t even include the releases we’re seeing this fall and onward, it’s a sound reflection on a great batch of games that we had through the beginning of the year and end of last. Even Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock was represented, winning the Family Game of the Year award and just rounding up a big year for Activision.

It’s very likely that not nearly as many of these titles will grab honours at the end of the this year, considering the memory of most publications only goes as far back as the latest hit title, but it’s always good to see solid games get some recognition beyond their success on the retail side. Considering the trends in the UK in terms of sales, however, it’s very lucky that this list wasn’t simply a Wii Fit / Mario Kart Wii filled show, and goes to demonstrate that these award shows are still dominated by a totally different audience.