The SpawnFirst E3 Awards

E3 has been concluded for a week yet all of our minds are still swimming with thoughts of gameplay demos and trailers that we saw at the show. You could argue that this year was one of the best E3’s of all time. All of the major developers came out swinging and they all showed off exactly what everyone wants: games. There were a ton of awesome games that we saw this year, but we would like to award those that we are most excited to play in the future. Without further adieu, we present the best games from E3 2014!

Best Xbox One Game — Halo: The Master Chief Collection

Best PlayStation 4 Game — Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End

We know very little at this point about A Thief’s End plot-wise, beyond hero/lovable smartass Nathan Drake seemingly re-emerging from a long retirement, but holy hell is it already (apparently) shining graphically. Plus, how could we not be even a little excited about the announcement of a new Uncharted game, especially one that’s being highly hinted as the series grand finale?

Best Wii U Game — The Legend of Zelda

The game that everyone hoped Nintendo would announce at this year’s show, Legend of Zelda Wii U  was essentially a given for this category, despite it’s incredibly brief appearance. Hyrule is looking bigger and more dangerous then ever thanks to it’s now vast and open landscape. The graphics have the right level of whimsy, and Link is jumping onto the scene looking as bad-ass as ever. We can’t wait to see more. 

Best 3DS Game — Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire

The core pokemon games are always going to be essential playing for any 3DS owner. Taking two classic Pokemon games (Ruby and Sapphire, respectively), giving them X and Y’s 3D Graphics and throwing Mega Evolution’s into the mix is essentially like taking an already sweet cake and adding a fine layer of sugar to the top of it. 

Best PS Vita Game — Grim Fandango

While this may seem like a strange choice for best PS Vita game, sadly there weren’t many other options to choose from. I think it’s safe to say that a majority of staff members at SpawnFirst have never played Grim Fandango  so for it to finally be remastered and ported to the PS Vita gives us all the opportunity to play one of the greatest adventure games ever made.

Best PC Game — Tom Clancy’s The Division

The Division  is one of those games that you really have to spend some time with to understand. The newest IP from Ubisoft was shown off last year at E3 but this year, we were able to get a better idea of just how the game will play. With a fantastic new trailer to go along with the gameplay demo, The Division  certainly has us excited.

Best Indie Game — No Man’s Sky

Best Multiplatform Game — Batman: Arkham Knight

Rocksteady’s Arkham series has never truly disappointed, and Arkham Knight is looking to be no exception there. Giving you full access to the Caped Crusader’s Batmobile and it’s massive array of giant guns right from the get-go. Throw in the return a number of villains, and the debut of a Batman-hunting and mysterious Arkham Knight, and you’ve got a pretty decent recipe for chaos in Gotham.

Best Shooter — Far Cry 4

Best RPG — The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Wild Hunt, at just at a mere glance, looks to be everything we’ve wanted in a Next-Gen RPG. Jaw-droppingly beautiful, effortlessly expansive, and delightfully brutal in it’s gameplay execution, Geralt of Rivia’s latest quest is almost destined to be on many Game of the Year lists when it finally releases in February 2015.

Best New IP — Sunset Overdrive

Sunset Overdrive  was announced last year at E3, but this year it was given the chance to truly take it’s time in the spotlight. Hilarious, colorful, and full of ridiculous weapons reminiscent of Insomniacs previous Ratchet and Clank games, Overdrive is setting it’s self up to be one of the most memorable and outright fun experiences of 2014.

Best Trailer — Star Wars Battlefront

We saw almost nothing of Battlefront’s gameplay, but it’s presence at this years E3 did assure us of one thing; with Dice, who is treating  the game as an absolute labor of love, this long dormant series is totally in the right hands. In showing us just how much effort they’re putting into it, to the point where they visited the places where many of the original trilogies most famous scenes were filmed, we are waiting breathlessly to see more of the game in action. 

