E3 is over and gone, but there's still plenty of gaming euphoria and bitter disappointment that lives on. With that in mind, I present to you The Official Next Level E3 2003 Awards, AFX Edition.

Best Game That I Was Pretty Sure I Wouldn't Like:
Maximo Vs. the Army of Zin (PS2)
I wasn't a fan of the first Maximo, at all. The only reason I even touched this one is because it didn't have a line. Luckily, Capcom threw in a lot more enemies, at least one great new weapon, and the ability to be the Grim Reaper. I'm actually looking forward to seeing more of it.

Worst Game That I Really Hoped I Would Like but, God, Sega Hates Me:
Phantasy Star Online Episode III: C.A.R.D Revolution (GCN)
When I finally made my way to the Sega booth, I spent about a half an hour just creeping around corners and peeking over the tops of the kiosks. One machine kept pulling me in. I saw it there, despite myself. I didn't want to see it, mind you, but I did. I didn't want to look at it, nor did I even want to acknowledge that it existed, but it kept drawing me closer and closer. It was the only kiosk at that end of the Sega booth with no one playing it, and I knew there was a reason. I even knew what that reason was, but I didn't want to admit it to myself.

Coyly, I approached the machine. It shouldn't exist, but it did, and so I had to see it. I stood still a few feet from it and I looked at it like a business man in an crisp three-piece suit might look at a whore. "I'm not bad for wanting to try it. It can't possibly be as dirty as it makes me feel," I told myself. As I sat there, wrestling with myself, within myself, another attendee walked up besides me, planting himself before my machine.

"How can he walk up with such force and so little apprehension?"

In those moments, nothing was right. I was struggling to make eye contact with my torment and here he was, bold and forceful. I sat there as he picked up the controller and felt a burning inside like a 14-year-old boy who had spent the last hour making his way across the dance floor, only to see the cutie in the pink dress be taken away by the football team captain. This machine was mine, by rights. I'd spent hours, days of my life with its older sister, killing Rappy after Rappy. There just had to be that same potential for love there. It couldn't be as bad as I thought.

The look in the captain's eyes told me it was.

As he put down the controller and backed away, I found my inner strength and snapped it up. There had to be something there. There just had to be. The business man loosened his tie and swept the whore into his arms. She was just as dirty as he thought.

My businessman is back in the loving arms of his wife now, but that day will never leave him. He'll never forget. He'll never forget that Phantasy Star Online Episode III sucks.

Best Game That I Almost Didn't Play:
kill.switch (Xbox, PS2)
There's a lot of shooting, a lot of blood, and you can hang your gun around the corner and spray bullets indiscriminately. I was really close to just passing by kill.switch, but after seeing it for a while during the Namco appointment, I got to play it. I'm glad I did, as it turned out to be a really solid and fun third-person action game that gave me the same warm feeling as Hitman 2 and Max Payne. Even now, among all of the memories of Sonic Heroes, Mario Karts and Partys, and the like, kill.switch is the game that I'm wishing I had five more minutes with.

Worst Game Where You Roll an Egg Around (What, an Egg? Yes, a Goddamned Egg):
Billy Hatcher and The Giant Egg (GCN)
I love cute platformers and I also love Sonic Team. With that in mind, I should have really loved Billy Hatcher, but I didn't. I just couldn't get over the fact that I was rolling an egg around and not having a whole lot of fun doing it. I had high hopes and an open mind for this game, but I'm not exactly counting the days now.

Best Three-Dollar Soda I've Ever Had:
The Coke at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Mmm. (Mmm.)

Worst Ten Dollars I Have Ever Spent, Besides Home Run King:
A can of soda, a tiny bag of potato chips, and the worst personal pizza ever made.

Seriously, I almost went back and choked the girl that made it. How can you screw up a pizza? It's cheese, bread, and sauce. I think that stand may have been owned by Sega.

Best Game with Monkeys in Those Special Ed Helmets:
Ape Escape 2 (PS2)
I never played the first, but now I will probably buy the sequel. As a matter of fact, I might track down the original, just based off of how much fun this game was. There's very little that's more entertaining than chasing down mentally disabled primates.

