Best of E3 2010

This year's biggest gaming event is in the books and we sum up the most important, interesting and relevant trends and revelations.

Let's take a look at what E3 2010 brought us.

Bengt Lemne's Top 5:

5. Dungeon crawl reinvented

While Diablo III was not at E3 (Blizzard stayed away), there was a number of games looking to put a breath of new life into the somewhat dormant dungeon crawl genre. Dungeon Siege III, Hunted: The Demon's Forge and The Lord of the Rings: War in the North all tread familiar territory in terms of setting, but still manage to bring about new perspectives and ideas. I've missed the crawl...

4. Child of Eden

Tetsuya Mizuguchi and his Q Entertainment have finally revealed the spiritual successor to Rez. Child of Eden was by far the most exciting Kinect title on display. For a lot of hardcore gamers, the moment Tetsuya Mizuguchi stepped onto the stage of the Ubisoft press conference was one of mixed emotion as they realised they would need to get the otherwise rather dull looking (from a software perspective) Kinect in order to play this.

3. Kirby's Epic Yarn

The title is enough to make me happy, and the fact that Nintendo continues to put their faith in 2D is another thing that makes me happy. I've never been a big fan of Kirby, but the gameplay mechanics and the inspired design of Epic Yarn has me very excited for the pink little bugger's next adventure.

2. Nintendo 3DS

It worked. Flawlessly. We're still struggling with the realisation that we will be carrying around a device capable of displaying 3D without glasses in our pockets soon. And Nintendo seems to have full support from the third parties from the start this time around.

1. Action, action, action!

With Halo: Reach, Killzone 3, Rage, Xcom, Metal Gear: Rising, Gears of War 3, Bulletstorm, Crysis 2, Dead Space 2, Brink, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier and Spec Ops: The Line present there was no doubt what genre genre ruled E3 2010. Get your trigger finger ready!

Petter Mårtensson's Top 5:

5. Your Shape: Fitness Evolved

I haven't exercised for a day of my life, something that is slowly starting to show. Ubisoft, with their Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, managed to somehow make the whole training with your console-thing look interesting. Even though I'm pretty sure it involves sweating. And maybe cursing.

4. Overblown events

Putting on shows is fun and all, but both Microsoft and Activision put on shows that were totally overblown and didn't have anything to do with the games at hand. The Natal Experience felt like watching a two hour long Wii-commercial that managed to say nothing about Kinect (except its new name), and Activision's event was more about showing off how much money the company have than actually showcasing any games. We can get behind hubris any day, but at the same time can't help wondering if those events were worth the money they cost - with or without Pharrell shouting about how good Activision's games are.

3. Old heroes, old series

As usual, the industry is all about the sequels. Gears of War 3, Killzone 3, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty - the list goes on. Nintendo brought back Zelda, Kid Icarus, Mario, Metroid in various shapes and sizes. Loads of 2's and 3's and new installments of old series. It's like that every year, more or less, but sometimes it just gets...old.

2. Get fit with Mel B

Nah, not the game. It looks like your pretty standard fitness game and it can't compete with Your Shape in any, eh, shape or form. But meeting up with Mel B, seeing her trying out her own game for the first time and then interviewing her about the experience was tremendous fun - she was so excited about the whole thing, about the magic of the Playstation Move coupled with a Playstation Eye, that it made the jaded games journalist in me feel ashamed.

1. Star Wars: The Old Republic

For a long time, Star Wars: The Old Republic has almost seemed like a single-player game. During E3 this year, Bioware finally started to talk a bit more about the multiplayer aspects of their multi-million dollar MMO. I say a "bit", because there is still a whole bunch of question marks surrounding the experience, but I guess it's better than nothing. And giving every player a ship they can walk around in is pretty cool. Pretty awesome, in fact. Now they just need to show us what we can actually do with them.

Best Conference

Nintendo

It was really close this year as Nintendo rolled out Nintendo 3DS, a new Zelda, and a multitude of exciting software announcements including the returns of Kid Icarus, Donkey Kong Country and Kirby. Sure, there were several awkward moments as Reggie used big words (epic was his favourite), but overall Nintendo kept it short, sweet and packed with fresh content.

Ubisoft had a strong showing, and Microsoft seemed focus. Sony had a rather long winded and surprise free affair, and Twisted Metal is hardly a big enough title to be considered a major announcement at E3 these days.

Missing in Action

3. Blizzard and Rockstar

Two of the biggest players in the industry opted out of E3 altogether. It was expected, but still a bit disappointing not to see them in any shape during the week. Oh well, there is always Gamescom and Blizzcon. No Rockon yet, but perhaps there will be one at some point on a boat in International waters.

4. Milo

No sign of the little Lionhead boy who stole the headlines at last year's E3. Hopefully he will be back soon, Kinect needs that kind of content amidst all the mini game compilations, dance games and casual stuff.

3. Wii Vitality Sensor

Satoru Iwata make a big deal out of it at last year's E3, this year it was a no show. But on the other hand Ubisoft revealed something similar with Innergy.

2. Final Fantasy XIII Versus

What happened to the whole grand Final Fantasy XIII. Tons of games were supposed to be coming with Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XIII Versus as the centrepieces.

1. The Last Guardian

It was revealed at last year's E3, but Sony opted to focus on Move and western titles in 2010. Very disappointing as it pretty much rules out a 2010 release for Team ICO's next title. Even a release date early in 2011 seems optimistic.