E3 Award winnners announced

[Johnny Awesome]

Best of Show
Half-Life 2
(Valve LLC/Vivendi Universal Games for PC)

Best Original Game
Full Spectrum Warrior
(Pandemic Studios/THQ for Xbox/PC)

Best PC Game
Half-Life 2
(Valve LLC/Vivendi Universal Games for PC)

Best Console Game
Halo 2
(Bungie Studios/Microsoft for Xbox)

Best Peripheral/Hardware
EyeToy
(Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation 2)

Best Action Game
Half-Life 2
(Valve LLC/Vivendi Universal Games for PC)

Best Action/Adventure Game
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
(UbiSoft Montreal/UbiSoft for All Game Systems)

Best Fighting Game
Soul Calibur 2
(Namco for All Console Systems)

Best Role Playing Game
Fable
(Big Blue Box/Microsoft for Xbox)

Best Racing Game
Gran Turismo 4
(Polyphony Digital/Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation 2)

Best Simulation Game
Full Spectrum Warrior
(Pandemic Studios/THQ for Xbox/PC)

Best Sports Game
Tony Hawk's Underground
(Neversoft/Activision for All Console Platforms)

Best Strategy Game
Rome: Total War
(Creative Assembly/Activision for PC)

Best Puzzle/Trivia/Parlor Game
The EyeToy Games
(Sony Computer Entertainment Europe for PlayStation 2)

Best Online Multiplayer
City of Heroes
(Cryptic Studios/NCSoft for PC)

Special Commendation for Graphics
Half-Life 2
(Valve LLC/Vivendi Universal Games for PC)

Fast Facts on the Winners

Games With Multiple Wins
Four Wins:
Half-Life 2

Two Wins:
EyeToy (and the EyeToy Games)
Full Spectrum Warrior

Publishers Breakdown By # of Wins
4 Wins:
Vivendi-Universal Games

3 Wins:
Sony Computer Entertainment

2 Wins:
Activision
Microsoft
THQ

1 Win:
Namco
NCSoft
UbiSoft

Win Breakdown by Platform
(Notes: Multiplatform games are counted in all appropriate platform tallies. Information based on announced platforms for each game.)

PC -- 9
Xbox -- 7
PS2 -- 6
GameCube -- 3
GameBoy -- 1

http://www.e3awards.com/win.html

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Pretty good year for Xbox, considering that Half-Life 2 was also confirmed for Xbox this morning.

 

[Grall]

These awards are a total joke. How can they award best of... games to games nobody outside their devteams have played through, and in fact, won't even be finished for MONTHS, or even this YEAR for that matter?

This is nothing but PR bullshit. E3 show awards suck a-... Okay, I'm not gonna say what they suck, but it's pretty nasty you be sure of that.


*G*

 

[epicstruggle]

fable is the game im waiting for, not sure why it hasnt gotten the press many other games have.

later,

 

[Cyborg]

These awards are a total joke. How can they award best of... games to games nobody outside their devteams have played through, and in fact, won't even be finished for MONTHS, or even this YEAR for that matter?

This is nothing but PR bullshit. E3 show awards suck a-... Okay, I'm not gonna say what they suck, but it's pretty nasty you be sure of that.


*G*

I dont see whats wrong, they're not game reviews, they're more like previews and judging which one of them has more "potential" to get acclaimed in given catergory once released.

A dev of Full spectrum Warrior says this on the awards, and imo, is spot on.

It depends on what you expect to get out of it.

E3 was not originally intended to be a game review convention. It's a venue for publishers to show their titles to buyers from places like EB, Gamestop, Best Buy, etc. The fact that the press has latched onto it as a place to get an early look at games is coincidental.

Unfortunately, that's also started to morph it into a mix of trying to give buyers something cool to look at and trying to give media something cool to actually play. Either way you go, you're displeasing half the folks there. The buyers want to see something cool and flashy, and you lose them if you can't do that every five minutes or so. The media wants to get hands-on time with true gameplay, which translates into 4 minutes of learning the controls and camera then 1 minute of aimlessly walking around.

I accept the awards for what they are: it's like getting a blue ribbon on a pig at the fair. You don't know how the bacon is going to taste, but damn, that's one fine looking pig

 

[Blade]

There's nothing wrong with "Best of Show" awards, even if they're sometimes inaccurate when the products ship.

 

[Qroach]

Sheesh, no need to be bitter Grall. The only requirement for these awards is that the game is actually running on hardware and not video footage.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

He's bitter because Nintendo got OWNED! 8)

Oddly enough, Blade put more stock in the awards last year:

"The fact that Metroid Prime had a demo level fully playable and was widely considered Game of Show at E3 (the only competition being Zelda, Mario, and Doom 3) doesn't hurt my opinion on it."

From last year's thread: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewt...rder=asc&highlight=game show&start=40

 

[Qroach]

hehehe

 

[Cyborg]

He's bitter because Nintendo got OWNED! 8)

I think pretty much all japanese oriented developers have been 0wned this year, sony included. Westen devs this year have put up their best show in E3's history and japanese devs got arguably their worst show.

 

[Qroach]

Ya know it's strange. I had a e-mail thread going with or guys in japan and many people there seem to think that western developers are better than japanese developers. It was somehting one of our designers thought after going to E3 this year.

Althought there's lots of people on the net that would disagree.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Yes. We've been saying this for two years Q. It's obvious: Western developers are overtaking Japanese developers, both in sales (quickly) and in quality (slowly).

