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.