Here's my summary of E3 so far: blah de blah Far Cry 3! de blah Hitman 5! blah SKYRIM. There's a full stop after Skyrim because that's when I started humming the theme tune too loudly to hear anything else.

Bethesda showed 7 minutes of in-game stuff while Spike TV asked some rather TV questions of exec Todd Howard. It showed the game in a much more candid way than they have before, including a lot of systems they've previously only talked about, so I want to go through and pick apart how it's all looking. I'll embed the video below for anyone who hasn't watched it yet, then my analysis.


 


1. Scenery
 
Breaking: Skyrim still looks lovely. Up close the scenery looks pretty angular - I wouldn't call it a generational leap on from Oblivion - but the vistas are fantastic. I think a mountainous setting was a really good way to make the game's views exciting. Todd says you can go to the top of that mountain, which is not news, but in Skyrim I want to. Look at it, it's huge!

Also huge: that compass at the top of the screen. I don't know if everyone realised how useful the compass was in Oblivion - not just for quests, but to highlight interesting places you happened to stroll near. It was an exploration tool. You can see they've kept that feature on this one, and made it harder to miss.



2. Third person
 
They said the third person view was a step up from Oblivion's rather stiff one, and now we see it. The new animation system is a generational jump - every muscle shifts with his step. Our player also takes a few sword-swishes in third person - they actually look more natural than they do in first person.

Todd emphasises you can be male or female - he doesn't mention that you can also be a lizardman or a cat, in case the skittish TV audience becomes confused and frightened.



3. Dual wielding
 
I love that the way they show off Skyrim's mix-and-match weapon and magic system is by having the player dual wield a healing spell. Come at me, bandit! Am I gonna heal myself with this hand? Or this hand? Pzeww!

What's interesting is that when you do equip something like a fire spell in each hand, it's up to you whether to shoot them off one at a time for more rapid attacks, or do both at once to initiate this special charged-up version. They still haven't decided what happens if you have different spells in each hand and activate them both at once - I'm still holding out hope for a ridiculously intricate combinatorial spell system.



4. Snow
 
Whoa. The fact that Skyrim has some snowy bits has, I think, been covered - but this is a proper blizzard. It has that fierce, wild feel that game weather rarely does: you can hardly see.



5. Archery
 
In the blizzard we find a dungeon, in the dungeon we find bandits, and in the bandits we put arrows. Another thing they've talked about without showing publicly: lethal archery. Both shots fired here strike the torso, not the head, and both kill in one hit. These aren't special arrows, either - a counter in the bottom right says "62 Iron Arrows" remaining.

I'll be really, really interested to see if they keep this up throughout the game: the ability to take enemies out with sudden strikes from the shadows. Oblivion's combat got a lot less fun at high levels, because everything had so much health - I hope they stick to the concept they're showing here throughout Skyrim. Later we see the player character is level 34 at this point, so that's very promising.

Notice the second bandit doesn't magically spot the player as soon as it friend dies - in fact, he rather dopily just stands there, alerted but not hunting for an attacker. That might need some tweaking.



6. Combat
 
Now comes the fighting. Hmm. Magic is definitely sparkier and more responsive than in Oblivion, making it feel like a proper attack. But the proper attacks - with swords and shields - still have that slightly unconvincing feel they had in Oblivion. At one point the player slashes his sizeable sword right across this bandit's exposed neck, a perfect strike, and there's no reaction. He just brings up his shield.

I don't want to kill everyone in one hit, obviously, but there's something wrong when hitting a guy's shield staggers him, and cutting his throat has no apparent effect. Oblivion's combat needed to be more reactive, and what's shown here is only a marginal improvement, to me.

Finishing moves look satisfying, but I'd like them to happen because I outmanoeuvred my opponent, rather than steadily wittled an abstract hitpoint counter down.

At one point we see the player's 'One Handed' skill increase - it's true, all one handed weapons are governed by the same skill now. But there are still weapon-specific talents you can get by choice, in the form of perks.



