game-critics-awards posts

In what will likely be our last direct E3 2010 story, the winners of the E3 2010 Game Critics Awards have been announced. The awards, named by a group of mainstream and game-related journalists, gave id Software's upcoming shooter Rage three times for winning this year. One was for Best Action Game, another was for Best Console Game (yep, Best Console Game) and Rage also got a Special Commendation for Graphics.

Valve's puzzle-shooter sequel Portal 2 nabbed two of this year's awards, one for Best PC Game and the other for Best Action/Adventure Game. Other games coming out for the PC that won awards include Star Wars: The Old Republic (Best Role Playing Game) Civilization V (Best Strategy Game) Need For Speed Hot Pursuit (Best Racing Game) and Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (Best Online Multiplayer)

Even though we personally feel that awards for games shown at E3 2010 are a little premature, other media outlets do hand them out. The most prestigious of the group is the Game Critics Awards, which are selected by a number of well know game and mainstream media outlets (including our sister site Joystiq). Today the nominations for the E3 2010 awards were revealed.

In a bit of a surprise, id Software's upcoming shooter Rage got the most nominations this year with five nods, including Best of Show, Best Original Game and Best PC Game. Valve's puzzle shooter Portal 2 got four nominations including Best in Show and Best PC Game. The other Best PC Game nominations went to Crysis 2, Civilization V and Star Wars: The Old Republic. You can check out all the categories and nominees at the Game Critics Awards web site. The winners will be revealed on July 6.

Star Wars: The Old Republic just got a ton of pressure put on it. The upcoming MMO from BioWare, EA and LucasArts was just named as the Best PC Game by the Game Critics Awards as they announced the winners of their annual E3 awards.

The awards, as we have mentioned before, are not a fullproof way of predicting a game's final form. Witness the fact that Spore won the same award three times and ended up as something of a dissapointment when it was finally released. We hope that BioWare's title is an exception.

In other catagories, Modern Warfare 2 won for Best Action Game, Mass Effect 2 (another BioWare title) won for Best Role Playing Game, Split/Second won for Best Racing Game, Supreme Commander 2 won for Best Strategy Game and Left 4 Dead 2 won for Best Online Multiplayer.

Despite the hesitation from vocal Fallout fan boys concerning Fallout 3 using the Oblivion engine and emphasizing a first-person point of view, all signs point to the post-apocalyptic RPG being Bethesda's best title yet -- and the 36 video game journalists who comprise Game Critics would certainly agree. Game Critics recently announced that Fallout 3 won their prestigious Best of Show E3 award, as well as the genre-specific Best RPG.

According to the official website, Game Critics bestows its awards upon games which "will shape the future of interactive entertainment, as demonstrated via hands-on playable form at the E3 Media and Business Summit in Los Angeles, CA."

Download the latest Fallout 3 HD Trailer

Even though it has been called by many who attended the worst E3 ever held, that hasn't stopped the Game Critics Awards from naming their picks for the nominees for their annual Best of E3 award. The awards, picked by a group of mainstream and game oriented journalists (including Chris Grant of our sister site Joystiq) had three games that will appear on the PC platform named as Best in Show (Fallout 3, Mirror's Edge and Spore).

The nominations for Best PC Game are Spore, Dragon Age: Origins, Warhammer Online, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II and Left 4 Dead. Indeed Valve's upcoming zombie shooter got three more nominations (Best Original Game, Best Action Game and Best Online Multiplayer Game). You can go to the Game Critics Awards' web site for all the nominees; the winners will be named on August 5.