All the votes are tallied for the Game Critics Awards: Best of E3 2008. Fallout 3 took two wins out of the three nominations it received including Best of Show. LittleBigPlanet was the only other game to win two categories and took Best Console Game. Here’s the official Game Critics Awards Winner’s Circle for 2008:

Best of Show
Fallout 3
(Bethesda Softworks for PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

Best Original Game
Mirror’s Edge
(DICE/Electronic Arts for PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 36)

Best Console Game
LittleBigPlanet
(Media Molecule/Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation 3)

Best PC Game
Spore
(Maxis/EA)

Best Handheld Game
Resistance: Retribution
(Bend Studio/Sony Computer Entertainment for PSP)

Best Hardware/Peripheral
Rock Band 2 Ion “Drum Rocker” Set
(ION Audio/MTV Games for Xbox 360)

Best Action Game
Gears of War 2
(Epic Games/Microsoft Game Studios for Xbox 360)

Best Action/Adventure Game
Dead Space
(EA Redwood Shores/EA for PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

Best Role Playing Game
Fallout 3
(Bethesda Softworks for PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

Best Racing Game
Pure
(Black Rock/Disney Interactive Studios for PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

Best Sports Game
Madden NFL 09
(Tiburon/EA for All Systems)

Best Fighting Game
Street Fighter IV
(Capcom for Arcade)

Best Strategy Game
Tom Clancy’s EndWar
(Ubisoft Shanghai/Ubisoft for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

Best Social/Casual/Puzzle
LittleBigPlanet
(Media Molecule/Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation 3)

Best Online Multiplayer
Left 4 Dead
(Valve/EAP for PC, Xbox 360)

Interestingly enough only one of the winning games, Madden NFL 09 will make it to the Nintendo Wii or the DS. Far be it from me to suggest that it could have anything to do with Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata’s declaration that E3 is no longer the appropriate venue for core games.

This video comes out of Comic-Con to show off the upcoming Gears of War toys in all their plastic glory. Eventually, you’ll be able to snag all the main characters from the first game, as well as some various Locust for them to fight. It looks like the guys setting this up had a bit fun with the display, especially considering the random Master Chief helmet sitting amongst the Locust. My favorite figure though has to be the one Locust drone, mid-head explosion.

Cliff Bleszinski announced that Gears of War 2 will use linked achievements at Comic Con 2008 in San Diego. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, achievements from GoW will unlock GoW2 content. Here are the particulars courtesy of Xbox360Fanboy.

• Unlocking the “Completed Act 1″ achievement in GoW unlocks Anthony Carmine in GoW2 multiplayer.
• Unlocking the “A Dish Best Served Cold” achievement in GoW unlocks General RAAM in GoW2 multiplayer.
• Unlocking the “Time to Remember” achievement in GoW unlocks Minh Young Kim in GoW2 multiplayer.

The contents of the $130 “Collectors Edition” of Gears of War 2 was also announced. For this astounding fee, gamers will get a scaled down model of the Lancer.

via Joystiq

A few months back, Epic announced that a Gears of War novel was slated to be published in August that would act as a prequel to the first game and be written by Steven L. Kent. I don’t know what’s going on with that project, but now it looks like Epic has a full trilogy of novels in the works to continue the Gears saga. The first of these will be titled The Battle of Aspho Fields and will be penned by Karen Traviss, who is known for several bestselling Star Wars novels. The story will apparently involve an old friend of Marcus and Dom’s reappearing at a crucial time in the war against the Locust:

In GEARS OF WAR: THE BATTLE OF ASPHO FIELDS, the last human stronghold on Sera braces itself for another onslaught from the Locust Horde, as ghosts come back to haunt Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago. For Marcus — decorated war hero, convicted traitor — the return of an old comrade threatens to dredge up an agonizing secret he’s sworn to keep. As the beleaguered soldiers of the Coalition of Ordered Governments take a last stand to save humankind from extermination, the harrowing decisions made at Aspho Fields have to be relived and made again. Marcus and Dom can take anything the Locust Horde throws at them — but will their friendship survive the truth about Dom’s brother Carlos?

The books will be published by Del Ray, but there’s no word yet on who else will be writing the second couple of novels. And I guess we’ll have to wait until August to see if that prequel book is still making its way to store shelves soon.

Via Press Release

GameStop has listed the Gears of War 2: Limited Edition set on their site, and it includes the following bonus materials:

• Collectible SteelBook DVD case
• Beneath the Surface: An Inside Look at Gears of War 2, a 48-page hardbound book including character profiles, exclusive concept art, and foreword by Design Director Cliff Bleszinski
• Bonus DVD including exclusive making-of-the-game video footage, design galleries with audio commentary by Epic Games, and promotional videos including the E3 2008 trailer, “Rendezvous.”
• An exclusive gold-plated Lancer Assault Rifle available during online play

The pre-order ships November 7th and if you want it, it’s going to set you back $69.99.

