We did it! One more E3 without handing out traditional awards like so many county-fair blue ribbons. We do, however, have a whole stack of our Non-Award Awards to bestow on a variety of sort-of-lucky or not-at-all lucky recipients....

Most emasculating moment: PixelJunk Sidescroller
Bitmob Writer Rus McLaughlin and I managed to make Sidescroller's "normal" difficulty look like "hard" during our demo in Sony's booth. We died an embarrassing amount of times in this old-school 2D shooter, and doing it in front of a girl, Assistant Producer Ariel Angelotti of developer Q-Games, only made it worse. Later, she emailed me and did her best to make me feel better: "There's absolutely no shame in playing on Easy sometimes -- especially a PixelJunk game. =)" Ruthless. -Dan "Shoe" Hsu

Greatest peripheral of all time, forever: Kiss Controller
You stick a tiny magnet on your tongue (using Fixodent powder) while your partner wears special headgear, which is enough to get anyone in the mood. Then the two of you smooch. The headgear reads the kisser’s tongue movement and direction and translates it into input data. Currently, the prototype works with a simple bowling game, but developer Hye Yeon Nam is looking to expand into different genres. Fighting? Puzzle? Tactical-role-playing-game? Who cares? Check out her webpage for more info (and a video after the jump). -Alejandro Quan-Madrid.

Most popular demo non-award award: BioShock: Infinite
The word was out: The new BioShock was a must-must-must-see. By the last day of E3, 2K Games had to turn people away, even after filling the demo room way past its capacity. The squished standing-room-only affair would've given a fire marshal heart failure...but then so would the demo. -Dan "Shoe" Hsu

Best game to melt into your couch with: PixelJunk Lifelike
British band Spacemen 3 once put out an album called "Taking drugs to make music to take drugs to," and I wonder if that wasn't somehow an inspiration to PixelJunk Lifelike -- except coding under the influence probably doesn't work so well. Regardless, the Move-centric music creator seems custom-made for late nights with the black light turned on. -Demian Linn

Cutest press-kit download card: Nintendo
These days at E3, game companies typically distribute screenshots and trailers to the press via FTP download sites. They put the login info on a variety of formats including strips of paper or, more commonly, business cards. Kudos to Nintendo for its crafty "? block" cards...even if they were devoid of coins, power-ups, or points. -Alejandro Quan-Madrid

The “please, God, get me out of this demo” non-award award
Nyko made a lens for the Kinect that widens its field of view -- for those in apartments or small dorm rooms. Sounds great in theory, but during a demo of a skiing game, the Nyko representative proceeded to lean to his left while the in-game skier continued to hump the right barrier of the slope. A restart and retry produced the same result, only this time the player leaned right while the skier broke left...amazing. After a good five minutes of this embarrassment, the rep gave up, moved us to another room, and explained how their products were supposed to work while we passed them around. In my imagination, that lens is totally awesome. Also, I am Grand Vizier of Perezistan and crush my enemies with my army of bear-men. -Ryan Perez

Most surprisingly good game that we expected to suck: Prey 2
Bitmob's Dan "Shoe" Hsu and I were surprised when we both left the Bethesda booth more impressed by Prey 2 than the main show, Skyrim [Editor's note: You say that now, but I know which game I'll be sinking 40+ hours into. -Demian]. Other than a few plot elements, nothing about it resembles its moderately received predecessor. With slick parkour and climbing mechanics, cover-based, first-person shooting, and a Blade Runner-inspired setting, Prey 2 looks like a darker Mirror's Edge-meets-Mass Effect. -Ryan Perez

Most annoying sound ever non-award award: Those birds from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Nintendo had a great booth, complete with giant models of Links and a girl that I assumed was Zelda flying on large, bird-like creatures. However, as if their presence hanging above the demos for the upcoming Wii game wasn't dominating enough, Nintendo also opted to pipe in loud, shrieking noises. Repeatedly. Ugh. -Mike Minotti

CAAAAAAAAAW!

The "this is kind of upsetting" non-award award: Papo & Yo
Papo & Yo is a 3D puzzle-platforming game about a young boy, Quico, who befriends Monster, a large and seemingly harmless beast. There's just one problem: Monster is addicted to poisonous frogs, and ingesting said frogs triggers uncontrollable fits of rage. Then you find out that the game's an allegory for Creative Director Vander Caballero's own childhood; he grew up with an alcoholic and drug-addicted father in the favelas (hence the Spanish title "Daddy & I"). The game itself is fun and imaginative, but it's this context that makes Monster's ballistic behavior more than just a simple game mechanic. -Ryan Perez

Hardiest A.I.: Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2
Poor Michal Sroczynski. The Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 producer had me hooked during his presentation of the new ways to speak softly and carry a big rifle in the sequel to 2010's first-person shooter -- that is, until he encountered an enemy in plain sight that took five shots to the noggin without so much as batting an eyelid. Either I witnessed a drastic bug or an unintentional reveal of the game's secret "spit bullet" mode. -Omri Petitte

Unclear on the concept of how chairs work: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning demo
It was nice that EA put the effort into dressing up the Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning demo room in a vaguely fantasy sort of way, but who thought it'd be a good idea to make the benches out of simulated, craggy boulders? Sharp rocks are not my first choice of seating medium; in fact they rank just above pokers and then red-hot pokers. Game writers have very delicate posteriors due to far higher than average use -- won't somebody please think of the asses? -Demian Linn

Sharp and pointy!