7. Magic
 
That sparkier magic is on proud display in the next fight, in many shapes and sizes.

Fire: flame-thrower hands! Skyrim doesn't limit you to fireballs.
Dragon shout: wow. I don't know the name for this one, but it's probably dragontongue for GTFO. It sends your enemies flying. This is what high-level magic should be like.
Turn undead: the player casts an area-of-effect spell that makes all the nearby undead turn and run, so I'm going to guess that's Turn Undead - an Elder Scrolls mainstay.
Lightning: oh man, zapping zombies as they run from you looks like amazing fun. I love that when it kills them, they're sent spasming across the room.



8. Mammoths
 
Mammoths! These lumbering things have a lovely feel to them in-game: they're trudging along in their own little posse with two giants, clearly heading somewhere in no hurry, and with no ill will toward you. It has a sense I sometimes miss in fantasy games, of being amongst strange and powerful creatures in a context other than combat. Just observing this world.

So naturally the asshole playing this demo has to whack one with his bladed mace. It's interesting that the giants are friendly at first: there's even a prompt to talk to them as the player first walks by. And it's also interesting that they attack when the mammoth is harmed - they're obviously good pals.



9. Giant theft
 
Then a dragon... did that dragon just steal the giant we were fighting? Come back with that! We weren't done!

Todd says they don't script the dragons. I have a hard time believing they never script the dragons, since the whole freaking plot's about dragons, but I guess he means this type of dragon attack. That's awesome, I hope they pick their victims pretty much at random.

I remember an assassination quest in Oblivion that I mysteriously completed without even finding the victim. When I eventually got to the quest marker to take something from his body, I found a dead horse, a trail of blood, the corpse, and a very angry bear.

If the equivalent experience in Skyrim ends with a well-fed looking dragon, that's going to be fun.



10. The dragon
 
I wasn't really looking forward to meeting these guys, because I almost never like boss fights, and dragons are the most traditional fantasy bosses ever. But I have to say, if this really is all unscripted, that's a hell of a boss fight.

The lizards themselves look amazing - fluidly animated, flexible, and clearly very free to stomp around and fly. When they walk on their wings, there's something genuinely frightening about it.

I can still see it being a little awkward to just keep waving a sword at them, if you've chosen a melee character, and slaying something that big by attrition feels a bit arbitrary. But at least they've created these traditional creatures in a very non-traditional way.



11. The other, bigger dragon
 
Actually I don't want to talk about the other, bigger dragon so much as how the player takes it out: a dragon shout that changes the weather to create a thunderstorm. Weather-changing spells were something modders added to Oblivion, it's nice to see Bethesda catching up. This one seems to focus the storm on the area it was cast: when the player's down on the ground later, the dragon flies over the tower where he originally cast it and is struck again.

Again, the dragon shouts look like the spectacular stuff that high-level magic should be, but rarely is.

Once the dragon's down, the player's melee attack triggers a finishing move in third person. Those are unique to your weapon type, so it's going to be fun to see how a dagger, for instance, works for dragonslaying.

The demo ends, and a presenter reads out a question from Twitter about whether the 'fractions' will return. No, your health is now measured in whole numbers only.

We have a much clearer picture of the game now, and I'm still ridiculously excited and humming the theme-tune near constantly. But I am starting to realise this is more of a continuation of Oblivion - with lots of welcome tweaks - rather than a dramatically different game. The combat sequences here made it seem like the game will feel pretty similar, just slightly more violent.

So long as combat is still fairly quick at high levels, I'm happy with that. Oblivion with most of its niggles fixed, in a frosty new land, is a phenomenal prospect.

More Skyrim details have broken in the latest issue of Official Playstation Magazine, with more information on the game's dragons, dragon shouts, dialogue and travel options. Also revealed: horses, revamped city guard and more. Read on for the full scoop.

We already know that Skyrim will have UNLIMITED DRAGONS, and that their attacks will happen dynamically as you explore the world. OPM also reveal that wounded dragons will be unable to fly, meaning you can trap a dragon in a ground fight if you think you stand a chance of winning the fight.

