Game Critics Announce Best Of E3 2006 Winners

The polls are out for this year's Game Critics Awards: Best of E3 2006 and, as expected, Nintendo came out wiiing all over those fancy next-gen graphics games shown by Sony and Microsoft: simply put, the Wii stood out as the single most exciting and remarkable new product at E3 2006. Over on the soft side, Will Wright's Spore won a total of three awards, overshadowing games such as Gears of War, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars or Supreme Commander, to name but a few of the less-fortunate, but still winning titles.

Out of their 14 nominations, Nintendo's products received 5 awards, Electronic Arts and Microsoft took 3 each, while each of the remaining companies (Activision, Red Octane, Sony, THQ and Ubisoft) took one single prize. Once again, the PC held its ground as the most awarded platform (with 5 awards), while the new-entering Wii totalled 4 prizes - one more than the Xbox 360, and two more than the PlayStation 3. Game Critics' complete list of winners is listed below, and can be consulted in more detail over on gamecriticsawards.com.

Best of Show:

Wii (Nintendo)

"It's a good thing Nintendo got the name change of its next console out of the way before E3. With the shock of that announcement mostly over, the company proceeded to become the talk of the show (and possibly a fire hazard for the LA Convention Center) by inviting audiences to get their hands on an impressive lineup of fun and interesting software for the Wii... not to mention that wild controller. People practically stampeded to try it out - either that or they waited in line for hours. Yet most of them seemingly still came away more excited than ever by Nintendo's weird, inspired vision for how gaming could be different.

Some important questions remain about how the Wii will finally turn out, but by giving E3 show-goers a taste of what playing games on the Wii will be like, Nintendo seemed to gather much more momentum for the system's launch later this year. So despite how many great-looking games were on display at this year's show, the Wii stood out as the single most exciting and remarkable new product at E3 2006."

Best Original Game:

Spore (PC - Maxis/Electronic Arts)

Best Hardware/Peripheral:

Wii (Nintendo)

Best Console Game:

Gears of War (Xbox 360 - Epic Games/Microsoft)

Best PC Game:

Spore (PC - Maxis/Electronic Arts)

Best Handheld Game:

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo DS - Nintendo)

Best Action Game:

Gears of War (Xbox 360 - Epic Games/Microsoft)

Best Action/Adventure Game:

Assassin's Creed (PS3 - Ubisoft)

Best Role Playing Game:

Mass Effect (Xbox 360 - BioWare/Microsoft)

Best Racing Game:

Excite Truck (Wii - Nintendo)

Best Simulation Game:

Spore (PC - Maxis/Electronic Arts)

Best Sports Game:

Wii Sports (Wii - Nintendo)

Best Fighting Game:

Heavenly Sword (PS3 - Ninja Theory/Sony Computer Entertainment)

Best Strategy Game:

Supreme Commander (PC - Gas Powered Games/THQ)

Best Puzzle/Trivia/Parlor Game:

Guitar Hero 2 (PS2 - Harmonix/Red Octane)

Best Online Multiplayer:

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (PC - Splash Damage/id/Activision)

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)