This past week Kotaku recapped the year that was in video games, on subjects both naughty and nice. And before we know it, seven days will have passed, and we'll all begin working on another 365-chapter story of video games, how they're made, and who plays them.

For now, we invite you to revisit these retrospectives. And we thank you for choosing to spend a part of this holiday with Kotaku. From all of us, happy holidays, and a very merry Christmas to you.

2009 in Review
The Controversies
The Shows That Were
The Sports Video Game Report
The Disappointments
The Year, NSFW
The Trailers

Featured Stories
One Man's Year Making Assassin's Creed II
The Man Who Never Wanted To Make 'The Citizen Kane of Games'
The Batman-Maker Who Didn't Know The Meaning Of GOTY
Motion-Control Gaming Grabs The Spotlight

Aonuma tells the UK's Official Nintendo Magazine that the Zelda team has been trying "something new in terms of the structure" of the next entry in The Legend of Zelda, which Shigeru Miyamoto teased at this year's E3 in the form of new concept art.

The next Zelda game after The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks appears to be aimed at mixing up the now-familiar 3D formula. Aonuma tells ONM that he agrees with Miyamoto that "if we are following the same structure again and again, we might not be able to give long time Zelda fans a fresh surprise."

The still unnamed Zelda title will take advantage of the Wii MotionPlus peripheral and, more than likely, will offer a new role for Link's trusty Master Sword, as hinted at by the Wii game's concept art.

Zelda Wii: Expect Surprises At E3 2010 [ONM UK]

Take Bayonetta lady, for example. She looks resplendent in photos, but in the flesh, that suit looked uncomfortable, not to mention restrictive. But the girl was up there in it, all day, posing for shots, big smile on her face.

Yvonna Lynn, who runs the Charisma+2 Booth Babe agency, says that on average, the ladies in costume "tend to average $20 to $25 an hour" working a show like E3. Put in seven hours a day for four days and that's $560-$700 a week. Not bad, but for the work some of these girls put in, not great either.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/31505321 [CNBC, via Go Nintendo]

And those are the Game Critics Awards. Voted on by editors from 29 publications, ranging from IGN to GameStop to 1UP to...Kotaku, they're normally viewed - courtesy of that combined power - as the definitive list of what really stole the show at E3.

2009's winners have just been announced. And they are as follows:

Best of Show
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
(Naughty Dog/Sony Computer Entertainment America for PlayStation 3)

Best Original Game
Scribblenauts
(5TH Cell/Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment for Nintendo DS)

Best Console Game
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
(Naughty Dog/Sony Computer Entertainment America for PlayStation 3)

Best PC Game
Star Wars: The Old Republic
(BioWare Austin/LucasArts)

Best Handheld Game
Scribblenauts
(5TH Cell/Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment for Nintendo DS)

Best Hardware/Peripheral
"Project Natal"
(Microsoft for Xbox 360)

Best Action Game
Modern Warfare 2
(Infinity Ward/Activision for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC)

Best Action/Adventure Game
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
(Naughty Dog/Sony Computer Entertainment America for PlayStation 3)

Best Role Playing Game
Mass Effect 2
(BioWare/Electronic Arts for Xbox 360, PC)

Best Racing Game
Split/Second
(Black Rock/Disney Interactive Studios for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC)

Best Sports Game
Fight Night Round 4
(EA Canada/EA Sports for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

Best Fighting Game
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars
(Eighting/Capcom for Nintendo Wii)

Best Strategy Game
Supreme Commander 2
(Gas Powered Games/Square-Enix for Xbox 360, PC)

Best Social/Casual/Puzzle
DJ Hero
(Freestyle/Red Octane/Activision for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii)

Best Online Multiplayer
Left 4 Dead 2
(Valve/EAP for Xbox 360, PC)

Congratulations Uncharted 2! Congratulations Scribblenauts! Congratulations...well, everyone. Even you, DJ Hero.

For a second year in a row the analysts at Broadpoint AmTech took a look at the past 11 years worth of winners to see if Best Of awards are a predictor of sales. Their conclusion:

"While there have been a few exceptions, overall we found that "Best of" award winners in categories such as "Best Console Game" and "Best in Show" have been retail hits in the U.S. (e.g. have sold in excess of 1mm units lifetime since release according to NPD)."

Certain categories, such as Best Original Game and Best Racing Game, were more hit or miss than others in predicting sales success, the analysts say. That's because, they said, these sort of games have "qualities that appeal more to industry insiders/game critics on the panel (forexample, innovative gameplay and art direction) vs. the average consumer."

While interesting, I wonder if the awards predict a sales success or help to create one. Lots of publishers have in the past used the award in their marketing of the games.

Dr. Richard Marks, creator of the EyeToy, illustrated much of the same technology during the PlayStation 2 era, using a much more bulbous magic wand to showcase what the console's camera accessory was capable of. Hardly as impressive an implementation of what was on display during Sony's E3 showing, which teased first-person shooter and intricate drawing functions, but fascinating nonetheless.

I remember using similar tech when I first played Harmonix's EyeToy: AntiGrav at my first E3, when the game was intended to ship with bright green gloves, letting the camera track player movements. This looks familiar, but certainly not as refined as what appears to be possible with the PlayStation 3 iteration.