Killing dragons in Skyrim earns your character dragon shouts, special abilities that make use of the language of the dragons to deal damage to your enemies. Newly confirmed dragon shouts include "Yol Toor"- Fire breath, "Iiz Slen" - Ice crystals, "Strun Bah Qo" - Lightning Storm and couple more that can slow down time and let you move speedily in one direction.

There's also been a much needed change to the guard system. The very moment you misbehaved in Oblivion, the guards would turn into immortal, all-knowing avatars of justice. No matter how far you travelled from the scene of the crime, the guards in every new town would instantly know what you'd done, and would practically teleport towards you to make an arrest. Skyrim will thankfully tone this down a bit. Guards will be separated into different regions. If you commit a crime in one area, guards in a nearby area won't necessarily know about it.

Now for some crafting news:

There will be 13 types of ore!

 
So there's that.

Also confirmed: horses. There was some uncertainty about whether horses would make it into Skyrim, as Bethesda weren't entirely happy with the way they turned out in Oblivion. OPM say that horses will indeed be a part of The Elder Scrolls V, and will "actually handle like horses this time." If you don't fancy riding around on horseback the whole time, there will also be a Morrowind style fast travel system that will let you use carriages to reach any major settlement from the start of the game. You can also skip straight to locations you've already discovered without the need for a carriage.

Bethesda have told OPM that Skyrim will feature over 60,000 lines of voiced dialogue. There will be more voice actors this time round as well, to the enormous relief of anyone who spent 40 hours listening to Oblivion's Orcs.

Finally, alongside the previously mentioned Dark Brotherhood, there will also be a Thieves Guild, a Fighter's Guild (The Companions), and a Mages Guild (The College of Winter's Hold). In Oblivion these provided their own insular quest lines, but in Skyrim they will interact with one another and the main story.

Judging from the hundred foot tall Skyrim poster glued to the side of a nearby LA hotel, Skyrim should be getting a big showing at E3 next week. If you can't wait 'til then, you can always stick the Skyrim trailer on a loop until Tuesday arrives.

Creative director on The Elder Srolls V, Todd Howard, wants to bring Morrowind's "wonder of discovery" to Skyrim. He admits that Oblivion lacked some of the imagination of its predecessor, but wants to ensure that the world of Skyrim "has its own unique culture."

Speaking to OXM about the world of Skyrim, Howard said "it should feel alien, kind of 'stranger in a strange land' - with familiar looking elements only rooting you early in the game." Howard likens the tone of Morrowind to that of being "an outsider."

"With Oblivion, we're dealing with the capital province, and we wanted to get back to the more classic Arena and Daggerfall feel of a fantasy world that felt more refined and welcoming, a place that you instantly understood. But in that, we sacrificed some of what made Morrowind special: the wonder of discovery.

"With Skyrim, we're trying to bring some of that back and walk the line between Morrowind and Oblivion. Where it's at first familiar looking, but has its own unique culture and spin on it."

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is due out on November 11 this year. If you haven't seen it already, it's well worth checking out the first Skyrim trailer.

The first in-game footage of Skyrim is out, and we have watched it several times at the loudest possible volume. It's extraordinarily exciting. It's also very fast, once it picks up, and crammed with interesting details it's easy to miss. Here's our analysis and thoughts on every shot. Except the stone mural stuff, we feel chaotic neutral about that.



IT'S A FOREST WE'RE RUNNING THROUGH A FOREST OH MY GOD. Once the initial nerdgasm of seeing Skyrim in action is over, a thought occurs: is that scrambling, bouncy-camera gait how we actually run in the game? I don't think so: the rest of these sequences all look custom-animated, even though they depict something that does happen in the game.

Shortly after the trailer went up, Nick Breckon of Bethesda clarified on Twitter: "Glad people got to finally see some Skyrim animation in this trailer. All that dragon stuff actually happens dynamically in-game."



