Another year and another awards season. E3 was packed with exciting memories you have all seen (some still to be posted), and rooms filled with the hottest and most anticipated titles to date. 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 2008.

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, freelance journalists among others. After our deadline passes, the nominations are chosen by permanent committee of 5 selected individuals 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.

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Ex–lusive… Get it ? Elusive Silent Hill…Ex-lusive… nevermind. Just watch the interview and keep here. We have a ton of great stuff coming up!

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Final Fantasy XIII is finally coming to the Xbox 360 in North America and Europe that had all of us buzzing the moment it was announced. Now the problem with this is that there grew some concerns as to why a seemingly PlayStation 3 exclusive went multiplatform with the announcement of Star Ocean IV also a 360 exclusive. At least for the time being anyways. We heard a lot of buzz everywhere and from all the analysts and top notch guys at the conference and most were convinced something bigger is occurring between Square Enix and Sony. Something very seven-ish. To elucidate, Final Fantasy VII-ish for the PlayStation 3 only. After our preview of Heavy Rain for the PS3 behind closed doors, we caught up with Shinji Hashimoto for an interview of all things Final Fantasy XIII and any fallaciousness behind exclusivity in general and that of Square Enix titles.

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We had a chance to catch up with a very cool industry analyst Michael Pachter who wanted to reveal what he thought about the Microsoft vs Sony conference debacle.

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LittleBigPlanet is ridiculous. It’s ridiculously entertaining. You will laugh at it. This laugh, however, is a great laugh that that comes from the additively fun anti-drug administered by Media Molecule, the talent behind Rag Doll Kung Fu. LittleBigPlanet jumps in sackboys to start off that you can begin to customize and make yourself a part of the game in any way. There are obstacles to overcome, challenges to face, and barriers to cross all of which requires a combination of the motion wheel of team work and competition . As players advance in the game, their creative skills will grow and so will their loyalty to such an amazing title. LittleBigPlanet isn’t as little as the title will have you believe and therein itself is the true reality that this video game is something bigger than this planet alone. Something we really can’t understand fully.

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That’s right. This September, most likely near the 1st week, LittleBigPlanet will definitely have the beta launch ready for fans eagerly awaiting the wondrous dreaming spectacle of the infinitely large world that makes it up.

Alex Evans, Co-Founder, Media Molecule: We’re ready for it, and this game just has to get out October. Mark (Healey) is having a boy soon and this bad boy has to be done before then.

WhatIfGaming: So, no delay…nothing? Solid for October 2008 on Blu-ray disc only?

AE: Yes. There will be no delay and it will be ready then.

WhatIfGaming: So, the beta will take place September?

AE: You got it. Absolutely.

WhatIfGaming: So, is it for underground members only or will there be a site for selection or something?

AE: It will be a public beta, but limited at the same time. We will disclose that info when we’re ready.

We would like to thank Alex Evans for taking the time to speak with us about LittleBigPlanet.

As you all can tell from our preview, the Resident Evil 5 controls we played with at an invite-only Capcom session were as horrific as the zombies themselves. Why? You see, when deadly and rotting zombies are chasing you it should be a flight and fight mechanism to run the hell away. What does Chris Redfield do in our previews? He stands there holding his gun and shooting. No. Our chiseled man cannot run while shooting. He’s bad at multitasking. To find out more, we interviewed Capcom PR recently on the controls.

WhatIfGaming: A lot of people have been asking if the controls will suck just like Resident Evil 4. We know we know, we said suck. We mean to say they just aren’t practical at the moment. Will they change?

Jason Allen, Capcom PR: Haha, it’s okay. But um, yeah. The controls seen here are definitely pending and will eventually change. This is in no way finalized. It will definitely be different and listen to what people are saying.

WhatIfGaming: Okay, great. But does that mean that Chris will be able to finally comprehend the meaning of multitasking and be able to run and shoot at all?

JA: The controls will definitely changed, and these are not finalized. As for the answer to that directly, I can’t confirm that at this time but will say most likely.

WhatIfGaming: Hopefully soon (laughs). As for PC gamers, will Resident Evil 5 be headed to PC?

JA: As for the PC, that is not in development and there are no plans for this.

There you have it. Bad Resident Evil 4 controls are no longer a plague to us all. Keep here for more E3 stuff to come.

