Show Awards and Wrap-Up

The time has come to summarize our impressions of this year's Games Convention in Leipzig.

Personally, (and I'm sure I speak for Ure here as well – our associate editor who was with me at the show), I was extremely, and I do mean *extremely* impressed with the organization. German efficiency shines through once again, as their "engineering" of this event has been done to perfection almost.

The press is able to do their job without too many interruptions – the madness of the show floor is carefully orchestrated to happen away from the business side of things.

The list of exhibitors and media present was quite impressive as well, so I definitely felt like this was an improved version of the old E3. Whatever it is that E3 needed (before its most unfortunate restructuring), is what GC 2007 had to offer to both enthusiasts and professionals alike.

The public transport and the taxi service worked like clockwork; Leipzig is a nice little sleepy city in east Germany, but obviously, this was a national project to get this city on the map as far as interactive entertainment is concerned.

The general feeling amongst the folks I have talked to (PRs, devs and journos) is that everyone was able to get a bit more hands on with the games, certainly when high profile stuff like StarCraft II or Wrath of the Lich King was concerned (both games were available to the public at the show floor), and although the US media is slightly reluctant to admit it, "ze Germanz" are stealing the show at the moment (pun intended). Leipzig, ironically, even had more important game announcements than the E3. Where is this (gaming) world heading to, eh?

Best Strategy Game of GC 2007 – StarCraft II And the award goes to StarCraft II. Finally, we were able to actually test out the game and were quite impressed with the familiar yet extremely intense and fun-filled feeling of playing a Blizzard RTS. Screenshots and movies don't do this game justice, and I can't wait to get more of this one. click to view full gallery Best Action Game of GC 2007 – Call of Duty 4 The award, once again, goes to Call of Duty 4 (only repeat for these awards). At the E3, I liked the game for the ‘wow' factor of simply watching the developers play. This time, I've sat down, fired up the demo 360, and played the levels myself. And it felt much better than simply watching the action. This one is smooth, gorgeous and fun. Also, I should mention Far Cry 2 here. The action that's sort of generated by the features of its robust engine is absolutely amazing. The problem is that the presentation didn't go too much beyond an elaborate tech demo, so it's still too early to say. In addition, look out for Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway. Yes, it's another WWII shooter, but Gearbox is really doing some amazing work on this Unreal Engine 3-powered game. click to view full gallery Best RPG of GC 2007 – The Witcher The time of deep and immersive single-player RPGs seems almost like ancient lore to some, but there is still hope for the fans of the sub-genre. The Witcher was great. It had the depth you'd expect from a good single-player RPG and it looked good. The Polish team is totally passionate about their project and we can see why. click to view full gallery BEST GAME OF GC 2007 – Crysis There wasn't much doubt in our minds. Crysis looked absolutely great during the DirectX 10 demonstration. Going beyond the standard talk about the graphics (and inevitable questions about what sort of system you'll need to run this puppy in DX 10), the gameplay itself looked rock-solid. The ending scene in the demo, when the alien tripod is shown for the first time (officially), is what had us sold there and then. Crytek is doing some amazing work. click to view full gallery

Another title that's definitely worth a mention here, though it fills a totally different niche in the market, is Harmonix's Rockband. Vader was thrilled with how accessible and fun this game was, so those of you who are into musical games (and those of you who are new to the sub-genre) should definitely be excited about this one.

Finally, people were quite impressed with Killzone 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4, though we didn't get to play these (thank Sony). As for Mafia 2, even though we're extremely excited about this one, there simply wasn't enough of it at the show to warrant any sort of rewards yet.

To conclude, for this show awards and wrap-up feature, we tried to give games a chance we haven't seen a lot of at the E3. No list is ever perfect, but to truly be able to assess all the products displayed at the show, it would take an army of journalists not even Christiana Amanpour could muster. And she is a formidable woman when it comes to mustering stuff. Just general stuff.