Who got one of these?

In this month's podcast we revealed the Nintendo Life Game of the Year Awards winners, showcasing the very best games that 2009 bestowed upon us. If you didn't get chance to listen to the show yet, be sure to check it out, but here for posterity are all the categories and winners from a bumper year.

Staff awards

Best Visuals

We saw some great looking games in 2009, with 2D animation featuring heavily in our end-of-year votes. Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story was a hot contender but in the end Muramasa took home the crown.

Winner: Muramasa: The Demon Blade
Runner-up: MadWorld

Best Sound

Again, we had some fantastic sounding games on Nintendo consoles this year, running a gamut of styles from dance, trance, rock and classical, truly delivering something for everyone.

Winner: Bit.Trip series
Runner-up: Little King's Story

WiiWare Game of the Year

WiiWare stepped up its game this year, delivering more quality titles for pocket money prices. Picking a winner wasn't easy, but NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits edged out the competition and netted itself a well-deserved award.

A deserving winner

Winner: NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits
Runner-up: LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias

DSiWare Game of the Year

Despite only being up-and-running since April, DSiWare saw some of the year's best games, with the Art Style series fitting the handheld perfectly and walking away with the top prize, sharing second place with WayForward's ace Mighty Flip Champs.

Winner: Art Style: PiCTOBiTS
Runners-up: Art Style: Intersect, Mighty Flip Champs

WiiWare Developer of the Year

There was a good number of WiiWare games released in 2009 from a wide variety of developers, but two teams did enough to stand out and share joint honours in the top spot, with Over-the-Top Games netting second place.

Winners: Frontier and Gaijin Games
Runner-up: Over-the-Top Games

Frontier tied for best WiiWare dev.

DSiWare Developer of the Year

Two developers really stood out on DSiWare today, both having a hand in the unbelievable Art Style games. As DSiWare grows up, we'll surely see other teams emerge to take on these big boys.

Winner: Skip ltd.
Runner-up: Q-Games

Wii Game of the Year

A close-run thing between the top two titles released this year, with those plucky plumbers just doing enough to outpace King Corobo and his Kingdom of Alpoko.

Winner: New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Runner-up: Little King's Story

DS Game of the Year

Surprising nobody, the DS vote came down to new outings for the Mario brothers and the Hero of Time, and it seems the Italian twosome managed to outmuscle little Link to take the top spot.

This kind of chaos won NSMBW three awards.

Winner: Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
Runner-up: Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

Ultimate Game of the Year

Despite the number of tremendous DS games released last year, the best overall game came down to two classic Wii titles that will surely be remembered when 2009 is but a distant memory. In the end, the plumbers used a power-up mushroom and stomped the Little King to claim Nintendo Life's Ultimate Game of the Year 2009.

Winner: New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Runner-up: Little King's Story

Nintendo Life Reader's Choice Award

The reader's vote took in nearly a hundred votes for forty different games, proving the wide variety of quality titles released on Nintendo formats in 2009. Tiny puzzle games rubbed shoulders with big budget adventures and there were plenty of surprises. In the end, it came down to three titles vying for the top spot, and the results are:

A deserved joint winner.

Winners: New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Little King's Story
Runner-up: Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

Congratulations to all our winners and a huge thank you to everyone who voted. There's no denying 2009 was a great year for games and here's to an even better 2010!