Today's announcement of the winners of the Game Critics Awards for the E3 conference revealed that the multi-player FPS Evolve was the big winner, gathering four awards: Best of Show, Best Console Game, Best Action Game and Best Online Game. Science fiction exploration title No Man's Sky was the other huge winner, with three awards: Best Original Game, Best Independent Game and a Special Commendation for Innovation.
The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, is the annual gathering held in Los Angeles in June devoted to the game industry. Companies show off their latest and greatest video games, including many new titles being revealed for the first time or being available to play for the first time by those who are not making the game. The Game Critics Awards is compiled from the votes of 39 industry publications and websites.
With Evolve claiming Best of Show, the first-person shooter genre continues its dominance of gaming. Developed by Turtle Rock Studios and published by Take Two Interactive, known for the zombie FPS game Left for Dead, Evolve is not like typical shooters. Four players control hunters dropped on an alien world, each with their own unique weapons and skills. A fifth player controls the monster, the prey of the hunters. The monsters need to kill random beasts on the alien world, as well as the players, to evolve into stronger and more powerful forms. When the monster evolves all the way, it then can attack and destroy the Hunters' base. This multi-player game is a unique mix of FPS action, MOBA competition and sci-fi tropes.
No Man's Sky by Hello Games, creators of the Joe Danger series, won Best Original Game and the Innovation award for its unique premise. The player controls a space traveler and you begin the game on your own unique planet. You can explore it and discover new species of flora and fauna, or hop in your ship and fly to another planet to make discoveries. There is an infinitely large galaxy to be found, with planets and their inhabitants all procedurally generated. By procedurally creating content from a set of art assets and variables, millions of variations can be made without employing thousands of artists. The player feels like they are part of a vast science fiction universe like Star Trek.
Other notable awards include Bioware's Dragon Age: Inquisition for Best RPG, Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham Knight winning Best Action Game, Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. for Best Fighting Game and the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset winning Best Hardware/Peripheral for the second year in a row.
Evolve will be released for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox in October; No Man's Sky will launch on PC and PlayStation 4, though a date has not been announced.
You can find the entire list of winners for the 2014 awards or the winners of previous years at the Game Critics Awards site.