At the end of the day Sony brought GT4 and MS brought Fable and Halo 2, with a little Half-Life 2 on the side. Nintendo brought next to nothing. Clearly the Xbox had a great E3.

 

[Cyborg]

Nintendo brought next to nothing. Clearly the Xbox had a great E3.

Nintendo had their priorities totally upside down, killer7, resident evil 4 and metroid prime 2 shown with very short trailers, while they spent a good 10 mins on pacman alone and their show floor dedicated nearly to their GBA-GC connectivity link, which should be a bonus, not the showcase..

Its sad, cause when you look at the titles nintendo has shown, it was a pretty good lineup, they just focused on the wrong things.

 

[Blade]

Johnny: More stock? I agree that it was a great show for games, especially for Microsoft and the PC platform.

Western developers have always been talented, it's just that they never showed it on the consoles as much as the PC. This year, it's more balanced. I have to disagree with you, though, that Nintendo had nothing. It wasn't exactly their biggest show ever, but people like you are quick to say that they had nothing. Cyborg's right, they concentrated on some of the wrong things.. like connectivity. Cool concept, it'll probably be fun.. but I wanted to see Mario 128 and they didn't show it.

What they did show was a lot of potentially excellent but unfinished games.. many of them unfortunately sequels. I mean, I'm dying to play Pikmin 2.. but c'mon Nintendo. Where are all of the new franchises you promised? To be announced?

 

[Grall]

Quincy, Johnny etc:

Why would I be bitter? My TWO consoles put together matched or outstripped any of the other competitors, I should be like I think, if I was thinking like a fanboi like you guys seem to be doing.

Actually, I am stating a honest opinion, nothing more. This is all just hype awards, they don't mean DICK in reality. "Oh this game looks hot, we'll vote it best of show. Too bad nobody could try it properly so we don't really KNOW IF IT DESERVES IT OR NOT". Makes E3 awards the "blah blah" awards of the industry in my book. Sort of 3DMark awards, they say something but nobody should care because they're meaningless, except there's a lot of HYPE surrounding it so people listen anyway.

Anyone wanna buy some snake oil? I hear it's good for just about everything. Should I put you up for a dozen bottles, Sir?

You guys feel like trying to push a "you didn't complain when MP won last year!" on me? I dare you! Hell, I don't even know if it won or not, nor do I particulary care.


*G*

 

[Blade]

Heh, at least MP deserved it when it won GoS in certain publications last year.

I can't say any different this year! HL2 looks like the next big FPS.. alongside Doom III, Halo II, and MP2 of course.. *cough*

 

[Qroach]

Grall,

Why would I be bitter? My TWO consoles put together matched or outstripped any of the other competitors, I should be like I think, if I was thinking like a fanboi like you guys seem to be doing.

Perhaps it's just your attitude and unecessary swearing? Well my THREE consoles matched or outstripped any of the other competitors. I have no idea what you meant by sayig that, but either way it sounded just a tad fanish.

 

[Almasy]

Mmmmm....so many FPSs...no thanks. I don´t actually see what´s so important about these awards - it ultimately comes down to consumer preference, therefore making these prizes irrelevant.

MP for example is tedium incarnated to me due to the insane backtracking, absent story and primitive combat (YES, I know about the "shortcuts" that reduce the backtracking sequences from 15 minutes to 12, and YES I know about the failed story attempt so there´s no need to bring that up).

Heck, there´s plenty of people that hold HL in high regard, and the title couldn´t hold my interest after 3 hours of play or so.

Quick version: there´s no real use for gaming awards, except for PR use.

 

[Blade]

there´s no real use for gaming awards, except for PR use

Agreed. Heck, same for the movie awards. I mean, c'mon.. Jack Nicholson was good in About Schmidt, but stole the Golden Globe from Daniel Day Lewis for crying out loud! Few people agreed that Jack deserved it more than Danny..

 

[Vince]

Yes. We've been saying this for two years Q. It's obvious: Western developers are overtaking Japanese developers, both in sales (quickly) and in quality (slowly).

At the end of the day Sony brought GT4 and MS brought Fable and Halo 2, with a little Half-Life 2 on the side. Nintendo brought next to nothing. Clearly the Xbox had a great E3.

Just to balance this a bit since your back to this proverbial Eastside vs. Westside argument:

Fable (Molyneux/Big Blue Box; PC dev), Halo2 (Bungie; former PC dev), Half-Life2 (VALVe, PC dev)

So, I'm assuming by your logic that because Microsoft is canabalizing the PC arena for games and having the developers move to their XBox, this sudden hemmorage of developers is indicative of the Eastern developers in someway 'failing' or being 'overtaken'? It's not like there's this Western based revolution that began as a responce to the Japanese failing... it's because Microsoft got turned away by all the Eastern developers and turned to the PC (which is dominated by the West) to produce titles.

Thanks for the laugh again, can you bring this topic up again in around 3 weeks? Lauren will be all bitchy around then and I'll need something to get threw it - thanks.

 

[marconelly!]

At the end of the day Sony brought GT4 and MS brought Fable and Halo 2, with a little Half-Life 2 on the side. Nintendo brought next to nothing.

A lot of good games developed in the west that people were anticipating for *years* heve been (re)displayed at this E3, and most of them will be finally released during the course of next 12 months. There really is nothing like this cluster of quality games (H2, HL2, D3, Fable...) that I can think of for the next E3.