Worst Game With Monkeys in It:
Vectorman (PS2)
I doubt Vectorman has any monkeys in it, but it was seriously horrible. Take a great 16-bit era franchise, strip it of the color and personality that made it work, and slap it on the system least capable of handling it. The game was probably only ten-percent done or something, so I hope they put some fun in the last ninety.

Best First-Person Action Game/Role-Playing Game/Interior Decoration Simulation:
Morrowind: Game of the Year Edition (Xbox)
Now you can be a decorator by day and a bloodthirsty werewolf by night. Savagely kill the villagers and then make off with their candles and nice dinnerware. Yeah, this one is going to make you feel like Martha Stewart, only less of a bitch and with a sword.

Worst Handheld Game with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in It:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (GBA)
The console versions played pretty well, but instead of going with an arcade-style beat-'em-up that would allow for up-and-down movement as well as left-to-right, à la TMNT: The Arcade Game, Konami opted for a regular sidescroller, à la TMNT for the NES. Blah. If I wanted to play a crappy sidescroller, I'd play Viewtiful Joe, thank you.

Best Game I Just Lied to You About:
Viewtiful Joe (GCN)
Just kidding, its just as good as you think. Sucker.

Best Game No One Could Play (tie):
Metroid: Zero Mission (GBA) and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
It's a Metroid game, so it's going to be good, and you know it was cool to watch Snake eating that, um, snake.

Worst Game No One Did Play:
Phantasy Star Online Episode III: C.A.R.D. Revolution (GCN)
I know it was there, but no one played it on purpose, except for me. My eyes burn.

Best Game with Mario in It, Not Golfing or Karting:
Mario Party 5 (GCN)
The mini games were fun, and if you have a girlfriend, you already know you have to buy it when it's released, anyway.

Worst Game with Mario in It:
Vectorman (PS2)
Blah.

Best Game to Stand Around to See Girls (tie):
Pikmin 2 (GCN) and Sonic Adventure DX (GCN)
Chicks dig the Cube, and the people playing these two games proved it. To hell with booth babes, they're being paid to tolerate you. Give me a natural gamer girl who likes Pikmin.

Worst Game That Should Be the Best, but They Only Showed the Multiplayer:
Star Fox 2
It couldn't have been that hard to put together a short demo of the single-player flying modes, really. I'd have done it for you, Namco.

Ok, now on to the big, big awards - as chosen by me, because I rule.

Game of the Show, Game Boy Advance:
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
No one had a single bad thing to say about the game, and it looked great. Sword of Mana was great too, but Tactics has the edge.

Game of the Show, PlayStation 2:
Soul Calibur II
I didn't play much PS2 at the show, and I know SOCOM 2, Syphon Filter 4, and Gran Turismo 4, among others, were impressive, but I had too much fun with SC II to not pick it as my Game of the Show for the PS2. So sue me.

Game of the Show, Xbox:
Halo 2
It wasn't playable, but it was all anyone talked about. You've downloaded the trailer yourself if you don't suck. It's going to be the Game of the Year when its finally released, so its my Game of the Show now. Besides, I'm not sure Microsoft showed anything else, besides some horrible looking Ghoulies game.

Game of the Show, GameCube:
Mario Kart: Double Dash
Everyone had to play it once, and it had the most consistently long lines of any game there. DD is incredibly fun and it lives up to its heritage. Plus, it has got Baby Mario, and he's just so cute.

Game of the Show, Overall (tie):
F-Zero (GCN) and Sonic Heroes (GCN, Xbox, PS2)
Sure, F-Zero could have been my Cube Game of the Show, but that wouldn't be very fair. This game has the speed thing down and proves that Amusement Vision is really Sega's bread and butter. If it ends up with Aiai in it, you might as well sell every game that you have, you won't need them anymore.

Sonic Heroes is the brilliant 3D Sonic game that we've all been waiting for. The fact that you get to team up with Knuckles and Tails makes it dynamic, challenging, and enjoyable. The level design is brilliant so far, and having the two best games of the show almost makes up for what Sega did to PSO.

That's all, that's it, I am done. Congratulations to all of the winners, your turkey leg is in the mail, and we'll see you next year.

· · · AFX