E3 2014 has come and gone. The games have been played, the requisite commentary has been provided, and all that's left at this point is to hand out a bunch of awards to make the games that appeared at this year's show feel special. While most outlets have their own individual E3 awards to hand out (hence why you see patently absurd statements like "winner of over 90 E3 awards!" on marketing materials), the annual Game Critics Awards pool representatives from something like 30 different outlets (with our own Jeff Gerstmann among them) into a single voting body, which makes them more official, I think.
Today marked the announcement of the 2014 GCA Best of E3 award nominees, and looking it over, you'd be forgiven for wondering if someone had just taken a list of "major games that were playable at E3 2014," removed that Kirby sequel and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker from the equation, and called it a day. This is nobody's fault, exactly. E3 2014 was a decidedly light year in terms of hot new playable games, meaning that certain categories were left a bit lacking in available options.
The full list of nominees can be found at the bottom of this story (and via this link), but before we get to those, a few stray observations about this year's nominees.
- Turtle Rock's multiplayer FPS Evolve led with six total nominations, including Best Original Game, Best PC AND Console Game, and Best of Show. Bungie's Destiny and Ubisoft's Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege came in behind Evolve with four nominations apiece.
- The Division, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt were all specifically called out as games that were not entertained as nominees because they were not made available as playable demos to judges. Of those, The Witcher 3 is the only one I'm preeeeeeetty sure was being played by a person in a live demo, as opposed to a purely video-based theater presentation, so I guess I'm kinda surprised that wasn't made available? Especially considering how gushy all the comments were about that game's showing.
- I'm genuinely impressed that there were enough fighting games at E3 to fill out a category without having to resort to tossing Ultra Street Fighter IV or EA Sports UFC on there.
- I'm going to get a ration of crap for this, but what if we, as an industry, agreed not to do separate Best PC/Best Console categories anymore? Four of the five PC nominees are also coming out on most of the other platforms, too. I just wonder if that distinction is even valuable anymore given that most games come out on multiple platforms and oh man I can already feel the angry comments being written before I even hit publish so I'm just going to shut up now.
- Probably nobody cares about this besides me, but man, what a bummer both the Best Driving Game and Best Sports Game categories are this year. Apparently there were only three games focused on the driving of cars at the show, and considering that two of them are HashtagDriveClub and The Crew...yeah. Also, all three sports nominees are EA Sports games, because 2K didn't bring NBA 2K15. I'm picturing EA Canada and EA Tiburon side-eying each other SO HARD right now.
- Best Strategy Game is an even bigger bummer. If Beyond Earth or Grey Goo wasn't there, what would have happened? Can you even have a category with just one nominee? What is the sound of one nominee competing? I mean, it's moot because obviously there were two strategy games at the show, but even that's pretty crazy. Two is not very many!
- Giving any of the games in the Best Online Multiplayer category an award for Best Online Multiplayer before their online multiplayer is actually online seems like maybe a little bit of a problem? Like, if Battlefield Hardline wins this, comes out, and is just as jacked as Battlefield 4, doesn't it look weird if "BEST ONLINE MULTIPLAYER" is stamped right on the box? Maybe this category just needs a new name. "Presumed Best Online Multiplayer?" "Best Online Multiplayer as Tested in a Dev Server Environment?" I'm just spitballing here!
- Despite there being two ostensibly major handheld platforms out there right now, there are only four nominees for Best Handheld Game. That feels...wrong?
- Best Social/Casual continues to feel like the "we didn't know where else to put these games" category. "Here's where we acknowledge Mario Maker and Fantasia, we guess!" Again, this is not a specific criticism of these awards. Genre classification is just dumb sometimes. And "Best Game That Is Not Like All These Other Games" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
- No Man's Sky is the only game in the Best Indie category that crosses over into any of the other "main" categories. I have nothing to add to that observation. I just observed it.
And now, here's your full list of nominees.
