Blue's News Best of E3 2000
June 14, 2000
by Stephen "Blue" Heaslip

In light of the extreme number of game previews resulting from E3 2000, we certainly felt no need to add another to the mix, so rather than run through what we saw of every game in the show, we are just going to give out a small set of best of show awards to the things we were most impressed with. The big debate was between Halo and Black & White for best of show, but in the end, we decided if it was that close, we should give the nod to the game that seems the closest to the carnage loving roots of this site. Here goes:

• Best of Show
  Halo. Combining state-of-the-art graphics, with state-of-the-art teamplay, this is TRIBES meets Quake III Arena, and more. If gameplay lives up to this year's demonstration, then the only thing that stands between Halo and being the all-time great multiplayer game is how the netcode turns out.
• Best Non-Action Game
  Black & White. A new experience, it seems every preview describes its genre differently. The game is described by Peter Molyneux as an RPG where you play a god, but whatever you want to call it, B&W is a fascinating, imaginative game, with more than a few twists never seen anywhere before.
• Best Multiplayer-centric
  TRIBES2. Looking like the perfect sequel, everything in the original game is improved, and there are many additions perfectly in keeping with what made Starsiege TRIBES so popular. And just like the original, this is probably deserving of an E3 award for most under-rated game of the show.
• Best Console Game
  Metal Gear Solid 2. Who cares if they just showed a gameplay movie? It received an ovation every time it was shown. As close a contender for best of show as you can get from a console game that wasn't shown off live.

Best of Show Honorable Mentions
Also, we want to note some Best of Show Honorable Mentions for the following, which are all deserving of note as the games we saw at E3 that we are most looking forward to playing:

• Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Which looks great, and had better AI in the unfinished version shown at E3 than most shipping shooters.
• Max Payne. The gritty third-person shooter that still looks state-of-the-art, showing just how advanced it was when first shown off a couple of years ago.
• Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.2. Has taken a great turn in direction, and now has much more of an extreme action orientation than had ever been previously seen or hinted at, and it's a good thing.
• Freelancer. Recaptures the feel of the Wing Commander series before it became FMV with WC3.
• RUNE. The third-person Viking hack-and-slash game with bigger weapons, proportionate to what they are aimed at, than anything we can recall seeing.
• C&C: Renegade. Where the mix of genres is coming together to add to the overall experience, rather than confuse it.
• Warcraft III. Which has scaled back its attempts at genre-blending, but still looks like a break from the mold of the series.

Best Technology
Additionally, we'll give best technology awards to Alice, as she has already taken the Quake III engine through the looking glass to do things we didn't think it capable of, and Red Faction, with its arbitrarily destroyable architecture, and accompanying sensor on your weapon to show which walls to shoot through to hit your targets.