Thanks to Miguel for the heads up!

[This post is the third in a series that recounts the chain of questions and answers I solicited from the people I interviewed during E3. I asked each of my interviewees to ask a question of the next one. Hence: Chain Interview.]

In a hotel room suite on the Wednesday of E3 week, I asked the next chain interview question to Sony's Peter Dille. He had just let me play Gran Turismo on his white PSPGo and answered a batch of questions about Sony's E3 showing. Dille was happy to answer Schappert's question, but admitted to having trouble doing so simply due to a lack of regular use of Xbox Live.

Peter Dille, senior vice president of marketing for Sony Computer Entertainment of America responds: "I don't spend a lot of time on it… Xbox Live has been out for a while and Microsoft's done a really good job getting people involved in online gaming. And that's good news for the industry."

Dille surprised me, and I told him so. I thought he would have made a remark about Microsoft charging for online play, but he didn't take the bait. Instead, he took the opportunity to keep the chain going for my next interview, located on floor below.

Peter Dille asks Sony Computer Entertainment vice president of product development Scott Rohde: "What advantages do you see in developing for PS3 compared to other platforms?"

Armed with that query, I headed over to Rohde's room. We talked about Sony's U.S. studios, whose efforts he oversees. He let me videotape his PSPgo's sliding action. And then I lobbed him the softball.

Scott Rohde responds "What developers have discovered over the past three years — you've heard [Sony Computer Entertainment president] Kaz [Hirai] make reference to this in other interviews — it's kind of the machine that just keeps giving. As you peel off new layers of the onion, you kind of find out more capabilities that the machine can do. When people start taking advantage of the [PS3's seven] SPUs and the Cell [processor] they really find that, \Wow, we can throw more and more tasks and processes at those SPUs and we have all this freedom on the main processor to do more.'"

I pointed out to Rohde that Dille was asking for a comparison to other platform. His answer implied that the same kinds of things couldn't be said about the other major consoles. Fair? "Absolutely," he replied.

My next interview later in the day would be with Microsoft's corporate vice president of strategy and business development for the company's interactive entertainment division. That'd be Shane Kim, former head of first-party game development for the Xbox 360. This would be Sony's chance to turn things back on Microsoft and keep the chain connected. Question, please?

Rohde prefaced his question by noting that I always ask him about sports games, largely because Rohde used to run Sony's San Diego studio which produces the PlayStation's basketball and basebell games.

Scott Rohde asks Shane Kim: "[Stephen] identifies me as a sports guy and, at heart, I am. I would love to know if Microsoft has any thoughts about getting back into first-party sports development."

Shane Kim's answer, and more links in the chain – including the most awkward question of the week – will run here tomorrow.

[Scott Rohde Pic via GameTrailers]

Despite what appears to be a converging of technological capabilities, Microsoft has told Kotaku that it's too early to talk about whether the Xbox 360 could be capable of replicating the promised capabilities of the OnLive service.

Those abilities would have freed Xbox gaming from requiring discs, downloads or possibly even an Xbox itself.

To explain why we asked such a question, it helps to remember what OnLive is. Announced in March and proven to work in controlled press demos (one of which I experienced, hands-on), OnLive would alter the way games are bought and owned, if not how players would control them. The crux of the service is a shift that moves the computations that typically occur in PCs or game consoles when a game runs to a server farm located far away from any OnLive gamer. The OnLive gamer would play games as they normally would, using a traditional-style controller. They would see their game play on the screen of their broadband-connected PC or TV, the latter of which would need to be plugged into a "microconsole" that's a little larger than a DS. The secret sauce of OnLive would be the ability for it to send the video signal of the game from that server farm to the player's screen with no delay in sync with any button presses by the gamer. As seen in the press demos, games such as Crysis and Burnout Paradise could run smoothly through OnLive. In theory, any game could. Gamers would be able to buy, rent or even spectate new games with no delay.

That was March.

And then, during this month, June, Microsoft announced at E3 that the Xbox 360 would support a technology called Instant Streaming In 1080p. When demoed, it presented no-delay, no-disc, no-download high-quality feature-length video, something any user with a fat enough Internet connection would be able to enjoy. During the same E3 show, Microsoft signaled an increased willingness to support disc-free gaming by announcing the August launch of a program to sell full-sized downloadable games digitally to the 360.

I thought I saw roads about to converge.

With Microsoft showing off this blistering ability to stream high-quality video and a gusto for expanding its involvement in disc-free gaming, I asked John Schappert, Microsoft's corporate vice president of Xbox Live software and services, if these developments put Microsoft on a path to offering OnLive-like functionality via the 360.

"I think [that] you connecting the technology dots is astute," Schappert said. "But it's nothing we're ready to announce or talk about today… I think that a broadband-connected console to the television enables us to do many things. And, as the bandwidth continues to increase and latency continues to decrease, I think it opens up new avenues of possibility. And of course I've got 5000 smart people back home that will tell me all the crazy things that can't be done. But there's also just as many that can solve all these technological problems and deliver the amazing innovation that they're doing. I think anything is possible but nothing that we're going to announce right now. I think just delivering 1080p [without delay], something that no other device has done, is pretty amazing."

I jokingly suggested Microsoft just buys the service. OnLive… Xbox Live… Xbox OnLive?

