Officials for the eighth annual Game Developers Choice Awards sent word today that 2K Boston's BioShock and Valve's Portal (part of The Orange Box) have garnered five nominations each, including the Game of the Year Award. Other Game of the Year nominees include Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4 (which has four nominations overall) and Harmonix's Rock Band and Nintendo's Super Mario Galaxy, each of which got two nominations.

Although not nominated for Game of the Year, other multiple nominees at this year's show include BioWare's Mass Effect, Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed, Infinite Interactive's Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, Sony Santa Monica's God of War II, and PopCap's Peggle. The complete nominees list is available here.

The winners will be unveiled at the Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony taking place Wednesday, February 20 in the Esplanade Ballroom of the Moscone Center's South Hall, during the 2008 Game Developers Conference. The event is being held in conjunction with the Independent Games Festival (IGF) and will be hosted by Naughty Dog co-founder Jason Rubin.

"Behind every great game is a great team, and it's a core principle of ours to honor and recognize that talent on stage," said Jamil Moledina, Executive Director of the Game Developers Conference. "Given the open peer-based structure, the Game Developers Choice Awards have earned the utmost respect within the developer community and we're looking forward to the award ceremony next month to see who the 2008 recipients are. Good luck everyone!"

As was previously announced, in addition to the Choice Awards, the "father of video games" Ralph Baer (Pioneer Award), IGDA executive director Jason Della Rocca (Ambassador Award), and PC game legend and Civilization creator Sid Meier (Lifetime Achievement Award) will all be honored at the event.