2005 E3 Game Critics Awards Winners Announced

Following the nominations announced last week, the winners of the Best of E3 Game Critics Awards have been announced. The awards were voted on by a panel of leading games journalists, as well as writers from magazines and newspapers, including Rolling Stone, Newsweek and The Washington Post. The awards were announced last night, and on a live broadcast on cable channel Spike TV. The full list of winners can be seen below, and online reports seem to indicate that the winners are a less overtly controversial selection than previous years – a difficult task, considering the unusual number of new products at this year’s show. Best of Show Spore (Maxis/EA for PC) Best Original Game Spore (Maxis/EA for PC) Best Hardware/Peripheral PlayStation 3 (Sony) Best Console Game The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Nintendo for GameCube) Best Handheld Game Nintendogs (Nintendo for Nintendo DS) Best Action Game F.E.A.R. (Monolith/Vivendi for PC) Best Action/Adventure Game The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Nintendo for GameCube) Best Fighting Game Soul Calibur III (Namco for PlayStation 2) Best Role Playing Game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda/Take-Two for PC / Xbox 360) Best Racing Game Burnout Revenge (Criterion/EA for PlayStation 2, Xbox) Best Simulation Game Spore (Maxis/EA for PC) Best Sports Game Madden NFL 06 (EA Tiburon/EA Sports for All Platforms) Best Strategy Game Company of Heroes (Relic/THQ for PC) Best Puzzle/Trivia/Parlor Game We Love Katamari (Namco for PlayStation 2) Best Online Multiplayer Battlefield 2 (DICE/EA for PC) Special Commendation for Graphics* Killzone (Guerilla Games/SCEE for PS3) *Non-playable games were eligible for nomination in this category – all other categories considered only playable games. Neither the Revolution nor the PlayStation 3 were eligible for the Best of Show category, although the real-time demos shown for the latter made it suitable for the Best Hardware/Peripheral category.