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Realtime Worlds beat the stuffing out of Motorstorm, Halo 3 and Flatout Ultimate Carnage to walk off with the Way Of The Rodent BESTEST EXPLOSIONS Award last night.

More, oh so much more than a delight in blowing the crap out of things, the award is more of a recognition of the deep joy and imaginative power in actually reshaping the world around you and re-examining the player's relationship with the physical - albeit virtual environment which contains and constrains them while simultaneously empowering and actuallising their presence.

Or some such.

Realtime's James Cope took the time to tell us his feelings about kicking sand in Masterchief's face and finally laying to rest the doubts people had when they heard about the Halo 3 Beta signup in the initial run of Crackdown...

It’s great to be nominated in a set of awards that puts so much value in the player experience. That we managed to pull these nominations alongside brilliant and esteemed opposition not only underlines what a great year for games it’s been but is reward for us to be considered in the same league. We had tonnes of confidence in Crackdown’s potential and now, almost one year from launch, we’re really happy to know all the effort was worth the smiles on our fans’ faces.

While we were unable to attend the festivities personally and have been unable to reach the WOTR team for the rest of the winners - here's an artist's rendering of Realtime Worlds supremo Dave Jones picking up the award from new TIGA boss Richard Wilson...