Here’s some footage we recorded for you guys. We don’t believe in generic stand and capture every time. We like to capture moments. This is one out of many to come. Flash Version Now Available For All Upcoming Videos Due To Popular Request

It looks good, just like the game.

Stay here for our Fallout 3 Preview soon.

Microsoft’s Don Mattrick doesn’t consider the limited availability of Final Fantasy XIII for the 360 in North America and Europe a problem. Instead, it’s anything but a problem and Sony can just get over it.

Commenting to WhatIfGaming on the issue:

“The Xbox 360 products have reached a massive amount of sales worldwide. We’re proud to have the best library of games available to our console and are happy with just that. As for Final Fantasy XIII not for Japan on the Xbox 360: Big deal. This is not a problem or issue. Microsoft will continue to achieve success everywhere with its vast library of titles and is working hard to make it better.”

Sadly 360 owners in Japan, FFXIII isn’t coming out in your country and isn’t really much of an issue or being considered one anyways. At least there’s always Fable II and that awesome dog.

We went over a walkthrough with the guys from Insomniac Games for Resistance 2. A lot of information was revealed. Check out what we think.

1. Interesting gameplay concept with the Leviathan and increased gameplay is part of

Resistance 2.

a. Textures look phenomenal

b. Draw distance is great

c. Monster eats Ted Price’s main protagonist. Price continues to explain his frustration with the level and messing up as a result of not being a good “presenter and player” at the same time.

2. Shows the beginning of Chicago

a. Loading screen is standard.

b. Demonstrates tech. (shows a vast scape of Chicago)

c. First impression is refractive and reflective water.

d. Swimming alien, looks great and only 1.0 water render engine says Price.

i. Music is traditional to the first one from our note. Any change? According to Price, it has changed a bit in nuances.

ii. Ted Price: “We’ve upped the gore considerably.” Larger destructive weapons. One weapon actually shoots bullets into the enemies and with the L2 trigger, you can blow the bullets up while inside their bodies. Talk about gruesome.

iii. Grim Horde are performer inhabitants of Chicago. They are seen as a core example of the Motion Capture from San Diego capture headquarters for Insomniac Games.

e. The lighting refractals looks great with particles and what not in the exclusive scenery shown.

f. Weapons just laying on floor (kind of dated), but makes sense for the storyline.

g. Great weapon with bullets and grenades.

3. Body reflective movement is with believable chunks. A lot more enemies, chunks, gore, etc.

4. Not too happy about the closed “barrier” chunks.

5. Levels are big, but they are linear.

6. It’s at this point that Ted Price decides to talk about scale. Admittedly, after seeing the first Chicago level we were certain the scale was of minimal quality. Apparently not when the exclusive walkthrough of the San Francisco Bay demo area was shown. There are vast ships that players will be able to board without any load screens. Talk about massive.

a. You will be boarding the ships on the flight and it will be seamless

b. So it’s more geared towards a retroactive approach to answer missing questions in the 1st one. Should be great for those wishing to delve into the story of Nathan Hale.

7. In addition to more intuitive weapons, the rise to fight a more challenging A.I. is demanding. The enhanced A.I is strategic, and wastes no time in demolishing Nathan Hale from rooftops, clinging to the side of buildings and attacking, or a combination of both. This is not the place you want to be when you’re in San Francisco.

8. Smarter strategies, weapons, etc.

9. Integrating community with production

a. “We wanted to create something completely different and create a site that takes social networking to video games,” exclaims Price proudle. This is probably a fully functional profile for Resistance 2 Players. Let’s find out:

Chronicles will be a part of MyResistance and will detail the following:

Latest news for the resistance universe. News FEED for maybe Podcasts? Videos? Or News? Divided umong game related information about Friends, what they’re doing, what trophies they earned most likely

Community development

· Combat badges will increase the interactivity between gameplay and the participation with community.

· Different icons that suggest different items

· More to come about how it relates. It’s obvious.

The entire left side is covered of this Resistance 2 like Myspace-ish community.

About

Activity

Friends

Accomplishments

Resistance Updates

Progression through game

Conversations

It’s basically like MySpace and MyGoogle. More so of MyGoogle according to Insomniac.

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Resistance 2 has a lot of scope and is looking fantastic for a game that has been in development for such a short time. Increased A.I., amazing textures, and stunning graphics with a thoughtful storyline are making this one shooter we’re all hungry to get.