What a difference a year makes. This time last year E3 was still months away and everyone was hardly looking forward to it, remembering their impressions of 2007. All it took was for the people behind the show to go, “Yeah you’re right we fucked up” and promise that the show would return a good size larger (but not SUPER SIZED) in ’09. With the press conferences to E3 just a few days away and the giant building-sized banners already being put up, you can’t browse a gaming-related news site and not see an “OH MAH GAWD E3 IS COMING BACK BAYBEE!”

The Top Ten “Games we wanna see at E3 YEAH E3 FUCK YEAH WOOOOOO!” Lists have returned in full force. A good number of entries on that list haven’t even been announced yet and there’s a good chance some of them might not even be announced at the show. Everyone’s so hyped on seeing a new Zelda unveiled that if one isn’t shown off then it’ll be Nintendo’s fault for not telling them before hand that there won’t be a new Zelda announcement. And it’s Square’s fault of course for attendees not getting to spend as much time as they want with the new Final Fantasy XIII demo.

One need look no further for what appears to be the source of this influx of hype then the Game Critics Awards. The ironic thing about the awards is that the critics don’t even have to play the games at the show, they get their own “Game Critics Awards Judges Day” before hand a few weeks before the show when many of the big companies invite them to play their games and take ‘em into consideration for the coveted awards. Of course if you didn’t have a “Game Critics Awards Judges Day” for your game then you’ve just gotta hope they honor you with their presence at your booth.

Looking back at the winners of the Game Critics Awards from years past, there seem to be two categories of winners. One category is made up of the winners who not only perform well at E3, but end up doing well on release as well, so much so that when people recall the product, it’s about the product itself, not the hype from E3. These include Half-Life (1 and 2), the Wii, Rock Band, Halo 2, products that had substance to back up the hype (even if the substance wasn’t quite to your tastes, as was the case with the Wii and it’s evergreen titles to a number of gamers)

Then there are the other winners. The ones who seemingly had the most potential and promise than when they were finally released. These are comprised of Black and White, Doom 3, the PSP, and Ssssssspore. I want to talk about Spore for a minute as it almost seemed to be a game designed to win E3 awards. The gaming judges had their minds made up long before that E3 in 2005, back at GDC when Spore promised so much. It didn’t matter if they got to play the game, they just needed to see Will Wright do his stuff and they were sold. And I admit, Spore more than any other game that E3 probably deserved the Best of Show award. It brought the gaming community together with promises of the game not only delivering the gaming industry’s “Citizen Kane” but “…its Torah, its “Origin of Species” and its “2001: A Space Odyssey” all rolled into one.” as N’Gai proclaimed so long ago.

For a lot of the gaming press, this was going to be the one. The game that would not only be known as “THE GAME” to everyone in the world, gamers and non-gamers alike, but the one that would actually be fun to them to play as a game. The “Hardcore Gaming Press” didn’t catch onto The Sims as much as mainstream media did because it wasn’t much of a game to them. There were no grandiose stories with real-time cut scenes in both first person and third. They couldn’t see any sort of saga in the game and moments they would be able to recall at parties among friends years from then with a tear in their eye. Even though many a Sims player could probably come up with at least one moment that occurred in the game that stuck with them, it wasn’t one the GAMING JUDGES could put on their “TOP TEN MOMENTS IN GAMES THAT MADE US CRY. ;______;” lists, unless it was for hilarity purposes.

But Spore, Spore would different. It would be the one. The one that would make the stories and events on the fly. The one that would be accessible and complex and adjustable to likings of every gamer. It would be Citizen Kane AND the Torah. It would be the Godfather AND the Ten Commandments. They built the game up to be something it inevitably couldn’t. It could still be fun, still be awesome, but it couldn’t be that game. The one they could not only show their friends and family and say “SEE, SEE THIS IS AWESOME!” and Grandma would be like “OH SHIIIIT IT IS AWESOME HOLY SHIT!” and everyone would enjoy the awesome.

But, journalists, gamers, GAME CRITICS AWARD JUDGES, that’s already happened. It’s not one game that’s going to do it. It’s been happening for decades. Just because everybody can’t agree on one single game that both hardcore and non-gamers champion doesn’t mean you can’t just say “Video Games can be that connecting bridge between people of different backgrounds, creeds, and lifestyles.” And I’m sure that at this E3, they’ll be games that do that. – The Ben