"I think they liked our name, didn't they?" Schappert laughed.

[This post is the second in a series that recounts the chain of questions I solicited from the people I interviewed during E3. I asked each of my interviewees to ask a question of the next one. Hence: Chain Interview.]

Yoshio Sakamoto, longtime designer of many Metroid games responds: "I want him to be there forever. [pause] That's quite a question!"

Sakamoto gave me this answer over much laughter. But Miyamoto had it easy, asking a question of one of his co-workers. Sakamoto had a tougher challenge. I explained that I was next going to interview Xbox Live software and services corporate vice president John Schappert (aka the guy who delivered most of Microsoft's E3 press briefing.) I needed a question. Sakamoto, through his translator, obliged.

Yoshio Sakamoto asks Microsoft corporate vice president of Xbox Live software and services John Schappert: "Do you like Metroid?"

And he can't resist throwing in a second question: "Do you like Mr. Miyamoto?"

Later in the day, in a meeting room on the second floor of Microsoft's always-gleaming, always-white E3 Xbox 360 booth, Schappert reached the finish line of my interview with him when I sprang Sakamoto's two questions.

John Schappert responds: "I do like Metroid. And I think Nintendo has made absolutely amazing games. I grew up playing Nintendo. I grew up as a Nintendo SNES programmer… the Metroid on the SNES was phenomenal."

Note that Schappert founded Madden development studio Tiburon and had been making games for multiple hardware generations. The SNES was not an alien object to him. And to the second question about Miyamoto?

"He's my hero. And I proudly have an original Mario drawing that he made for me in my office. He is my inspiration in the industry. I think he crafts some amazing experiences and I think that he is an icon for us all to look up to."

Schappert was my final interview of the day. I'd start the next day with a Sony interview. I needed a Schappert question for it.

John Schappert asks Sony Computer Entertainment of America senior vice president of marketing Peter Dille: "What do you think of Xbox Live?"

Peter Dille's answer will run tomorrow, along with two more links to the chain.

Both EA's Brutal Legend and Sony Computer Entertainment's Uncharted 2: Among Thieves rise to the top of this year's nomination list, both scoring four each including the coveted Best of Show award, where they are doing battle with Mass Effect 2, Modern Warfare 2, and Splinter Cell Conviction. Not that Brutal Legend is the only original game among the Best of Show nominees, so the next time you hear a game critic complaining about there being too many sequels, feel free to point them right here.

The nominations for Brutal Legend and Uncharted 2 help move EA and Sony to the top of the pack publisher-wise, with 18 and 13 nominations respectively. From a console standpoint, the Xbox 360 comes out on top with 42 nominations to the PlayStation 3's 39, with the Wii bringing up the rear with only 8. No real surprise there.

As for the Best Hardware category, the obvious Project Natal nomination is joined by the DJ Hero controller, Wii Motion Plus, the PSPgo, and the Tony Hawk Ride skateboard, though I've a feeling that anything not involving an Xbox 360 and cameras will have a tough time of things.

The Best of E3 Awards are determined every year by a panel of video game print publications and websites, which includes Kotaku, so we claim official credit for 1/29th of the nominations here, but we won't tell you which.

Look for the winners to be announced on June 23rd. In the meantime, the nominees are...

Best of Show
- Brütal Legend (Double Fine Productions/EAP for PS3, Xbox 360)
- Mass Effect 2 (BioWare/Electronic Arts for Xbox 360, PC)
- Modern Warfare 2 (Infinity Ward/Activision for PS3, Xbox 360, PC)
- Splinter Cell Conviction (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft for Xbox 360)
- Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Naughty Dog/SCEA for PS3)

Best Original Game
- Alan Wake (Remedy/MGS for Xbox 360)
- Bayonetta (Platinum Games/Sega for PS3, Xbox 360)
- Brütal Legend (Double Fine Productions/EAP for PS3, Xbox 360)
- Heavy Rain (Quantic Dream/SCEE for PS3)
- Scribblenauts (5TH Cell/WBIE for Nintendo DS)

Best Console Game
- Brütal Legend (Double Fine Productions/EAP for PS3, Xbox 360)
- God of War 3 (Sony Santa Monica/SCEA for PS3)
- Mass Effect 2 (BioWare/Electronic Arts for Xbox 360)
- Modern Warfare 2 (Infinity Ward/Activision for PS3, Xbox 360)
- Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Naughty Dog/SCEA for PS3)

Best Handheld Game
- Gran Turismo (Polyphony Digital/SCEJ for PSP)
- LittleBigPlanet (SCE Studio Cambridge/Media Molecule/SCEE for PSP)
- Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (Alphadream/Nintendo for Nintendo DS)
- Scribblenauts (5TH Cell/WBIE for Nintendo DS)
- The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (Nintendo for Nintendo DS)

Best PC Game
- DC Universe Online (Sony Online Austin/SOE)
- Dragon Age: Origins (BioWare/EA)
- Left 4 Dead 2 (Valve/EAP)
- Star Wars: The Old Republic (BioWare Austin/LucasArts)
- Supreme Commander 2 (Gas Powered Games/Square Enix)