Exclaimation mark! Jesus, look at that forest. In some ways a very frosty world is less appealing than Oblivion's lush greenery or Morrowind's otherworldly giant mushrooms, but now we know Skyrim's craggy geography makes its views properly majestic. This one is basically royalty.



Oh. I see. We play a dork. I'm sort of torn between being pleased with the obviously superior character modeling and thinking wow, you're pairing that with that? Some sleeves would kill you?



Oh man, that's a nice forest. Notice the head of an ancient stone statue overgrown with moss. Bethesda have talked a lot about working the history of Skyrim into the environment - it's an ancient place and they want it to show.



Lovely atmosphere to the towns at night. That building in the background seems to be a temple: I'll be interested to learn if the Nords have their own religion. One of the more geekily involving things about Morrowind was the clash between the local Dunmer Tribunal religion and the Imperial Cult of the occupying forces - you could join either and serve them to spread the good word.



WOODWORKING: HELL YES. These humdrum activities you see the locals engaging in are apparently things you can do yourself as the player, as part of a crafting system. I look forward to completely ignoring my destiny and grinding the bejesus out of these for optimal carpentry points.

More importantly: horses - best of all the animals - are back. Bethesda were staying tight lipped about mounts: Todd Howard wouldn't confirm if they were in, and was very critical of them in Oblivion on a Bethesda podcast. But this is pretty much proof: it's very hard to believe they'd show us horses and not let us ride them.



Easy to miss when it's moving, but as that shot pans out you can see a misty little harbour beyond the rock arch. It's a beautiful bit of scenery - I can't think of many natural formations in the other Elder Scrolls games that were this memorable.



I'm sorry, I know it's not cool to get excited about a waterfall, but look at that waterfall. You could go white water rafting on that bastard. Lots of games are good at capturing the beauty of nature, but not many get its raw power. I love that this feels like a huge, wild, raw country.



Confirmed: people do look better, and walk a bit more naturally. There seems to be more emphasis on how these settlements actually work: earlier we saw a windmill's inner workings, and this town has a  water mill.



Hurr durr I'm a dragon. Sorry, dragon, that's not fair, I've paused you at an awkward moment. I'm sure you're very intelligent.



A shaggy three-eyed cave troll, but more importantly, a spell in one hand and a sword in the other. I like how the spell pose is a nervous sort of, "Oh, actually, excuse me, would you mind if I cast a spell now?" gesture.



In Skyrim, I will cut a man's throat while a dude plays a pimped out lute. That will be my Main Quest. Sneaky backstabbing attacks like this are part of the custom-animated finishing moves system: you get them when you land the final blow in normal combat too, and they're unique to the weapon used and the enemy killed.



For example: DONK. This kill pretty much explains why they've gone to the trouble of making this system: it's a hell of a blow, and it feels like it. Oblivion's enemies never really had much reaction to your hits except a generic stagger or ragdoll.



"Why would you shield me in the tongue? Whyyy?"



It's cool that you can use a wand in one hand and a weapon in the other, and this is a lovely cave, but I have to ask: what are you shooting at? There's nothing there.



Mixed dual-wielding in action. Bethesda have said they've worked a lot on improving the third person camera. I'm not hugely excited about that since I never used it in Oblivion, but then the reason I didn't use it in Oblivion was that it kind of sucked. I'm assuming this is a custom camera angle on this spinny slashy dual-wielding guy, though.



The atmosphere of this dungeon, crawling with zombies in the dark, is really nice. I hope it's not staged for this trailer. Also, this spell:



Is the kind of spell I want to be casting. I'm guessing it's not an Apprentice one.



There was some debate in the office about what exactly our hero hoped to achieve with this slash.



These are Ice Wraiths, seen in previous shots such as pretty much this one. Todd Howard claims they're very scary, but personally I find non-corporeal enemies rather unengaging and awkward to fight. Where are you going to stab that?



One of those rare cases where it's cruel not to show a dog being shot - archery's apparently much more powerful than in Oblivion, inspired by the mods for that game that beefed it up. If I can't kill a dog in one arrow, I'm not shooting any arrows into dogs. And no-one wants that.