In the Gears of War 2 trailer above, you get to check out the new levels, weapons, co-op play, meat shields, flamethrowers, boomers with grenades and other enemies in this demo by Lead Designer Cliff Blezinski from E3. The main trailer “Rendezvous” is posted below.

November 7th is the release date set for the Xbox 360 exclusive, and the news yesterday about GoW2 having five-player co-op ‘Horde Mode’ is pretty exciting if you are a fan of the game or just chaotic and grueling shooters in general.

The new site for the game has been revamped as well and you can check it out here.

Enjoy the trailers.

As I am sure you are aware by now, our industrious E3 team is hard at work gathering scraps of info for your perusal. We’re adding something a little different this year for your enjoyment: a nightly podcast wrap-up of the day’s events.

Wondering what’s in this episode? In the words or your immortal host, Shawn Sines, “E3 2008 Day 1: Microsoft & EA talked a lot, we’re talking about their talking.. only with opinions, innuendo and veiled sarcasm. Will the new Live! changes make sense? Is Dragon Age the most disappointing trailer of the show? Listen and find out what we think about Day 1 (sort of) of E3!”

We’ll have a podcast coming your way from E3 every day this week, so make sure you check it out.

You can grab the pocast directly from this link.

As always, you can send comments, suggestions, or snide remarks to podcast@filefront.com. Our back catalog of episodes is available at http://podcast.filefront.com. The File-N-Forget Podcast is also available on the iTunes Music store.

Microsoft kicked off E3 with a press conference not unlike a firecracker that has been dipped in water: it starts off exciting, but then the fuse runs out and all you get a a little “pop” if you’re lucky. Similarly, they brought out the big guns for an opener, leaving everything but the last few minutes pretty unsurprising. Read on for a play-by-play of Microsoft’s big E3 announcements. Read the full article »

While I play games on every system, I have certain preferences about which systems I play certain things on. Strategy games and (generally speaking) FPS games I’d like to play on my PC, while sports games and other multiplayer-focused games I prefer on Xbox 360, since that’s where I have the largest group of friends that I play games with. Usually, I get that option, but anyone who has wanted to play a game from Microsoft on PC has undoubtedly noticed the lag time of PC releases behind those on Xbox 360.

That’s because Microsoft wants you to buy the Xbox 360. They don’t need to push the PC as a gaming platform, in their eyes, but they want you buying the 360, so why would they release a game simultaneously on both platforms? This way, they’re likely to see increased sales on the Xbox 360 front as systems have to be sold, and then they still sell a copy of that game. And then when you have suckers like myself that want to play the game on PC, too, they might end up with customers who buy a copy of the game on both systems.

This isn’t just speculation on my part; Microsoft Game Studios’ Peter Zetterberg, the business development manager for Europe, admitted as much in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz.

“On a global scale the Windows Vista business is as important as our Xbox 360 business,” he said, when questioned about why we don’t see simultaneous PC and Xbox 360 releases of games. “But in Germany for example, we want more gamers to buy our Xbox 360. If we launch a game that is on 360 and PC simultaneously, we basically shoot ourselves in the foot by allowing the German market to choose to play the PC version – because they are more likely to buy that than spend their money on the Xbox 360.”

He continued, “On a global scale the PC is very relevant to us. And I would say that 90 per cent of the games that are pitched to us are on console. We’re strongly perceived as a console publisher because we’re the first-party publisher even though the Windows operating system is equally important to us. If we launched a Halo game on PC and 360 in Germany simultaneously, 80 per cent of sales would be on the PC. So we need to pick and choose our formats.”

It’s frustrating to me as a gamer that has the choice, but for those who only have a PC for playing games, it’s even worse. Imagine being a Halo fan and seeing the hype for Halo 3, only to have the release come and go, and almost 10 months later there still being no sign of a PC release. I’d love to think that they might reconsider, but that would be downright silly of me.

If there’s one thing online gamers are good at, it’s examining every bit of information from a game for possible hidden clues. Now it looks like some eagle-eyed Gears of War fans may have discovered a clue to the sequel’s release date. It all stems from this splash image on the game’s website (and above) that shows a COG soldier holding a dog tag (or “COG tag,” I suppose). The dog tag in the picture reads “033-116-117-126-071″ (as does the image’s filename). Apparently, if you run that through an ASCII Table, you get the message “ESC NOV 9.” Anyone with a keyboard in front of them can probably guess that could translate to “Escape November 9.” That’s a bit too specific to be just a simple coincidence.

Via Epic Forums