GamingExcellence's Best of E3 2009
E3 returns to the big format, and brings a ton of top-tier games along with it.
By Staff, GamingExcellence
Posted June 8, 2009
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Special Achievement Awards
While certain games may dominate a genre or platform, others may bring a unique and often under appreciated offering to the gaming world. Among these special awards we acknowledge those innovations, artistic style, graphical prowess, and the biggest announcement of the show that caught us off guard.
Best Graphics - Technical
Making a game that looks nice is one thing, but piecing together all the elements of a game into an engine that doesn't impede on the frame rate is no easy task. This year's nominees push the capacities of the hardware to make games that are not only visually stunning, but enable gameplay developers to dream up new moves, new action sequences, and an overall better gaming experience.
And The Winner Is...
Visually stunning is the best way to describe Heavy Rain. The character animation and facial realism is astounding, and with the highly detailed motion capture, the characters come to life. This is truly the closest to an interactive movie we've ever seen.Heavy Rain sets a new visual standard and really harnesses the power of the PS3 in one of the most engaging and realistic fully-interactive environments ever produced.
Nominees:
- Alan Wake
- Forza Motorsport 3
- God of War III
- Heavy Rain
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction
Best Graphics - Artistic
As graphics get better and better, more and more studios begin to deviate from simply 'realistic' graphics, and style becomes a large part of the display. It gets to the point when these new stylized graphics, while perhaps not as processor-pushing as some, are better to look at than their more realistic counterparts.
And The Winner Is...
Though not a particularly new title in terms of gameplay elements (think Hitman gone WWII-retro), The Saboteur is one of the best-looking games we've seen in a long time. It has a graphic novel styling, emphasizing a warmer colour palette of reds and yellows amongst black shadows and desaturated textures, which is surprisingly fitting for the Nazi-era storyline. Every part of the environment looks stellar, but it's the explosions that you'll often trigger that really make this game's graphics stand out.
Nominees:
- Borderlands
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction
- The Saboteur
- Torchlight
Best Downloadable Game
Downloadable games are the new way to get ideas to fruition in small packages at reasonable prices. Though this market contains its share of one-dimensional games, we honor those that push the envelope with novel ideas and an unprecedented amount of "bang for your buck."
And The Winner Is...
This is the most hilarious fun you'll have all year for such a simple concept that's also easy on the wallet. This 32-player online game takes comical mischief to the next level, featuring a fantastically rendered and hilarious take on the "save the princess" plot. With a large variety of maps, each with its own set of gadgets and twists, combined with five unique character classes, the replay value alone is more than you would expect from a downloadable. It's easy to see why Fat Princess takes the cake.
Nominees:
- Battlefield 1943
- Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake
- Shadow Complex
- Zombie Apocalypse
Biggest Surprise
There are always the titles that you look forward to: triple-A titles that have been releasing teasers, pictures and trailers to excite. However, there are always those titles that developers seek to keep under wraps, and while some are quietly introduced, sometimes one or two make our jaws drop, wondering how the developers could've possibly this under wraps.
And The Winner Is...
While there are numerous things that you might have expected to come out of E3, such as new Mario games or Metal Gear Solid titles, nobody could have possibly seen this coming. With a storyline that seems to deal with Adam, Samus' commander who played a role in Metroid: Fusion, and being developed by Team Ninja of all people there is a staggering amount of potential in this title. With footage that showed Samus performing some crazy maneuvers there is very little of this title that isn't impressive in some way shape or form. This is definitely a title to keep your eyes open for.
Nominees:
- Metal Gear Rising 2 a No-Show
- Microsoft's Motion Controller is No Controller
- Super Mario Galaxy 2 Announced
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