We've seen spell-and-sword, now we get to see spell-and-spell. Using the same spell in both hands lets you unleash a more powerful version of it, and this is the two-handed version of some kind of fire spell. Perhaps 'Fire'.



Yes yes, another brutal finishing move, people probably care about that, but I don't because I've just seen Nirnroot. Nirnroot confirmed! These conspicuous little plants were Oblivion's token collectible item. You could take them to a guy who'd brew a mediocre potion out of them for you. Now that I write it down, I'm not sure why I'm so excited to see them return.



The cool thing about this fight with a giant spider is that your blow actually knocks him back. What with dragons and giants elsewhere, Skyrim has a hefty dose of fighting big things. If they can make that feel right, they'll be one of very few games to pull it off.



We don't get to see anything happen in this scene, but it shows us some of the variety in dungeons. Most of the many we've seen in this trailer are noticibly different, and this one has an ornate steamworks feel that suggest it might be Dwemer. Dwemer are the Elder Scrolls' series dwarfs - if you haven't heard of them, it's because they died out long ago. Mostly. Hardcore Morrowind players know otherwise.



OK, our hero looks a bit less of a dork here. Even through his helmet you can see how much better the faces are: this guy has an expression! An actual expression!



Kill a dragon, get its soul. Acquiring souls has been a theme in the Elder Scrolls: you have to kill things and capture their souls to enchant items in earlier games. Dragon souls are special, and absorbing them is a unique ability of the Dragonborn. Getting a dragon's soul allows you to learn its shout, but you'll still have to find the actual words written in Dragontongue on ancient murals around Skyrim. Seeing the stuff actually enshround you, I am now expecting Lady Gaga to show up to something wearing only a dragon soul.



But that's not the climax of the trailer - this is. Cor. When they said Skyrim was mountainous, I thought "Pft. Oblivion had mountains." Apparently it didn't. Apparently this is what mountains actually look like, and they give Skyrim a really exciting feel I wasn't expecting.

I am now officially excited.

As the excitment for Skyrim gets too much for some to handle, Bethesda have gone and released 10 new screens of ingame action. The shots show off a whole host of areas from the game, including a glimpse at the magic skill tree.

You'll find the shots embedded after the jump. *Jump*





















If you want to have access to more Skyrim content, simply like The Elder Scrolls facebook page to become a member of "The Elder Council".

When it was launched in 2006, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was the most one of the prettiest games you could wish to bless your eyes with. Five years on, the Gambryo engine isn’t going to cut it for the winter realm of Skyrim. Enter the Creation Engine. Follow us through for the latest info.

The guys at GameInformer have been having a chat with Bethesda Studios’ creative director Todd Howard who’s explained some of the impressive developments in the game’s development.

The new Creation Engine provides more impressive draw distances and a significantly improved dynamic lighting system.
Snowfall will land on objects and accumulate over time.
The Radiant AI system has been heavily improved, with NPCs reacting to characters behaviour realistically. Turning up uninvited to a friendly NPC’s house will prompt them to offer you lodgings.
Havok's new Behavior system will be used to generate exceptionally fluid animations.
The less-than-well-received third person view from Oblivion is gone, replaced with a greatly improved one.
An organic side-quest management system – known as Radiant Story – will direct you to areas you’ve yet to explore by placing quest objectives in undiscovered dungeons.
Side quests will be "conditionalized", meaning they will adapt to what you’re character has done in their past and create objectives based on who you’ve become.
Random encounters will feature, one of which has been confirmed to be a pack of wolves attacking a mammoth.

Despite being a long, long eleven months away, Skyrim is already shaping up to be one of the most exciting titles of the year. If you’re as excited as we are by the prospect of an expedition to Tamriel’s snowy north, you’ll agree that November 11 can’t come quick enough.

Each year, our staff plays hundreds of games as we separate the good from the bad and the great from the good. Now, we separate the year’s truly exceptional from the rest, and crown our singular Game of the Year. Drumroll please...


