We’re not picking best-of’s this year for E3, but the Game Critics Awards are as usual. There were some great games on display, but Uncharted 2: Among Thieves took the top spot. I’m really surprised to not see God of War 3 anywhere on their list. Scribblenauts gets some deserved mentions, which is good to see.
You can check out the whole list of winners after the jump.
The first Red Steel on the Wii never really grabbed my total attention. One of the best implementations of the Wii Remote should be a sword, but it just didn’t work all that well. Sure, it was fun, but that fun didn’t last. Now with Wii Motion Plus, swinging a sword is as fun and visceral as you would expect. Tack on some solid gun-play and you’ve got a high quality action game.
Traditionally, Batman games have sucked. Nothing has portrayed the combat and feel of being the Caped Crusader very well. Enter Warner Bros. and Batman: Arkham Asylum. The dark, gritty world of Batman and the brutal hand-to-hand combat has finally been done right. I played a good bit of the game at E3, both single player and the Challenge Rooms, and fell in love.
A DS puzzle game could be the best thing I saw at E3 this year. It turns out I’m not alone, as a few huge outlets have named Scribblenauts their overall game of the show. Developed by 5th Cell and published by Warner Bros., Scribblenauts is one of the coolest implementations in the puzzle genre I’ve ever seen.
Back at GDC, I got to sit down Marc Fernandez, the Vice President of Creative from Marc Ecko Entertainment to check out Dexter. In case you don’t remember, I loved the game. At E3, I met up again with Marc and was blown away at how far the game had come in such a short time.
I’m honestly not sure what words I can say that convey the awesomeness, epic scale, and sheer brutality of God of War 3. You’ve seen the trailers and gameplay demo videos (if you haven’t, check your gamer card at the door). I got to play the demo at E3 twice. Yes, I stood in line. Yes, I enjoyed every minute.
Third person action shooters are always a good time, and Bethesda’s new star-studded WET looks to be no exception. I got to play through a sizable demo of the game at E3 the day before Eliza Dushku showed up to pimp the game. Had I been there near her, I probably wouldn’t have paid as much attention to the game. Since she wasn’t in my airspace, I got to focus a bit without diverted blood flow.
I used to love playing Tony Hawk games back on the PS1 and PS2. The first couple games of the series were amazing, but things dropped off quite a bit afterward. Even the current-gen versions haven’t wow’d me. Skate came along and revolutionized skateboarding games and now Activision is responding with Tony Hawk: Ride. Go put away your controllers because they won’t work with this game.
Mario games were plentiful at E3 this year and first on the block was New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Nintendo took the proven DS game and made some tweaks to drop the game on their uber successful home console. This time around, you get four player co-op as you progress through any level. I spent some time with the game at Nintendo’s booth and had mixed emotions.
At E3 while checking out Left 4 Dead 2, I had a chance to talk to a few of the game’s developers at Valve. Amongst questions about the game, I snuck in a bit asking why Valve won’t develop for the PS3. It’s not because they’re a small studio, it’s because the PS3 is too complex. Game designer Tom Leonard had this to say:
The PC and the 360 are just more straightforward. We can focus on what we want to do, which is make game experiences, instead of sweating bullets over obscure architectural decisions they make with their platform. [...] I didn’t come into this business in the 90s because of some technical fetish. I came in because I wanted to give people experiences that made them have fun.
That’s not to say the PS3 doesn’t have some fun games, but Valve chooses to take the route of less resistance. And with Sony saying the PS3 is intentionally hard to to develop for, Valve might have a point. But I think they’re choosing the Xbox 360 because of the similar architecture and coding as PC gaming, which is their bread and butter. Either way, don’t expect Valve games to grace your PS3 anytime soon.
Coming Soon!
Recent Comments