The Game Critics Awards is a group of a few dozen leading game publications that votes each year on the best games at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). This year, I was one of the 34 judges for the awards, and here’s both the results of the voting and my own votes.
The Last of Us (pictured above), a third-person survival game with a postapocalyptic setting from Sony’s Naughty Dog game studio, had five wins, including the best game of the show. Those with two wins each included Dance Central 3, Halo 4, Watch Dogs, and XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Sony had seven wins, Microsoft had four, and 2K Games, Electronic Arts, and Ubisoft had two wins apiece. The PlayStation 3 had 15 wins, the Xbox 360 had 12, the PC had seven. Notably, the PlayStation Vita and the Wii U only had one win each.
Only games that were playable were eligible for voting. That meant that Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs, an open-world action-adventure game that won accolades at the show, wasn’t eligible for most awards.
Please tell us in the comments what your favorites were.
Best of Show: The Last of Us (Naughty Dog/SCEA for PlayStation 3)
GamesBeat vote: The Last of Us
Best Original Game: The Last of Us
GamesBeat vote: Beyond: Two Souls (Quantic Dream/SCEA for PlayStation 3)
Best Console Game: The Last of Us
GamesBeat vote: The Last of Us
Best Handheld/Mobile Game: Sound Shapes (Queasy Games/SCEA for PS Vita, PS3)
Best PC Game: XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Firaxis Games/2K Games for PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
GamesBeat vote: Company of Heroes 2 (Relic Entertainment/THQ)
Best Hardware/Peripheral: Wii U (Nintendo)
GamesBeat vote: Wii U
Best Action Game: Halo 4 (343 Industries/Microsoft Studios for Xbox 360)
GamesBeat vote: Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Treyarch/Activision for PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
Best Action/Adventure Game: The Last of Us
GamesBeat vote: The Last of Us
Best Role-Playing Game: South Park: The Stick of Truth (Obsidian Entertainment/THQ for PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
Best Fighting Game: Injustice: Gods Among Us (NetherRealm Studios/WBIE for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U)
GamesBeat vote: Injustice: Gods Among Us
Best Racing Game: Need for Speed Most Wanted (Criterion Games/EA for PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
Best Sports Game: FIFA Soccer 13 (EA Canada/EA Sports for PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
Best Strategy Game: XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Firaxis Games/2K Games for PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
GamesBeat vote: Company of Heroes 2
Best Social/Casual Game: Dance Central 3 (Harmonix/Microsoft Studios for Xbox 360)
GamesBeat vote: Nintendoland (Nintendo/Wii U)
Best Motion-Simulation Game: Dance Central 3 (Harmonix/Microsoft Studios for Xbox 360)
Best Online Multiplayer: Halo 4
GamesBeat vote: Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Best Downloadable Game: Unfinished Swan (Giant Sparrow/SCEA for PlayStation 3)
GamesBeat vote: Unfinished Swan
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Special Commendations for Graphics: Star Wars 1313 (LucasArts for TBD Platforms), Watch Dogs (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft for PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
Special Commendation for Sound: The Last of Us
Special Commendation for Innovation: Watch Dogs