Game of the Year/Realtime Strategy Game of the Year
Starcraft II - Wings Of Liberty



Years from now, PC gamers will remember 2010 first and foremost as the year that StarCraft finally returned. StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty hasn’t just wowed the hardcore PC faithful, it’s a beacon that’s drawn hordes of gamers back to their PCs, and reminded them what they’ve always loved about the kind of gaming experience you can only get here.

Its accomplishments are dazzling. With outstanding and innovative campaign mission design, and a meticulous, artful graphical update to its classic factions and multiplayer battles, it’s revitalized and restored confidence in the traditional resource gathering, base building realtime strategy game formula. We’ve heard suspicions voiced over the years that this formula had become outdated or in need of reinvention to be relevant, but StarCraft II has proven that the old-school model didn’t abruptly become un-fun five years ago.

What’s more, by applying the between-mission story mode (which harkens back to classic PC games like X-Wing and Wing Commander), to realtime strategy, Blizzard has cracked a problem that has plagued the RTS genre since its inception: making the characters who appear tiny on the battlefield feel like larger-than-life heroes, and bringing us in close to immerse us in the universe we usually only get to see from far above.



Finally, the spectacular multiplayer action is so exciting that it doesn’t even need to be played to be enjoyed—StarCraft II has successfully introduced gamers to the idea that games can be enjoyable as a spectator sport. In just a few short months, the audience for commentated professional-level matches and tournaments has exploded from a small and dedicated niche to a thriving community of hundreds of thousands of viewers who regularly tune in to view games on YouTube, GOMtv.net or Major League Gaming, and follow their favorite players.

In those ways and more, StarCraft II is a monument to PC gaming. It’s a game that can be enjoyed by everyone, from the newest and most inexperienced players to the gamer’s equivalent of the world-class athlete—and even those who’d rather just sit back and watch.

Next page: PC Gamer US's choices for Shooter, Puzzle, and Free-To-Play Game of the Year.


Shooter Of The Year
Call Of Duty: Black Ops



The unrivaled control of our mice and keyboards demands high-skill, athletic multiplayer experiences. Some of the PC’s finest multiplayer shooters (Tribes, Quake III, Team Fortress Classic) earned our respect by offering brutally uncompromising arenas that demand pixel-point accuracy and to-the-nanosecond finesse. Anything less is a waste of the agility and precision that we’re able to manifest with these devices.

Despite being designed as a cross-platform game, Call of Duty: created the kind of hyper-competitive itch that our trigger fingers love to scratch better than any other shooter this year. Its breakneck-paced, kill-or-be-owned multiplayer modes have an arcade feel to them, but Treyarch’s rejiggering of CoD’s multiplayer formula hooks us right in the competitive center of our brains. Being a successful player means summoning every ounce of marksmanship skill and tactical battlefield awareness that you can muster while allowing physics and playful weapons, such as an RC car bomb or a crossbow with exploding bolts, balance that tension with entertaining doses of dumb luck.

Technologically, Black Ops’ integrated video replay and sharing system sets a precedent in post-game enjoyment. Revisiting game-saving headshots or how-did-that-possibly-kill-him Tomahawk tosses in slow-mo with a free camera grant the same StarCraft II provides players to revisit, analyze and share your best moments. We don't forgive Black Ops’ botched launch or brain-dead single-player campaign, but it celebrates a style of multiplayer that belongs on the PC--a speedy death-go-round we can’t get enough of.
Puzzle Game Of The Year
Puzzle Agent



There's more than one way to tell an adventure story--we just didn't realize it until Agent Nelson Tethers showed up with Puzzle Agent. Telltale replaced the usual pixel-hunting, inventory management and object-combination puzzles found in adventure games (which can all too often rely more on guesswork as to which items can be worn as hats than puzzle-solving techniques) with real brain scratchers. Whether we were bouncing Nelson’s snowmobile to safety, calculating the cargo capacity of swallows or solving word problems, Puzzle Agent’s puzzles added great gameplay to Tethers' surprisingly edgy saga and elevated a young genre--the puzzle-adventure.
Free-To-Play Game Of The Year
League of Legends



2010 saw games lining up around the block for the opportunity to entertain PC gamers for free, but none could match League of Legends’ steady stream of high-quality updates. The content machine at Riot churns out new champions every two weeks, along with new maps, items and meta-game systems. This year’s Season One update both opened up competitive play for top-tier players and strengthened the tutorial elements for newcomers. League of Legends continues to prove that a dedicated independent developer can make the free-to-play model shine.

