Best Games Of E3 2012 Awards Nominations

Opening up the month is the anticipated Fable Anniversary , a re-imagining of the hit RPG originally released on the Xbox nearly ten years ago. It arrives February 4th for the Xbox 360. On the 5th, internet "let's play" sensation Outlast will be available on the PS4. Later in the month, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII makes its way to the PS3 and Xbox 360 on February 11th. Rayman Legends jumps into the next-gen fray on the 18th, giving some much-needed platformer action to the PS4 and Xbox One. The Wii U gets its own taste of more platformer goodness on the 21st, when Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze swings into action. Finally, the long-awaited Thief reboot finds its way to all major platforms after nearly a decade of abse


The nominations were decided by all 9 of the Game Rant staff in attendance at E3 and are based upon our previews, demos and hands-on experiences with all of the available titles at the event this year. Share your thoughts on the picks and tell us what you believe deserves to win each category! - Follow me on Twitter @ rob_key


Like most PC games, graphics settings are customizable, as are the control schemes. Unlike the 360 version, the PC version allows players to increase the difficulty level - which some may find too easy on the default setting. You'd expect a feature like this to have been available in the original version of the title - better late than never, I supp


Oftentimes, the other concern, when discussing ported games, is the controls. Lionhead claimed that this was their number one priority in building the PC version of the game. They completely reconfigured the control system for the PC - taking advantage of key things like the mouse wheel (which is used to switch between magic, guns, and swords, similar to how it is used in shooters to switch weapons). The game controls well, and even for a native Xbox player I found it easy to pick up and play. Of course, the game also supports gamepads, and using the 360 controller offered a equivalent experience to playing on the X


First, we have the Natal imagined by Cirque de Soleil debut which, if you weren’t there, was not very "hardcore" and did focus on Kinect. Wireless, controller free game demos, which many believe were pre-rendered, saturated the performance. The next thing the world saw from Microsoft at the world's biggest trade event was the Microsoft Press Conference, meant to focus mainly on Xbox 360 and its exclusive lineup, Fablechronicle.Com or so we thought. This showing could not have been too substantial for hardcore revealed to gamers very little because most of the content was already speculated or announced by MS themselves before hand. We knew we would hear from three of the Xbox's ONLY _ exclusive secret weapons; _Fable III, Gears of War III and Halo: Reach . Therefore, their presence brought very little excitem


Leading up to E3 2012, many of the big game announcements were unveiled early, from Star Wars 1313 to Gears of War: Judgment . Still, there were a few pleasant surprises during the five major press conferences -- Watch Dogs and Beyond: Two Souls to name just two -- in a year that focused heavily on software as the current console generation approaches the end of its life cy


All in all, as a lover of the X360, I felt significantly disappointed, in a dramatic way. I am not too excited about any of the exclusives and as an overweight nerd, dork, geek, and gamer, I feel like I would never play with Kinect. Even a month after E3 I still feel pretty uncertain about the future of my beloved console of choice and I certainly hope MS has some announcements later in the year to prevent Xbox 360 from completely fail to satisfy in 2010, for the hardcore audience that i


Fable 3 has almost all the elements of great storytelling and wonderful fantasy roleplay. Magic, legendary weapons, evil monsters, a kingdom to save and even to rule: all of these things guarantee that Lionhead Studios will draw you into the world of Albion once ag

It looks like there's a lot more to look forward to this month, with more releases on the PS4 and Xbox One. Although it won't be until March that the next-gen titles start pouring in, February should have many releases to keep gamers occupied. Ranters, what are you most looking forward to? Let us know in the comments section below! As for me, I'll be counting the days until Thief releases on St


Winter's still going on strong - for most of us, anyway - but the gaming release lull is slowly coming to an end! While most February releases are still geared towards the previous generation, there are a few next-gen games that should start the ball rolling for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Let's take a look at what February has to of


E3 has always been **THE ** industry event prime for showcasing new hardware, services and of course games. Microsoft is not new to the showcase, remaining strong contenders since the announcement of the original Halo on Xbox in 2001. From the tech demo of Halo 2 in 2003 to the appearance of the first HD Gaming console in 2005. However, it is practically universally agreed that the Microsoft conference at E3 2010 had very little appeal to the fan base that the Xbox has worked so hard to amass. Alienation to some and sacrilege to others, the star of the show was Kinect; a motion control dev