Best of Show
- Alien: Isolation (Creative Assembly/Sega)
- Batman: Arkham Knight (Rocksteady/WBIE)
- Evolve (Turtle Rock/2K Games)
- Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (Monolith/WBIE)
- No Man's Sky (Hello Games)
- Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
Best Original Game
- Destiny (Bungie/Activision)
- Evolve (Turtle Rock/2K Games)
- No Man's Sky (Hello Games)
- Splatoon (Nintendo EAD/Nintendo)
- Sunset Overdrive (Insomniac/Microsoft Studios)
Best Console Game
- Alien: Isolation (Creative Assembly/Sega)
- Batman: Arkham Knight (Rocksteady/WBIE)
- Destiny (Bungie/Activision)
- Evolve (Turtle Rock/2K Games)
- Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (Monolith/WBIE)
Best Handheld Game
- Murasaki Baby (Ovosonico/Sony Computer Entertainment)
- Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth (Atlus/Atlus)
- Super Smash Bros. for 3DS (Sora/Namco-Bandai/Nintendo)
- Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call (Square-Enix/Square-Enix)
Best PC Game
- Civilization: Beyond Earth (Firaxis/2K Games)
- Dragon Age: Inquisition (Bioware/EA)
- Evolve (Turtle Rock/2K Games)
- Far Cry 4 (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
- Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
Best Hardware
- Alienware Alpha (Alienware)
- Oculus Rift (Oculus VR)
- PlayStation TV (Sony Computer Entertainment)
- Project Morpheus (Sony Computer Entertainment)
Best Action Game
- Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (Sledgehammer Games/Activision)
- Destiny (Bungie/Activision)
- Evolve (Turtle Rock/2K Games)
- Far Cry 4 (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
- Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
Best Action/Adventure Game
- Alien: Isolation (Creative Assembly/Sega)
- Assassin's Creed Unity (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
- Batman: Arkham Knight (Rocksteady/WBIE)
- Sunset Overdrive (Insomniac/Microsoft Studios)
- The Order: 1886 (Ready at Dawn/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Best RPG
- Bloodborne (From Software/Sony Computer Entertainment)
- Dragon Age: Inquisition (Bioware/EA)
- Fable Legends (Lionhead/Microsoft Studios)
- Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (Monolith/WBIE)
- Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth (Atlus/Atlus)
Best Fighting Game
- Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- (Arc System Works/Aksys Games)
- Killer Instinct Season 2 (Iron Galaxy Studios/Microsoft Studios)
- Mortal Kombat X (NetherRealm Studios/WBIE)
- Persona 4 Arena Ultimax (Arc System Works/Atlus)
- Super Smash Bros Wii-U (Sora/Namco-Bandai/Nintendo)
Best Racing Game
- Driveclub (Evolution/Sony Computer Entertainment)
- Forza Horizon 2 (Playground Games/Microsoft Studios)
- The Crew (Ivory Tower/Reflections/Ubisoft)
Best Sports Game
- FIFA 15 (EA Canada/EA Sports)
- NHL 15 (EA Canada/EA Sports)
- Madden NFL 15 (Tiburon/EA Sports)
Best Strategy Game
- Civilization: Beyond Earth (Firaxis/2K Games)
- Grey Goo (Petroglyph/Grey Box)
Best Social/Casual
- Disney Infinity 2.0: Marvel Super Heroes (Avalanche/Disney Interactive)
- Fantasia: Music Evolved (Harmonix/Disney Interactive)
- LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham (TT Games/WBIE)
- Mario Maker (Nintendo EAD/Nintendo)
- Yoshi's Woolly World (Good-Feel/Nintendo)
Best Online Multiplayer
- Battlefield: Hardline (Visceral/EA)
- Destiny (Bungie/Activision)
- Evolve (Turtle Rock/2K Games)
- Splatoon (Nintendo EAD/Nintendo)
- Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
Best Indie
- Axiom Verge (Tom Happ)
- CounterSpy (Dynamighty)
- Below (Capy Games)
- No Man's Sky (Hello Games)
- Ori and the Blind Forest (Moon Game Studio)