Next page: PC Gamer US's choices for Roleplaying, Action, and Adventure Game of the Year.


Roleplaying Game of the Year
Fallout: New Vegas



Fallout: New Vegas shows us how great things can be accomplished by standing on the shoulders of giants. It demonstrates that the defining characteristic of a great roleplaying game isn’t flashy, state-of-the-art graphics; success as an immersive adventure depends much more on creating an irresistible, fantastical world, filling it with interesting characters— and then letting us mess with it.

Obsidian’s writing sparkles with fascinating characters and quests that pay loving homage to the franchise’s PC roots at every opportunity. Its main quest begins as a small-scale tale of personal revenge in the Mojave, but blossoms into an opportunity to decide the outcome of a wide-open conflict that will upset the balance of power of an entire region. Nothing empowers us as players more than seeing the effects of our choices play out, and Fallout: New Vegas’ conflict can be resolved in so many ways that it gives us a feeling of freedom and control virtually unprecedented among modern games. Roleplaying games don’t get a whole lot better than this.

And while it’s a cross-platform game, Fallout: New Vegas reminds us why the PC is more often than not the best place to experience an openworld RPG like this one. It looks far better on the PC than any other platform, and mods step in afterward to unlock its full potential. Fallout: New Vegas is truly our adventure.
Sports Game of the Year
NBA2K11



Sports games saw a resurgence on the PC this year, defying the perception that great sports games show up only on consoles. Leading the pack is NBA 2K11, a brilliant homage to basketball’s greatest hero, Michael Jordan. Its sharp AI and crisp visuals are good enough to fool you—just for a moment—into thinking you’re watching and somehow controlling a live game between the very best players in basketball history. NBA 2K11 proves the PC’s strength as the most versatile of all gaming platforms—the perfect place to play any kind of game.
Adventure Game of the Year
Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck's Revenge



A great joke never dies. LucasArts proved that again by bringing Guybrush’s sophomore mix-up with LeChuck into the modern era gracefully with Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck’s Revenge. The artwork has been reinvigorated, new voiceovers give each character even more style, and the new interface is expertly tuned for adventuring. The most interesting new feature is the commentary by the original creators (Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman) who chat casually with each other as you play. It’s the sort of fun behind-the-scenes look usually reserved for film, and it injects an already great game with plenty of fresh hilarity and insight.

Next Page: PC Gamer US's choices for MMO, Strategy, and Simulation Game of the Year.
MMO of the Year
Lord of the Rings Online



A lot of MMOs thrived this year, but their success was dampened by a lack of major updates or innovation. When it came to keeping us entertained all year long with small updates, plus throwing us the occasional party with huge loads of free content, LotRO treated its fans the best. Two new Epic Books’ worth of quests alongside the franchise’s memorable characters and two new regions were added; character creation and starter regions were completely revamped, in-game events were expanded and UI elements were improved—and then the game went free-to-play in September.

Turbine’s signature hybrid free-to-play subscription model proved to be a great success, generously letting curious players browse Middle-earth and sample the content before deciding whether or not to open their wallets. It’s quickly redefining the way a successful subscriptionless MMO is run.

The future’s looking good for LotRO—even with this year’s huge additions, it’s wisely pacing itself to avoid burning through the books’ story content too quickly. There’s a long road ahead before we’re knocking on Mordor’s door with the One Ring, and that road is lined with good friends (LotRO’s community is one of the most friendly and enthusiastic around), excellent gameplay and free updates, and at the rate Turbine is going, we’ll be enjoying the journey for years to come.
Strategy Game of the Year
Civilization V



It’s no surprise that Civilization V wins this award—Civilization has been one of the PC’s definitive names in turnbased strategy for almost two decades, thanks to the deep, addictive turn-based experience that you just can’t get anywhere else.

