Dead Island is a gruesome feast of zombie blood, terror, and the lovely soundscapes of the ocean concocted in a horrifically brutal mix of excitement, intensity, and guts. The earlier CG cinematic of Dead Island has an uncanny resemblance to the opening sequence of Dawn of the Dead, and Deep Silver revealed this CG opening as just a teaser to their game in which they wanted to show a preemptive dedication to the zombie-tropical apocalypse title. Many fans have been aching for Left 4 Dead, a similar zombie title by Valve Software, to provide a storyline that is cohesive and connected, which never came to complete sense.  Dead Island does have problems in terms of mission pacing and gameplay mechanic variety that easily become linearly stale at times, but there is also action, dialogue, leveling and music  that stand out from any other zombie game ever created to this point. All of this tropical survival instinct within the island of Banoi is something to take a sight of in this tropical-zombie apocalypse.

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Deus Ex: Human Revolution tells us we can all dream to fly, to be ultimately powerful in a powerless world where chaos and the foundations of revolution are taking place on the very streets, while we display newfound and reinvented human abilities through the gift of DNA augmentation. While the mitochondria or evolution itself might not consider DNA augmentation to be a relatively successful possibility of variance, Deus Ex: Human Revolution prevails in doing just that: it shows how powerful the game truly is in storyline, mood, and moreover raw science fiction purity.

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Bastion unclothes an Action RPG title for the Xbox Live Arcade which shows that the Microsoft arcade offerings are truly unique and unforgettable in offering uniquely creative content. Now announced exclusively on Steam as well, Bastion makes its debut to PC users. Supergiant Games’ Bastion is one of these examples of a title that does this for the Xbox Live Arcade to some degree minus a few blemished gameplay elements, but one that still provides a level of a journey with a reactive narrator that is hard to forget.  A lot of gamers take arcade titles for granted, and yet Bastion stands as an example where there are beautiful artwork pieces and audio directional cues which create a lively hand-painted journey. From this, places and levels of hand-paint art style décor with suppositious wonder come forth from Bastion.

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Tritton has created one of the best console headphones in terms of style, elegance, and moreover sound horsepower. We put these headphones to the true test, along with our friends from Integra, maker of the most famous audio video receiver lines currently out on the market. The Tritton AX Pro makes use of hardcore enthusiast and gaming markets to truly create a demand that they could deliver on with this line of product not just in dependability, but pure power in terms of sound, amperage, resistance of speakers, and sheer volume.

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F.E.A.R. 3 is a title that has its roots in one of the best horror introduction PC games of all time. The graphics might be antiquated, but Alma comes with her own set of bloody surprises in a new light along with her two sons.There are frights along with realistic sounds, all of which are weakened through horrid A.I. and the aeonian repetitive mission structure supplemented with mediocre level designs to contribute to one of the most disappointing F.E.A.R. experiences in the F.E.A.R. franchise along with the failure of F.E.A.R. 2. The dark nature of F.E.A.R. 3 is not in the small thrills it has to offer, but in the level of how blasé the game becomes after the 4^th interval and how it can bring about Alma’s mediocre wrath on a person.

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Alice: Madness Returns attempts to cart the wildly popular insatiable thirst of darkness, fantasy, and a level of morose violence to the screens for gamers worldwide through a Victorian melodramatic narrative along with visuals that are simply stunning. Alice: Madness Returns  manages to bring about a level of soporific fantasy through a narrative, though while somewhat entertaining, creates a title which lacks in other respects in terms of any meaningful gameplay or cohesive asides from cutscene to cutscene and  mission to mission. As the descent into Wonderland brings about a level of contrasted madness from the confines of Alice’s mind, it also brings about an apparent madness in the form of the entire product that Alice: Madness Returns creates, painstakingly missing its mark to honor the genius of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

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The Electronic Entertainment Expo 2011 was an event full of exclusive titles not ready to be out for a good 6 months, to titles ranging into 2012 and beyond. WhatIfGaming was able to see every single title on the show floor and behind closed doors, while getting some of the best industry exclusive interviews and most-demanded questions from our readers directly. Mass Effect 3, Elder Scrolls V: Skryim, Hitman 5: Absolution, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Star Wars: The Old Republic and a myriad of amazing titles along with some of the best people and industry professionals with an indelible positive attitude made E3 2011 unforgettable. WhatIfGaming was graced with an extraordinary number of VIP Badges, Behind Closed-Doors previews, along with the various exclusive event invitationals reaching an all time high. Along the way, we even helped our fellow masses standing in line to come along with us as part of an E3 on-site exclusive access contest previews (where we took some lucky winners from the enormous 3 hour waiting lines into the events with us). It is with a level of dispiritedness that the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2011 is now over. It is time to look forward, ahead to newer and better releases, and to sanctify titles in this year’s WhatIfGaming’s Best Of E3 Awards 2011.

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 275 (2011) selected individuals to invite them to submit nominations 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 on request approximately 2 years after each respective award year.

WhatIfGaming: Ted, it is such a pleasure seeing you again here at E3 2011. Insomniac Games and Naughty Dog are truly stealing the show here this year.

Ted Price,  President & CEO Insomniac Games: Oh yea, it is definitely great to be here and show off what Insomniac Games can do and continues to do.

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WhatIfGaming: Ken, I just want to thank you for this interview again, it has been a long while since we met back during the reveal for BioShock: Infinite.

Ken Levine: Oh yea, yea. It is always fun to meet up with someone I was getting along with so well.

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Duke Nukem has finally returned from the graces of the mid-1990s timeline giving the overly caustic delayed development a final close and a newer product on gaming shelves today. Unfortunately, the long-awaited return of an icon has sadly faltered with no bounds to save it from the graces of over-hyped testosterone, one-line movie quote wonders, beautiful references to girls, and what Duke Nukem does best: decimating alien life forms. While Duke Nukem Forever provides a level of mediocre gameplay and semi-decent design in terms of the pacing between the shooting and the transitional sequences of the game itself, it all transforms to one of the biggest tragedy examples of a video game after a point in time due to the repetitive structure of the consequential differences between what truly makes an icon himself, and what makes a former-icon feel antediluvian in machismo and persona until his very death on the screen.

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WhatIfGaming: So to clear up any misconceptions, this title is NOT Fable 4?

Peter Molyneux, Head of Lionhead Studios: Oh heavens, no. We have a lot more planned for Fable 4…should it come to that point, but at the moment, we want players to see Albion the way they have not seen it before: from that first person perspective that is constant and ever-loving.

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