The Sonic Site Awards results were announced Sunday in its annual radio broadcast.
For the first time in its history, the radio show, broadcasted simultaneously on Sega Sonic Radio and Sega Games Radio, went smoothly without any problems, and the reduced number of awards meant a show which ballooned in length in recent years was comfortably under three hours this year.
After a disappointing voting turnout in 2005, SSA’s decision to require user registration is starting to bear fruit. Despite having nine less awards and half the time to vote, voting was higher than last year, at over 4,000 votes from over 600 people, many of whom used their accounts registered for last year’s SSA.
The awards were dominated by a fairly small number of entrants. Sonic World won three Website awards relatively comfortably. Elson “Darkspeeds” Wong won three Creative awards, including a three-way race for the hotly-contested Artist award and a surprise Music win for his a capella rendition of Emerald Hill Zone’s game theme from Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
The main story of the awards this year was competition between 2005 SSA joint-winner Sonic Wrecks and new entrant Sonic Cage Dome, which spanned three awards. SW beat SCD in the Entertaining Site award by a single vote, but was pipped at the post themselves by SCD for the Sonic Site Award by one vote.
2005 Fiction and Elite Award winners Hogfather and the Sonic CulT retained their awards for a second year running.
The #sonicstadium chatroom was aiming to break its online user record of 54, set during the SSA broadcast in 2004 and matched the following year. However, it reached a maximum of 49 shortly before the final award was announced.
Full results will be available on the SSA site in the next couple of days. The broadcast itself is available to download here.
[b]Full List of Winners[/b]
Information Station: Sonic World
Evolving Forum: Sonic World Forums
Entertaining Site: Sonic Wrecks
Impressive Layout: Blue Blur Central
Evolved Site: Sonic Cage Dome
Worth It: Sonic World
Fangame: Sonic Adventure: Remix
Artist: Darkspeeds
Comic: Darkspeeds’ Comic Archive
Fiction: Hogfather
Music: Emerald Hill A Capella by Darkspeeds
Elite: Sonic CulT
Contribution: Summer of Sonic
Sonic Site Award: Sonic Cage Dome