Just to put this year's mini-E3 completely behind us, we make one final stop on the Game Critics Awards website, to find out which were the most remarcable games shown in playable form at E3 2007, at least according to 36 publications, more or less knowledgeable in the ways of gaming. The list of winners was announced yesterday, accompanied by a classification of games / companies / consoles by number of distinctions accumulated.

From this last point of view, the absolute winners of the show were the games Rock Band (with 3 wins) and Mass Effect (2 wins), the publishers Electronic Arts (6 wins) and Microsoft (3 wins), and the consoles Xbox 360 (11 wins) and PlayStation 3 (8 wins) - both in a spectacular rise compared to previous years, much to the loss of the PC and the Wii.

Getting over the somewhat stupid separation of Call of Duty 4 and Bioshock in two different categories ("Best Action Game" and "Best Action/Adventure Game", respectively), this is what the list of winners looks like:

Best of Show

Rock Band (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

Best Original Game

LittleBigPlanet (PlayStation 3)

Best Console Game

Mass Effect (Xbox 360)

Best PC Game

Crysis (PC)

Best Handheld Game

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo DS)

Best Hardware/Peripheral

Rock Band Instruments (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

Best Action Game

Call of Duty 4 (PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

Best Action/Adventure Game

Bioshock (PC, Xbox 360)

Best Role Playing Game

Mass Effect (Xbox 360)

Best Racing Game

Burnout Paradise (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

Best Sports Game

Madden NFL 08 (all platforms)

Best Fighting Game

Virtua Fighter 5 (Xbox 360)

Best Strategy Game

World in Conflict (PC)

Best Social/Casual/Puzzle

Rock Band (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

Best Online Multiplayer

Halo 3 (Xbox 360)

Special Commendation for Graphics

Killzone 2 (PlayStation 3)

Rock Band? WTF?! Where are the times when kick-ass games like Half-Life 2 used to steal the show...

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)