Best Hardware
- DJ Hero Controller (Freestyle Games/Red Octane/Activision)
- "Project Natal" (Microsoft)
- PSP Go (Sony Computer Entertainment)
- Tony Hawk Ride Skateboard (Robomodo/Activision)
- Wii MotionPlus (Nintendo)

Best Action Game
- BioShock 2 (2K Marin/2K Games for PS3, Xbox 360, PC)
- Halo 3 ODST (Bungie/MGS for Xbox 360)
- Left 4 Dead 2 (Valve/EAP for Xbox 360, PC)
- Modern Warfare 2 (Infinity Ward/Activision for PS3, Xbox 360, PC)
- Singularity (Raven/Activision for PS3, Xbox 360, PC)

Best Action/Adventure Game
- Bayonetta (Platinum Games/Sega for PS3, Xbox 360)
- Brütal Legend (Double Fine Productions/EAP for PS3, Xbox 360)
- God of War 3 (Sony Santa Monica/SCEA for PS3)
- Splinter Cell Conviction (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft for Xbox 360)
- Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Naughty Dog/SCEA for PS3)

Best Role Playing Game
- Alpha Protocol (Obsidian/Sega for PS3, Xbox 360, PC)
- Dragon Age: Origins (BioWare/EA for PS3, Xbox 360, PC)
- Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (Alphadream/Nintendo for Nintendo DS)
- Mass Effect 2 (BioWare/EA for Xbox 360, PC)
- Star Wars: The Old Republic (BioWare Austin/LucasArts for PC)

Best Racing Game
- Blur (Bizzare Creations/Activision for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC)
- Forza Motorsport 3 (Turn 10/MGS for Xbox 360)
- ModNation Racers (United Front/SCEA for PS3)
- Need for Speed Shift (Slightly Mad/EA Games for PS3, Xbox 360, PC)
- Split/Second (Black Rock/Disney Interactive for PS3, Xbox 360, PC)

Best Fighting Game
- Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (Foundation 9/Capcom for PS3, Xbox 360)
- Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny (Project Soul/Namco-Bandai Games for PSP)
- Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All Stars (Eighting/Capcom for Wii)
- Tekken 6 (Namco Bandai for PS3, Xbox 360)
- The King of Fighters XII (SNK Playmore for PS3, Xbox 360)

Best Sports Game
- Fight Night Round 4 (EA Canada/EA Sports for PS3, Xbox 360)
- Madden NFL 10 (EA Tiburon/EA Sports for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii)
- NHL 10 (EA Canada/EA Sports for PS3, Xbox 360)
- Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 (EA Tiburon/EA Sports for Wii)
- Tony Hawk Ride (Robomodo/Activision for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii)

Best Strategy Game
- League of Legends: Clash of Fates (Riot Games for PC)
- Order of War (Wargaming.net/Square Enix for PC)
- R.U.S.E. (Eugen Systems/Ubisoft for PS3, Xbox 360, PC)
- Supreme Commander 2 (Gas Powered Games/Square Enix for Xbox 360, PC)

Best Social/Casual Game
- DJ Hero (Traveler's Tales/Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
- Guitar Hero 5 (Neversoft/Red Octane/Activision for All Systems)
- Scribblenauts (5TH Cell/WBIE for Nintendo DS)
- The Beatles Rock Band (Harmonix/MTV Games/EAP for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii)
- Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo for Wii)

Best Online Multiplayer Game
- Halo 3 ODST (Bungie/MGS for Xbox 360)
- Left 4 Dead 2 (Valve/EAP for Xbox 360, PC)
- MAG (Zipper Interactive/SCEA for PS3)
- Star Wars: The Old Republic (BioWare Austin/LucasArts for PC)
- Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Naughty Dog/SCEA for PS3)

During the final day of E3 2009 I shared a quick cab ride with 5th Cell game designer Jeremiah Slaczka, and I asked him what was getting buzz on the show floor.

"Scribblenauts," he said.

Of course, he'd say that I chided. That's his game, the one that lets you write any kid-safe concrete noun into the DS and have it appear in virtual form to solve puzzles or just be played with.

Maybe Slaczka was onto something, because Scribblenauts has been chosen as the Best of Show for E3 2009 not only by three of the biggest gaming outlets around — IGN, Gamespot and GameSpy — but it's done so without having to be a console or PC game.

No handheld game has ever taken the E3 crown before from any major outlet, as far as we can tell.

Look below to see the Best of Show winners from IGN, Gamespot, GameSpy, 1up and the E3 Game Critics Awards judges. Not once did these institutions pick a portable game as their Best In Show. They didn't do it for a Pokemon, a portable Zelda, a portable Grand Theft Auto, a WarioWare…. anything. Before E3, I had written that it was almost a sure thing that no portable game would take top honors. I was wrong.

Should portable games have received a Best of E3 nod before? Were their console and PC counterparts just that much better?

Or is Scribblenauts just that exceptional? (Watch God fight a Kraken in Scribblenauts to see what got E3 people so jazzed.)

Scribblenauts is set for release later this year on the Nintendo DS.

As of E3 2009, portable games have finally gotten better… or gotten respect… or both.

