The "I'm sure it's cool, but now's not the time" non-award award: Journey
I watched our own Rus McLaughlin do pretty much nothing for 25 minutes in desert-wandering/discovery game Journey for PSN. It's like Flower in the sense that it has minimalistic game design, where players need to figure stuff out for themselves -- only much more leisurely paced. I would love to explore its beautiful world when I have more time, but during E3 with a billion other things to do and see, a slow-burn demo like this just makes me feel like I ought to be busy doing something else. -Dan "Shoe" Hsu

Publisher most likely to destroy your hearing: Electronic Arts
EA turned it up to 11 for its press briefing, and then they cranked it up to 12 on the South Hall floor. Sure, it drowned out the looping Assassin's Creed: Revelations fanfare next door, but at what cost to my hearing and my children's children's children's hearing? -Rus McLaughlin

Best props: World of Tanks
The Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning guys (or was it Rift?) brought a big hammer. That was nice.World of Tanks brought tanks. Well, duh. -Rus McLaughlin

Worst use of props: World of Tanks
And then they were just parked right in front of the west entrance in the most boring way possible and sat there for four days. C'mon, guys...aim the cannons at the convention center, suppress democratic reform protestors, crush Bitmob Writer Mike Minotti under the treads...oh, wait.... -Rus McLaughlin

Mike Minotti is our favorite hero of the people!

Attack of the (Autolog) clones: Forza 4, Call of Duty Elite
EA's subtly awesome Autolog feature -- which allows you to issue asynchronous multiplayer challenges and track your friends' progress across a number of EA driving games, among other things -- hasn't gone unnoticed by other publishers and developers. Forza 4 outlined a similar feature at E3, and Call of Duty's Elite service will almost certainly offer analogous functionality (with a nod towards Bungie.net too, of course). Mark my words -- one of these days a platform-wide Autolog-like feature will come to PSN, Xbox Live, Steam, or maybe all three. In fact, look for it at E3 2012! -Demian Linn

Most likely to owe Quentin Tarantino some kind of royalties: Brothers in Arms: Furious Four
I'm going with Mad Libs style for this: One of the characters' M.O. is [present participle verb] [iconic symbol] into the foreheads of Nazi soldiers. The [iconic symbol] is meant as a reminder to the world that they were once Nazis and that they crossed [character name]. Ultimately, [game/movie title] feels a lot like a Holocaust-revenge fantasy. -James DeRosa

Wrong audience non-award ward: Sony's AT&T announcement
When Sony revealed AT&T would be its exclusive partner for the PS Vita, the press-conference crowd started laughing and groaning instead of applauding. Ouch. Maybe those Sony execs don't have call-dropping iPhones like half of us in the audience do? -Dan "Shoe" Hsu

The "they just don't give a shit anymore" non-award award: Saints Row: The Third
Groin shots? Air strikes on street gangs? Giant purple dildos as melee weapons? Professor Genki's Super Ballistic Manapult -- a car that scoops up pedestrians and launches them out of a cannon? The developers of Saints Row: The Third have flushed any remaining semblance of civilized game design right down the crapper. It's the Jackass 3D of gaming, and we can't wait to get our hands dirty with it this fall. Just don't show it to Roger Ebert, OK? -Dan "Shoe" Hsu

The "line-o-mania" non-award award: EA
EA threw its full might into E3 with an impressive lineup of first-rate titles, including Mass Effect 3, Battlefield 3, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. Equally impressive were the multiple lines snaking around the booth like a disjointed hydra as people queued up for a glimpse of their favorite games. Attending a demonstration became rather tough due to the constant crush of gamer gazers, appointment or not -- and even then, seats quickly became a rare commodity as screening rooms teemed to the brim with viewers. Honorable mention: Nintendo's sometimes-two-hour-plus line for the Wii U. -Omri Petitte

WTF? non-award award for WTF?: Spyro the Dragon's giant friends
Activision must think it's got a much hotter property in Spyro the Dragon than anyone else does. In order to pimp the revival of the once-mighty purple dragon, the company flooded a corner of South Hall with fog (two feet deep on the ground, courtesy of six or seven ear-shattering fog machines) while lowering two Poke-creatures (not Spyro, but from his new game) from the ceiling onto a lit dais...every hour. Hey, the kids loved it! -Rus McLaughlin

Biggest pop for a passing mention: Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS
The applause when Nintendo briefly mentioned the Super Smash Bros. franchise in the context of its new systems rivaled the response to actual live demos of other games. Heck, the pop was almost as big as the Wii U reveal itself. While the Smash Bros. games started as fan-service for Nintendo-philes, the series is now as highly anticipated as the games that it draws its characters from. Here's to two years of hype-building, baseless speculation about who will join the roster, and disappointment when Geno from Super Mario RPG finally enters the fray but has the voice of a six-year-old girl. -Chris Hoadley

The "sometimes free Wi-Fi is a bad thing" non-award award: Sony
I appreciate some nice, free Wi-Fi -- I really do. But in light of recent events, an unsecured network doesn't always send quite the right message.... -Demian Linn