Halo shines at Bafta Awards

The awards honour multi-media achievement

One of the most popular console games - Xbox's Halo - has won two prizes at the annual Bafta Interactive Entertainment Awards.

The awards celebrate the UK's best websites, interactive TV and computer games.

They are the most high-profile in the UK for the multi-media industry, rewarding achievement in technology and creativity.

Halo, which was nominated in three categories, won for best Games Multiplayer and Games Console, beating off competition from Grand Theft Auto 3.

Give me a Bafta... NOW!

Also triumphant in the games categories were SMS Chess for Games - Mobile Device, Neverwinter Nights for Games - PC and Grand Prix 4 for Games - Sports.

Tate Modern was successful, ending the evening with two Baftas - one for Tate Multimedia Tours in the category Technical Innovation and I-Map for Accessibility.

One of the summer's biggest TV shows - Big Brother 3 - had two nominations in the categories of Interactivity and Interactive Television, but Pikmin won in Interactivity and MTV Ad-Break Tennis claimed the Interactive Television prize.

The BBC was shortlisted in nine out of 20 categories, but was unsuccessful in all of them.

The News category - won by BBC News Online for the last four years - has been dropped from the competition.

Bob the Builder and S Club 7 on the Road were among the BBC's nominations in the Children's Entertainment category for the CD ROMs, but were beaten by Disney's Magic Artist Deluxe.

Judges' challenge

The DVD of the film Memento from Pathe Distribution, directed by Christopher Nolan, was awarded the prize in the category Enhancement of Linear Media.

The website Commanding Heights Online was victorious in the category Online Learning, while Tony Robinson's Time Team website took home the trophy in the Factual category.

The website Lexus Minority Report Experience, which provided a micro site linking to the film Minority Report, won for Online Entertainment.

The Famous Grouse Experience won the Sports and Leisure category and Luigi's Mansion took home the Bafta for Audio.

Artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer walked away with the mask for Interactive Arts, while the Habitat website won for Interface Design.

Bafta interactive entertainment committee chair Sue Thexton said: "Once again, the huge diversity of entries has made the job of judging this year's entries immensely enjoyable and challenging."

One of the most prestigious awards bestowed by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts was to Ian Livingstone.

Mr Livingstone, creative director of Eidos - which specialises in PC, Xbox and Playstation games - won The Gift of The Academy for his outstanding contribution to the industry.

The fifth annual awards ceremony was held at London's Grosvenor House hotel on Thursday evening.