IGN Best of E3 Winners
2009: Scribblenauts
2008: Fallout 3
2007: Fallout 3
2006: BioShock
2005: Spore
2004: Halo 2
2003: Half-Life 2
2002: Metroid Prime
2001: Star Wars Galaxies
2000: Metal Gear Solid 2

Gamespot Best of E3 Winners
2009: Scribblenauts
2008: Fable II
2007: Little Big Planet
2006: BioShock
2005: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
2004: Splinter Cell 3

Gamespy Best of E3 Winners
2009: Scribblenauts
2008: Spore
2007: BioShock
2006: BioShock
2005: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
2004: Half-Life 2

1up Best of E3 Winners
2009: Uncharted 2
2008: Little Big Planet
2007: No Winner
2006: Spore
2005: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Game Critics Awards Best of E3 Winners
2009: TBD
2008: Fallout 3
2007: Rock Band
2006: Wii
2005: Spore
2004: PSP
2003: Half-Life 2
2002: Doom 3
2001: GameCube
2000: Black & White
1999: Feelancer

I had tried a chain interview once before. It was March. I still worked for MTV. I traipsed through the Game Developers conference stitching together an interview that began with Boyd Multerer of Microsoft's XNA group, wound its way through Brutal Legend's Tim Schafer, Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime, and ended shortly after Fable's Peter Molyneux answered PixelJunk's Dylan Cuthbert's question about what color underwear he was wearing.

I considered my first chain interview a success (though I regretted that it was an all-male thing). Crecente greenlit a second chain effort for E3.

You'll get to follow the links in this chain all week, starting today with the kick-off. The chain began as Crecente and I wrapped up our 30-minute sit-down interview with Nintendo's star designer Shigeru Miyamoto. As with most people, he laughed when I described the concept.

Because he was starting, Miyamoto didn't get to answer a question. He was only allowed to ask one, for the next person I'd be interviewing, who happened to be on the other side of a wall at Nintendo's E3 meeting area.

Shigeru Miyamoto, lead game designer at Nintendo asks long-time Metroid developer Yoshio Sakamoto: "When does he want me to retire?"

Tomorrow: The answer from Sakamoto along with two more links in the chain…

Here's a quick list of ten big stories you may have missed had you not been paying attention.

Shigeru Miyamoto accidentally confirms "Kind Code" to Kotaku

We learn that Project Milo features a dog, is a bit like the Sims and the virtual child currently has the lifespan of a fruit fly

Sony explains their motion controller and why there wasn't a PS3 price drop at E3

Two Left 4 Dead Survivors that Didn't Make the Cut

Miyamoto talks about the Wii Vitality Sensor and how he's no longer sad

Reggie Fils-Aime talks about Microsoft's motion control and the DSi's lack of virtual console

How Super Mario Galaxy 2 came to be and why it will have 90 percent new levels

Ninja Gaiden's future explained

Why Natal's launch will be as big as the launch of the Xbox 360

How Other M will change the face of Metroid

Here are the staff of Kotaku's picks for the best of 2009's Electronic Entertainment Expo:

Best Console/PC Game

After three years in hiatus, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell returns with a stunning new look and style of play that is sure to reinvigorate a flagging franchise.

Splinter Cell Conviction (PC and Xbox 360) is Ubisoft's fifth installment of the Clancy-inspired secret agent stealth game, streamlined to make sure players never have to leave the game for instruction, objectives or back story.

Instead of wasting gamers' time with mission briefings or cut-scenes, the game projects everything into the world as you play. Mission goals appear as giant text painted across buildings, or splashed across the scenery as Conviction's Sam Fisher passes through it, cut-scenes are delivered in real-time black and white movies projected on the walls of the rooms he is standing in.

Embedding objectives into the scenery of missions isn't the only change Conviction delivers. Other new features including the ability to put Fisher on autopilot and have him take out a room full of "marked" enemies, a more stylized look for the game and interactive "interrogation" scenes.

Runner-up: Star Wars The Old Republic (PC)

Best Portable Game

In Scribblenauts (Nintendo DS) players work to navigate child-like Maxwell through a hand-drawn world on his quest to collect Starites. The side-scrolling puzzle game does have a significant twist. To aid Maxwell on his journey, players can drop items in the world simply by writing the word on the DS screen. Developers boast a substantial dictionary of words that include everything from guillotines to robot zombies, all of which players can interact with.

Runner-Up: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (Nintendo DS)

Best Downloadable Game

In Q-Games' PixelJunk Shooter (Playstation 3) you have to rescue miners trapped underground by piloting a spaceship through the maze of tunnels. Miners aren't the only thing you'll find underground, some areas are also filled with pockets of lava or water. Blasting holes under these pockets allow the liquid to spill out. If the lava mixes with water it forms rock, if it mixes with miners, you have less miners.

Runner-Up: Shadow Complex (PC and Xbox 360)

Best Original Title

Brutal Legend (Playstation 3, Xbox 360) gives players control of epic-roadie Eddie Riggs who has been sent to a fantasy heavy metal world to do battle alongside headbangers and musicians. The game's fiction is all pulled from the sort of art you'd expect to find on bad heavy metal record albums, and its humorous story is backed by a hefty cast of voice actors including Jack Black, Lita Ford, Rob Halford and Lemmy Kilmister.

Runner-Up: Alan Wake (PC, Xbox 360)

Best Sequel

Ubisoft's willingness to reboot their stealth franchise and turn it into something different will go a long way in making Splinter Cell Conviction (PC, Xbox 360) a hit.

