Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is remarkable. Remarkably unentertaining and hideous, that is. It manages to shatter that border that distinguishes a bad game from a good one, and puts itself into its own dreary category of the Worst “Game” of 2009 by far and for a long while. The story is incoherent, the dialogue is as dull as the previous title, and the gameplay makes Atari Console games seem next-generation.

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Talk about intense. E3 was packed this year with resellers, and less media —but it got bigger, better, and more selective. We were there to get every exciting moment: from Project Milo to Heavy Rain, and exclusive interviews. As always, it was certainly a great time, and now that time is over. It’s time to look forward, ahead to newer and better releases, and to ennoble titles in this year’s WhatIfGaming’s Best Of E3 Awards 2009.

Criteria: The Best of E3 Awards, a subcategory for the WhatIfGaming Prizes, are given solely to those video games that demonstrate a pure excellence in the field for which they are not only nominated but also chosen. These awards only apply to playable games at E3 given a few exceptional categories.

Nomination & Selection Process: Compared with other site awards, the WhatIfGaming Prize nomination and selection process is long and extremely rigorous. This is the sole reason why WhatIfGaming Prizes have grown in importance over the years to become the most important prizes in their field. Forms, which amount to a personal and exclusive invitation, are sent to about over 1,000 selected individuals to invite them to submit nominations months in advance from the latest builds per video game. Self-nominations are disqualified. For WhatIfGaming Prizes, inquiries are sent to such people as developers, industry experts, analysts, among others. After our deadline passes, the nominations are chosen by permanent committee of 5 selected individuals from staff and only the final stage of nominees remain per category. From all of these, a winner is chosen.

The names of the nominees are not publicly announced, and neither are they told that they have been considered for the WhatIfGaming Prize. Some are announced publicly by practice. Nomination records are revealed approximately 2 years after each respective award year.

Overlord II places players into the skull encrusted, blood stained boots of a ‘Lord’ with glowing eyes and a huge axe and allows you to command minions to do your deeds. Be evil, or be dark (the light form of good) – it is up to you. The interesting thing about the Overlord series is undeniably the diminutive minions that take the primary picture. They are ultimately the ones that run the course of the gameplay, with humor and intrigue that is simply incredible. With the similar and perfect formula from the old game and amazing visuals and upgraded features, Overlord II is one game that anyone needs to take a commanding destruction towards.

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Turn your mouse clickers and scroll wheel timers to WhatIfGaming this upcoming Saturday July 1st, 2009 for an exclusive presentation of our 9th year anniversary of the WhatIfGaming E3 Awards for 2009, with official public listing that celebrated from late 2001.

The WhatIfGaming E3 Prizes had their origins ever since the end of 1999’s E3 ceremony when we revealed to select publishers what our site cherished for their offerings during exclusive press meetings through an official sticker prize from yours truly. Very few gained them, and some were only notified. Over the years, the awards became public but remained even more strenuous in criteria, with no nominees ever being publicly listed until  a future predetermined date. 5 members of our staff in a permanent committee select the winners from a long line of industry related inquiries taken and personal consideration.

Also, feel free to log on Friday June 26th, 2009 for an Overlord II review (with over 46 hours played and timed only from us) and also an exclusive post-release interview with the creative minds behind Overlord II and their future plans!

Any game that allows the player to rip humans in half and cut them limb from limb is instantly deemed fun and Prototype is no different. The comparisons to other games of a similar nature are hard to ignore but Prototype does enough to separate it from the pack to avoid the tag of copycat.

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When there is something strange in your neighborhood, who are you going to call..? A copy of Atari’s incredible Ghostbusters title. After literally dozens of cancellation threats on the project, the long-awaited Ghostbusters game is back – and one that I have personally hoped would come out ever since I watched the original back in the day. The iconic quartet return an excruciating 20 years after their last ghost-busting outing, bringing with them the original humour and feel of the Ghostbusters which is perfectly realized perfectly in game form. The original cast (Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson and of course the always witty Bill Murray) return to give the game the authentic feel to make it feel like a sequel to the films and it does nothing short of a simply fantastic job at making players literally feel as if they are a part of it.