With Civ V’s reinvention in particular, Firaxis has demonstrated that the series—and the entire genre of turnbased strategy—is teeming with new ideas. Its revamped tactical combat addresses a long-standing weakness of the series and made the inevitable wars between nations more engaging; its colorful graphics and redesigned interface reach out to gamers intimidated by complexity, grab them by their eyeballs and, before they realize what’s happened, pull them into all-night gaming sessions that don’t end until one nation rules the world; and its in-game mod browser opens up the world of user-made content to gamers who would’ve otherwise never known where to look for it or how to install it.

Wherever the series goes next, we’ll be able to look back at Civilization V and say that it took us somewhere new and enthralling.
Simulation of the Year
Lock On: Flaming Cliffs 2



An expansion pack for a 2003 flight sim might not seem like a slam dunk for Simulation of the Year honors, but Eagle Dynamics’ expertly crafted Lock On: Flaming Cliffs 2  is a truly exceptional revival of an existing favorite. By taking a strong but datedlooking sim and turbocharging it with a modern engine, an impressive international collection of warplanes, detailed cockpit renderings and freshly upgraded terrain graphics, FC2 delivers one of the best combat flight experiences that sim fans have seen in years.

Next page: PC Gamer US's choices for Action-Adventure, Mod, and Innovator of the Year.


Action-Adventure Game of the Year
The Ball



A masterstroke of minimalism, The Ball was the best gaming vignette of the year. There’s no dialog, sweeping cinematics or tacked-on multiplayer mode to burden The Ball—just a lightweight, focused, gameplay-driven short story. It benefited from this simplicity by giving us a campaign that felt paced and personal. As you kick the multiton marble around with your ancient Mexican gravity gun, it somehow makes the transition from object to character. You develop this subtle but strong relationship with the object—it doesn’t change or communicate, but it takes on the feeling of a pet following you through lava-soaked corridors.
Mod of the Year
Nehrim: At Fate’s Edge



It’s a total conversion for a four-year-old game (The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion), but Nehrim is so impressive that it was a contender not just for best mod, but for best RPG. Nehrim is massive, witty, occasionally vicious, incredibly ambitious and tremendously successful at injecting new life into a game that many of us have already played so much that we could scarcely imagine seeing anything new come out of it. Its world is wonderfully resolved—settlements look sensibly planned, residents have purposeful vocations, forests are dense and geography looks natural.

The dedication shown by the modders who took Nehrim from concept to realization is astonishing. Only on the PC do gamers have such power to shape their experiences.
Innovator of the Year
Minecraft



An unfinished, hyper-simple, low-fi independent game captured the imaginations of PC gamers more than anything else in 2010. But it isn't technical excellence that makes Minecraft the PC’s brightest innovator (although there's plenty of that). Rather, it's the way that it reveres players’ ideas. Minecraft doesn’t provide any goal, story or explicit reward for digging in the earth. Instead, it allows players to cultivate their own experiences out of the simple tasks of digging and building, punctuated by a few monsters every now and then. Players approach the blank canvas in different ways: erecting world-spanning railroads or waterfall wonders; strip-mining the ground for rare ores; exploring dungeons; creating multiplayer metropolises or hidden fortresses; using in-game tools for bizarre science—making each player's experience necessarily unique.

Minecraft also demonstrates that word-of-mouth on the PC is still the surest route to indie success. Minecraft sold more than 700,000 copies in 2010 by way of players sharing their creations and discoveries on YouTube, Reddit.com and forums. This remarkable popularity is only possible on an open platform like the PC, where Minecraft creator “Notch” can deploy weekly updates to the game and collaborate directly with fans on content and bug fixes.

While we wouldn’t expect Minecraft’s financial success to become commonplace, it opens up a new business model for self-employed developers: selling before official release in order to finance development.