Runner-Up: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PlayStation 3)

Best New Hardware

When Microsoft unveiled Project Natal (Xbox 360), their controller-free motion controller, during E3 earlier this month the reaction was almost incredulity. Not that Microsoft would be able to garner any attention with another motion controller, but that a high-definition camera could let you interact with games without the help of anything else. Using just the camera and the 360, Project Natal can let you drive cars, swat balls or even interact with a virtual child.

Runner-Up: PSPgo

Best New Gameplay Mechanic

Scribblenauts' ability to turn your written word into a little cartoon version of the item is astounding, add to that the ability to blend these items so they interact with each other or can be wielded by the hero and you have the best new mechanic to hit a video game since Nintendo perfected the waggle.

Runner-Up: Invizimals' (PSP) monster-catching camera.

Best Weapon

In the weapon-centric world of action video games, swords, guns and tanks are all played out. Enter Bayonetta (Playstation 3, Xbox 360). The eponymous heroine with the Sarah Palin glasses can quad-wield her guns, carrying two pistols in her hands and two more strapped to her ankles, and unwind her black hair, which she wears as a jumpsuit, to turn it into giant fists, high-heeled feet and even a dragon .

Runner-Up: Left 4 Dead 2's frying pan.

Best of 2010

It has been four years since Team Ico released Shadow of the Colossus to critical acclaim. The action adventure game delivered an emotional story and reinvented the way people thought about game design, turning the titular Colossus into living levels that had to be tracked down, climbed and destroyed.

During Playstation's E3 press conference, the team unveiled their latest work: The Last Guardian (Playstation 3). The game appears to revolve around the relationship between a boy and a giant feathered creature. Not much to go on, but fans of Team Ico know the developers will deliver.

Runner-Up: Mass Effect 2 (PC, Xbox 360)

Biggest Game Changer

Sony's $250 PSPgo is more than just another portable, it's the first time a major gaming hardware company has jumped entirely into the realm of digital downloads . Its success could blaze the way for digital only gaming, its failure could set the movement back by years.

Runner-Up: Wii Vitality Sensor (Wii)

Well Played is a weekly opinion column about the big news of the week in the gaming industry and its bigger impact on things to come. Feel free to join in the discussion.

APB, which comes from the creators of Crackdown, has been in development for a few years and has bounced publishers to land at EA for its expected early 2010 PC release. But for all the times it's popped up in the press, the many unusual ways it works still came as a surprise during Kotaku's meeting with the game's creators at E3.

The game is set in virtual urban spaces that support 100 players competitively in each, or 300 people in non-gameplay social spaces. Each world or shard of the MMO will support 10,000 players who are divided into those spaces. Within those shards you can be a man or a woman, a criminal or a cop ("enforcer"), doing good or bad in whichever region you choose.

If you want, you'll be able to play the game as if it was a single-player game, minding your business by stealing cars, cleaning graffiti, and taking other missions that a criminal or cop might do. But that won't last. (See the APB trailer here.)

If you're a criminal and someone witnesses a criminal player's wrongdoing — or if a car alarm goes off in a stolen car, perhaps — an APB (All Points Bulletin) alert is activated. In this game's case, that means that a dynamic matchmake occurs. The game searches the in-game region and finds one or more enforcers who are equal in skill to the criminal or criminals perpetrating their crime. It gives them orders to stop that crime. And because what is being balanced is overall skill, it doesn't mean the number of players will be even on both sides. Three lowly cops might be sent after one skilled criminal. Or, if the criminal is really good, E.J. Moreland, APB's lead designer told Kokau, all 50 enforcer players in the game's region might be sent after them.

Customization options in APB are so deep that the developers have shown spitting images of real people being generated through the editing tools every player will have for customizing their look and clothes. (Last year at Game Developers Conference, the character customization was shown off to impressive effect). Cars can be rigged to sport famous designs. Even the music played from a car can be tuned to pull from the MP3s on your computer. And, if a player drives by playing music you don't have on yours, then APB will tap into Last.fm and generate a similar-sounding song for you to hear instead. Oh, and you can set custom jingles to play when you kill other players' characters.

Moreland explained that APB is being built to be a sandbox of a game, befitting Realtime Worlds founder Dave Jones' past work on the original Grand Theft Autos. It won't be big on developer-made story. "The story is what the players do," he said, "Not what we do."

There was a time when APB was expected to morph into Grand Theft Auto Online, maybe even officially. That's not happening. "I think we're a stronger game for it," Moreland said.

Instead, what gamers will be getting is an MMO that encourages player creativity, a lot of mayhem, and if that APB system works, a city full of cat-and-mouse, cops and robbers scrambling and scrapping across the virtual metropolis.

We weren't given the chance to play the game at E3. A live demonstration showed the character customization. Gameplay was shown in a controlled demo and in a trailer. The game is slated for a first-quarter release in 2010 for PC.

The company that's been riding high on its own Wii and DS successes has recently had some trouble convincing people that marquee games from publishers other than Nintendo can do well on Nintendo's machines.

Sega's hardcore-hyped MadWorld launched on the Wii with 66,000 copies sold in the U.S. in March, according to the NPD group.

