D.I.C.E. Preview: Caught on tape

With the year-end awards season winding down, three games have become staples in numerous "Best of..." categories: Gears of War, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and Guitar Hero II.

The three are very different games, with very different reasons for their popularity, but they're all vying for Game of the Year at this week's Achievement Awards, to be handed out at the D.I.C.E. summit, taking place in Las Vegas.

In anticipation of the awards, GameSpot spoke with the lead designers for those three Game of the Year nominees: Harmonix cofounder Alex Rigopulos of the Guitar Hero II team; Todd Howard, exec producer at Bethesda Softworks, repping Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion; and Cliff Bleszinski, Epic Games' lead designer on the Gears of War team.

Alex speaks solo, while Cliff and Todd speak in the same call to hash out their differences (far fewer than you might expect).

GameSpot News will pick up the thread (and hurt pride) of the endless "Game of the Year" debate this Thursday when the awards take place.