Most Original Game
This is awarded to a game that brings new things to the table. In a world of sequels and borrowed ideas, it's nice to see fresh concepts that help games separate themselves from the pack. This award goes to:
Mirror's Edge (EA, DICE)
This was a close one between Mirror's Edge and LittleBigPlanet. Both are really original games, but having seen LittleBigPlanet for over a year and Mirror's Edge really having it's coming out party at this E3, I went with Mirror's Edge. Mirror's Edge screams originality from it's unusually crisp and clean visuals to it's first-person perspective platforming. Instead of shooting everything in sight like you usually do from this view, you'll be running, jumping and climbing through environments with a unique control scheme. Even though you can use guns, combat is more about melee and disarming enemies. In fact, holding guns actually slows you down. Mirror's Edge is definately a breath of fresh air.Runner-up: LittleBigPlanet
Best Graphics-Technical
This is given to the game that ticks off all the boxes you look for in the graphics area. It needs great textures, animations, character and object models, and so on. All this must combine for a visually stunning game from a technical perspective. This award goes to:
Killzone 2 (Sony Computer Entertainment, Guerilla Games)
While Killzone 2 doesn't quite look like the infamous E3 2005 target render, the game looks pretty close and it's still rather early with KZ2 set to release in February 2009. Watch some videos of the single-player campaign and you are in for some stunning visuals. The gun models look fantastic and the animations for Helghast hopping over rails look great. Add in plenty of incredible effects and details and Guerilla is creating one of the best looking games we've seen yet. There were plenty of great looking games at E3 and I've noted some of the best in my runners-up below.Runners-up: Crysis Warhead, Gears of War 2, Prince of Persia, Resident Evil 5
Best Graphics-Artistic
A large part of a game's graphics come down to the artistic design. This award given to the game that excels in the artistic design side of graphics. Anything from the artstyle to the character designs to the type of environments falls into this category. This award goes to:
Prince of Persia (Ubisoft, Ubisoft Montreal)
The new Prince of Persia has a very unique artstyle. I actually can't think of any other games that look too much like it. The developers are calling this new style "illustrative." The characters have a cel-shaded type look to them, but it looks more three-dimensional. They also have these thin black outlines that look really good and let the characters stand out from their environments. The characters we've seen so far (The Prince, Elika, and The Hunter) have great designs and the environments seem more fantasy-themed than in previous entries in the series. It's a very attractive look when it all comes together.
Runners-up: LittleBigPlanet, Madworld, Mirror's Edge
Biggest Surprise
This award kind of explains itself. It goes to the thing that happened during the show that shocked people the most. The one that dropped jaws to the floor. This award goes to:
Final Fantasy XIII coming to the Xbox 360
E3 2008, as I've said before, was a bit light on surprises. But when Final Fantasy XIII was revealed to be coming to the 360, it was pretty shocking. I've thought for a while that of all the PS3 third-party exclusives FFXIII was the mostly likely to stay exclusive, but I was clearly wrong. While I don't think it's the end of the world like many PS3 fans do, it's definately a big deal and was certainly a huge surprise.Runners-up: Fat Princess-the name and the game, Resistance: Retribution-Resistance getting an entry on PSP
That's just Part 1 of my E3 awards. In Part 2, I'll give out awards for best handheld, downloadable, and overall game. Keep an eye out for it soon.
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