Rock Band Wins Game Critics E3 Best Of Show Award

Officials have announced the winners of the Best of E3 Game Critics Awards, with Electronic Arts/MTV Games/Harmonix co-production Rock Band winning the overall Best of Show award, after also having received the largest number of nominations. As usual, the awards have been judged by a panel of representatives from various specialist and mass media journalists and freelancers. Although Rock Band won three separate awards, the only other game to win more than one was Mass Effect, which was awarded Best Console Game and Best Role-Playing Game. Awards were also spread out among a greater number of publishers than usual, although Electronic Arts won the largest number, with six in total. Of the other major publishers, Microsoft won three separate awards and Sony two. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 won a fairly equal number of awards - with eleven and eight titles being recognized, respectively (including multiformat releases). The Wii and Nintendo DS however received only one award each, while the PC received four. The full list of 2007 winners is as follows: Best of Show: Rock Band (Harmonix/MTV Games/Electronic Arts for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360) Best Original Game: LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule/Sony Computer Entertainment Europe for PS3) Best Console Game: Mass Effect (BioWare/Microsoft Games Studio for Xbox 360) Best PC Game: Crysis (Crytek/Electronic Arts) Best Handheld Game: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo for Nintendo DS) Best Hardware/Peripheral: Rock Band Instruments (Harmonix/MTV Games/Electronic Arts for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360) Best Action Game: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Infinity Ward/Activision for PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360) Best Action/Adventure Game: Bioshock (Irrational Games/2K Games for PC, Xbox 360) Best Role-Playing Game: Mass Effect (BioWare/Microsoft Games Studio for Xbox 360) Best Racing Game: Burnout Paradise (Criterion Games/Electronic Arts for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360) Best Sports Game: Madden NFL 08 (Electronic Arts for all platforms) Best Fighting Game: Virtua Fighter 5 (Sega for Xbox 360) Best Strategy Game: World in Conflict (Massive Entertainment/Sierra for PC) Best Social/Casual/Puzzle: Rock Band (Harmonix/MTV Games/Electronic Arts for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360) Best Online Multiplayer: Halo 3 (Bungie/Microsoft Games Studio for Xbox 360) Special Commendation for Graphics: Killzone 2 (Guerilla Games/Sony Computer Entertainment Europe for PS3) Further data, including the full list of nominees and winners from previous years can be found at the official Game Critics website.