Take Two's Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars — the best-reviewed game on the DS — launched that same month with fewer than 90,000 copies sold in the U.S.

"There is no magic number that says x = profitability," Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime told Kotaku during our E3 interview last week, further clarifying earlier comments on the matter.

Two non-Nintendo games he expects to perform well are Sega's The Conduit and EA's Dead Space Extraction, both first-person games with a darker tone that Nintendo's standard. "I am really optimistic about The Conduit," he said. "I think it looks great, plays great. I think Dead Space Extraction is going to be fabulous given the early builds that I've seen. So, I do think that we will continue to see not only great titles, but great sales, on higher-rated M and T type of titles on our platforms."

Fils-Aime addressed the seeming struggles of some of those M-rated games on Wii and DS from earlier this year.

As other Nintendo reps have said before him, Fils-Aime thinks Chinatown Wars may have been counted out too soon by people focusing on its launch numbers. "In the handheld space, with Nintendo platforms specifically — whether it's Game Boy Advance or Nintendo DS — the fact is that first month sales really don't matter," he said. "You have a title like Mario Kart, in its first month, a holiday month that did just over 200,000 copies. New Super Mario Brothers, which launched in the summer, did over 150,000 in its first month. Those are not huge numbers, yet both of those have gone on to sell more than four million units apiece and to be in the top 10 total industry titles for the last two years running. So, first month doesn't matter in the handheld space as long as it's a high-quality game, which Chinatown Wars is, has some continuous level of marketing support — whether its retail marketing, consumer marketing, online — as long as you keep the buzz going it will continue to sell millions and millions. And that's my expectation for Chinatown Wars. As long as the team at Take Two and Rockstar give it a long life, it will do very well."

Reggie said he would have liked to have seen higher sales for MadWorld but doesn't think its launch counts out other M-rated Wii games. "The challenge with home console is that for a 'gamer game' you need to have the buzz and the expectation early and you need to support the title for a number of months to drive the sales. On both of those fronts, I'm not sure MadWorld was able to do that."
It's not an M-rated Wii game, but EA Sports Active just had a blockbuster debut of supposedly more than 600,000 copies sold in its first two weeks, according to EA.

Those are the arguments. Don't count Wii and DS third-party games out for 2009 yet, Nintendo says. There will plenty of high profile games to test that.

The Conduit is out this month. Dead Space Extraction ships in September.

Yoshio Sakamoto, Nintendo's long-time developer of 2D Metroids, and Yousuke Hayashi, head of Tecmo's Team Ninja, wouldn't tell me and Brian Crecente how Metroid Other M controls.

They wouldn't clarify how much of a 2D or 3D game Other M is.

Those fundamentals were kept secret during our E3 interview with the two men leading the collaboration between Nintendo, Ninja Gaiden development studio Team Ninja and a cut-scene production team led by a Team Ninja collaborator named Mr. Kitaura. That group, dubbed Project M, is creating the 2010 Wii exclusive Metroid Other M that closed Nintendo's E3 2009 press conference.

And while we did squeeze out of them that the game wouldn't support MotionPlus or the Wii Balance Board (they knew that was a joke question), Sakamoto and Hayashi were more eager to promote two aspects that Nintendo doesn't often use to sell its games: stylishness and story.

"Our goal is to provide the most interesting gameplay and deliver the most cool Metroid ever," Sakamoto said. It should be noted that Sakamoto has one of the most impressive resumes in the industry, so his desire to top past Metroids is a desire to top his own work. Back in the 80s, he did character design for the original Metroid. He directed or supervised most of the games in that series. He also did game design for Nintendo Entertainment System cult classic Kid Icarus and has produced most of the WarioWare games that followed the first of that series.

A legacy of Metroid development isn't all it takes to make Other M. In 2006, for all of Sakamoto's credentials, he found that his team of 2D-Metroid developers needed help to develop an idea he had for a Wii Metroid game. He wanted to make a game using 3D graphics.

Retro, the Nintendo-owned, Texas-based team responsible for the well-reviewed 3D Metroid Prime games, two of which were out by then, was, curiously, not an option. "Retro has their own approach toward Metroid games," Sakamoto said. "They had their own producer. Their approach to Metroid games has traditionally been the FPA — first person adventure — but my concept was kind of different than that and I was looking for a team that could bring my idea to life."

Enter Team Ninja, which, Hayashi said, "is very fond of Samus as a character. We've all got huge soft spots for her." Hayashi, a Team Ninja veteran whose youthful looks could let him pass for the almost-50 Sakamoto's son, most recently directed the well-regarded Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword on the Nintendo DS.

Interviews about Mario and Zelda games with Nintendo developers typically focus on gameply, but story and character were what Sakamoto wanted to emphasize, noting how the game fits into the timeline between the Super Nintendo's Super Metroid and the Game Boy Advance's Metroid Fusion: "With Fusion, that game was very story-driven. In that game, I believe I was able to explain Samus as a character, as a person, not just somebody in armor. And I was not only explain Samus but the characters around her… with Super Metroid I showed, through her relationship with the baby Metroid, some of her maternal instincts. Between those two stories I feel I was able to explain Samus as a person. But because Metroid equals Samus, I'd like to develop her character further, as a soldier, as a human, also as a woman. That's what they're hoping to do with Other M."