Best “Last-Gen” Game — Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

Despite the new consoles that released last year, some games are still releasing exclusively for the “last-gen” systems. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel  is one of these games and boy does it look good. In the end, the game looks like more of the same formula that we’ve come to expect from a Borderlands game but that is by no means a bad thing. If you’ve put away your PS3 or Xbox 360 in recent months, then you better go dust it off because there’s still plenty of great titles coming to the system and Pre-Sequel  is leading the charge.

Best Multiplayer Game — Evolve

It’s always hard to reinvent the multiplayer genre in a new and unique way that connects with gamers. Evolve  however, seems to be doing just that. With a 4-v-1 layout, one person plays as a monster while the other 4 players are in the process of trying to hunt down and kill the monster. It sounds simple, but looks extremely fun and we can’t wait to get our hands on it.

Best Fighting Game — Mortal Kombat X

Mortal Kombat X  was announced just a week before E3 so we didn’t really know what to expect from the game at the the show. When we did get to see the game in action, it looked sleeker than ever before. We were able to see the arrival of some new characters along with the return of x-ray moves and the brutal fatalities that will assuredly give the game an ‘M’ rating. Overall, not much is know about the new MK but what we saw has already completely won us over.

Best Racing Game — Forza Horizon 2

In a year where a couple new racing IPs are being released, we came away from E3 most impressed with the the old standby. While the Forza series may have become annualized at this point, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t still a great game. This year’s edition Forza Horizon 2 looks excellent and showed that even though the Forza games are released every year, they are still the best racing games on the market. 

Best Platforming Game — LittleBigPlanet 3

Yes, Sackboy has finally returned and this time he’s brought some new friends. In what was one of the biggest surprises at E3, LittleBigPlanet 3  was announced at the Sony press conference and immediately melted our hearts. The series has long been one of the cutest and most enjoyable games for people of all ages and that doesn’t look to be any different this time around.

Best Action/Adventure Game — Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

After the release of Ground Zeroes  some Metal Gear Solid fans were worried about the future of the series. Luckily, E3 was able to ease any apprehension that we may have had about the newest entry, The Phantom Pain. The next game in the series looks stellar and will hopefully be able to perfectly integrate open-world and stealth mechanics into one fluid game just as Kojima has promised us it would.

Best Developer — Rocksteady

Rocksteady has what you would consider a perfect track record. Being the creators of the Arkham series, Rocksteady has revolutionized the superhero game genre in the past decade. Their newest title Arkham Knight  looks like it will already be a guaranteed hit. With the demo that they showed off at E3 for the game, we have full confidence that Rocksteady won’t just create a great Batman game, but they will keep improving with every new iteration in this series. While Arkham Knight  may be the last game in the series according to Rocksteady, we certainly hope that isn’t the case.

Best Surprise — Rise of the Tomb Raider

The appearance of Rise of the Tomb Raider  at the Microsoft press conference completely caught us off guard. Considering that the first game in this relaunched series took so long to release, we didn’t expect to see anything about a sequel for at least another year. Nonetheless, we wed ecstatic to see the game’s new trailer. Hopefully, we hear more on this game in the coming months.

Biggest No Show — The Last Guardian

I mean, should this even be considered a surprise at this point? But it really seemed like this was the year! After all of the rumors and speculation that the game was cancelled and then was all of the sudden not cancelled, the game had some momentum leading to E3. This was the most that The Last Guardian  had been discussed in years so it just seemed fit for the game to appear at the Sony press conference. Once again, that wasn’t the case. At least we can take confidence knowing that the game is still in production. Maybe we will finally see it at Gamescom or TGS.

Game of Show for E3 2014 — Far Cry 4

That’s right folks, Far Cry 4  is given our Best in Show award at E3 this year. While there were a lot of other great games at E3, none of them blew us away quite like Far Cry 4. We were able to get two great looks at the game since it appeared in multiple press conferences. The game’s new villain looks as insane as the Joker and already has us interested in seeing what his motives will be. The story certainly has us excited but we also can’t wait to just run around the Himalayas and wreak havoc. With wing suits, elephants, a massive open world, and some stellar looking co-op, we cannot wait to waste our lives with Far Cry 4  when it releases later on this year.  November 18th can’t get here fast enough.