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Mass Effect Commander Shepard is back again in Mass Effect 2. All the rumors of his death have been greatly exaggerated. First off, BioWare intends to make Mass Effect 2 accessible to those new to the series. If you played the original and had the save games left over, you can continue the character from where you left off. All the choices you made, everything still had an effect. This fact alone had our staff simply drooling: the prospect of the sequel directly linking itself to the first half was simply incredible. Gameplay choices and moral standing will carry over into Mass Effect 2, giving a full and continuous experience.

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Alan Wake has been at the epicenter of attention at Remedy Games and Microsoft Games Studios ever since it was announced. Heralded as another notable DirectX 10 game, Alan Wake describes the story of a critically acclaimed author Alan Wake and his tense and dark world that contributes to the atmosphere of this survival horror genre. While the game is primarily about mystery and looking for clues, the overall facilitation lies with exploration and horror. We were given yet another exclusive look at Microsoft’s Meeting Room this year at E3 2009 for a one on one look at Alan Wake after the Microsoft Conference E3 Stage Demo, the primary reason we held off writing impressions. We wanted to bring everyone the real thing, and here it is.

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Sam Fisher is simply not the same in Splinter Cell: Conviction. With a brand new look, amazing hair, and a different attitude, he is simply good looking and an unbelievably anticipated force in the Xbox 360 and PC lineup for 2009. Along with the better structure, Sam Fisher goes rogue and walks away from having an operator in his ear all the time for the forces. His mission: vengeance. His cause: to kill the drunk driver that killed Sarah Fisher in Double Agent. After evading the authorities in Double Agent, Sam is officially undercover two years later. The focus shifts to the theme of daylight and high contrast colors with a brown tone luminance. With his hunt for personal revenge, Sam’s quest will take him across the globe from Malta and then, eventually, Washington in an epic controversy that is not just a simple hit and run after all. As a fugitive on a vendetta, Sam is without his usual Swiss Army Knife or his other gadgets and most notably his suit. Instead, he presents a fashion worthy of ‘Top Sexy Men 2009′ with an Alfani coat, a Versache backpack, and rough collar blazer by Marc &Ecko. This time around, weapons will be gained from downed enemies.

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As if the 2nd day of E3 could not get any hotter with presentations from Microsoft detailing their new line up, they went further on to explain the benefits of a new form of technology in the ‘invisible’ control scheme of Natal and projects such as Milo from Lionhead Studios.

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If anyone did not figure it out yet, our little timer above was for E3 this year (June 1st-3rd, 2009) at the Los Angeles Convention Center. E3 was centered around 3 places: West Hall, South Hall, and 2nd Structure above West Hall. The 2nd structure held private rooms with publishers like Sony, Bethesda Activsion, Take-Two, all showing special private stuff like God of War III, Uncharted 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and once again a look at Heavy Rain for Sony this year (with a heft agreement to not reveal anything). WhatIfGaming was there to cover all things related.

Most importantly are the bigger open venues that are at West Hall and South Hall (walk-in). Final Fantasy XIII was there but was not playable, same with Alan Wake.

Bethesda presented Fallout: New Vegas. As you guessed it, Fallout: New Vegas introduces our protagonist to a post-apocalyptic world set in New Vegas. Other details we cannot reveal, so sorry for that –but expect it as announced on all the consoles by developer Obsidian Entertainment.

SOE had an intense presentation of the Agency that went over more missions. The gameplay remains the same but the user interface was even more interesting. The developers announced that SOE’s plans were to release Agency in 2010. Here is to hoping!

Sony had God of War III gameplay, but it was not playable yet again for today anyways. Impression-wise for the short time we saw it – it looked fantastic. Long run: it does not seem amazing yet, but something tells us this will change.

Overall, we have seen almost a majority of publishers and can say that while E3 2009 is definitely bigger, utilizing South Hall and the entire West Hall lobbies (1st and 2nd level), there is not many big reveals from the publisher meeting rooms to this moment. Despite this, there is still more to be seen surely. With that, the WhatIfGaming E3 2009 team is off to see more. Thomas Parker, Jeanne Marie (France Correspondent), and James Willington are out of here!