The two developers described the new project as one targeted right at Metroid fans. When I asked if there would be anything in the game for the Wii's expanded audience — say, for my mom — Hayashi said: "When Mr. Sakamoto approached me and my team with the game concept, it was definitely something I and my team felt would be a new challenge for them. Our take on this whole thing is we see the possibility to explore new territory within the Wii system. So we're hoping to create something that will appeal not just to fans of the series but to new users as well." Still, that lack of Balance Board support makes it clear that this Metroid game is unlikely to be going the casual-game route.

"Our goal in developing Other M," said Sakamoto, "Is to deliver the kind of Metroid that all fans want to play."

Morph ball and ice beam? Of course.

New abilities? Yes.

Progressions of the character's powers? That's the goal. Said Hayashi: "Metroid has definitely been one of those games where as the player progresses through the story you can really feel yourself powering up. You can really feel Samus evolving in terms of her abilities. I'd like to maintain that essence of the Metroid series. In addition, just the feel of the game, by being in there, the emotional experience for the player is something I feel responsible to maintain true to."

It's clear, though, that there will be a twist. The Project M team, Sakamoto said: "Will create a new Metroid unlike anything ever experienced before."

And when they're done, he wants them to work together again.

Metroid Other M is slated for release next year. Later this summer, Nintendo will release a Wii compilation of Retro's Metroid work, entitled Metroid Prime Trilogy.

It almost didn't.

Randy Pitchford, president of Gearbox, said that a couple of artists got together and started complaining about the look of the game. They felt, he said, that all games were really starting to look a lot alike.

"They were looking at pictures of concept cars and started asking why they never get to drive them in game," he said. "So four of them got together and prototyped this new look out. Then they roped more people in to help them."

"It was like a subversive coup going on."

When the artists came to Pitchford to tell them about his idea he told them that there was a "million percent chance" he was going to have to shut them down.

"They went ahead and worked on it and set up a presentation in a conference room," he said. "When I saw it moving, saw what it looked like, I was like holy crap.

"It looked like Borderlands but it's in a style I'd never seen before."

The new style has characters with strong ink outlines, like what you've find in cel-shaded art, but the characters themselves look hand painted. The team also clamped the shadows down on the characters and did some "interesting" lighting to keep the semi-realistic feel of the game, Pitchford said.

"I couldn't believe it," he said. "I was stunned."

So Pitchford grabbed up the presentation, hopped on a plane and flew to 2K in October to show them the new look.

"I was terrified to show them," he said.

He started by showing it to Greg Gobbi, one of the people who showed strong support for Bioshock in its early days, and Gobbi loved it.

"I was like, thank god," Pitchford said. "We kept having meetings and the meetings got bigger and bigger, until we had this giant meeting and they loved it."

So far, Pitchford said, the reception has been pretty positive, but E3 was a big test for the game and its new look.

"The team is terrified," he said during an interview early in the show. "I'm scared shitless."

"We are seeing a lot of positive feedback, but I'm still afraid for when we launch the game. Sometimes we are rewarded when we take risks, sometimes..."

Since the original Xbox launched in 2001, Microsoft has worked hard to deflate suspicions that the company wasn't serious about video games.

Microsoft, skeptics assumed, was going to push gaming only as long as necessary to get Xboxes installed under every home TV. And then? The theory was that Microsoft would focus on the alchemy of dominating the set-top box market, with gaming as something less than the primary focus.

Much of that suspicion has been eliminated thanks to the Xbox 360's dominance with the hardcore gaming market and the platform's string of leading games. Microsoft has recently earned the reputation, in fact, of producing the premiere gamer's game machine of this console generation.

But non-gaming aspects of the Xbox 360 are on the rise. Netflix has become a big story for the Xbox 360 since it was integrated into the platform last fall. And this E3 saw announcements of Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm integration into the machine. Microsoft is selling movies and TV shows on the 360 and is in the midst of beta-testing a game show that would network thousands of homes. In the U.K. it will push the 360 as a new portal through which to watch major soccer matches and other Sky TV programming. Even Project Natal, which has been characterized as a next-level game controller was also shown at E3 as a next-level TV remote.

With all that in mind last week, we asked Shane Kim, Microsoft's corporate vice president of interactive entertainment strategy whether the "video game console" term was going to soon become invalid for the Xbox 360.

"The Center Of Home Entertainment," Kim responded, suggesting a more encompassing term. "It happens to be a great video game console. That's not going away."

Kim said the best sign of gaming's continued importance to the Xbox 360 was its lead position during Microsoft's E3 2009 briefing. The show started with games. "We want to make people understand that we're not leaving the gaming space. I definitely think that we can expand off that base, and that gaming is still going to be an important part of entertainment."

Two years ago, while speaking of Microsoft's entry into the console business, Bill Gates told Kotaku that "we wouldn't have done it if it was just a gaming device." He added: ""We wouldn't have gone into the category at all. It was strategically getting into the living room. This is not some big secret, Sony says the same things."

There was a time when comments about the Xbox's expansion beyond gaming would have panicked gamers. But it's worth re-assessing that fear. As Microsoft branches out from supporting a gaming-only home console, those who suggested that would be a bad thing don't seem to be speaking as loudly as before.