GameSpy's Best of E3 Awards

GameSpy has rounded up a massive "Best of E3 2008" feature that pretty much provides recognition to every game that was being demonstrated at the event. Notable mentions include Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, Dragon Age: Origins, and Fallout 3 in several categories (360 Game of Show, PS3 Game of Show, PC #2, and Overall Runner-up):
As the heavy Vault door slowly opened in front of us, we had no idea what to expect when we stepped into the sun for the first time in our character's 21 years of life. The sunlight blinded us for a few moments while our eyes adjusted, but we may have been better off not seeing what lay in front of us. A desolate landscape stretched as far as the eye could see, the crumbling Washington D.C. skyline far in the distance. As we got underway, it was immediately evident that while there were no other people around, we weren't alone either.

So began our time with Bethesda Softworks' Fallout 3, the runner-up for our E3 Game of the Show award. The voting was ultra-close this year, so close that Fargo and I had to arm wrestle to determine the winner (the guy is deceptively powerful). All kidding aside, this was one of those years when everyone would have walked away happy if either game had won. So what makes Fallout 3 so great, you ask?

The game's setting is a major selling point, as it's got the most fully-realized post-apocalyptic environments ever seen in a videogame. While Bethesda's own Oblivion had plenty of detail, it simply can't touch what we've seen so far from Fallout 3. Although the environments are completely desolate, they actually feel like people lived there at one point. It might be a half-full coffee cup on a kitchen counter or a swing gently blowing in the breeze, but it's likely that you'll notice something that makes you think about the lives of the people that lived there before the big one dropped.