Best in Show

And now the reason you are here, our best in show award:

Although no single title drew complete attention like Half-Life 2 last year, E3 2004 was more notable for the huge lineup of games that look strong across the board. We eventually settled on three finalists, and this being FiringSquad, it should come as no surprise that two of them were first person shooters. Tribes: Vengeance, STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl and Rome: Total War probably make this the first all-subtitle best in show award in FiringSquad history.

These games are here not only because they look great, but because they don't shy away from delivering all the features you'd want. Tribes now has singleplayer, STALKER has a dynamic world and multiplayer, and Rome has, well, everything but the kitchen sink.

Third Place - Tribes: Vengeance

Tribes: Vengeance is obviously the next Tribes game, but it's not just that. It's also the first Tribes with a major singleplayer component - a brave move that we applaud, though the question of how well the singleplayer will turn out is precisely what keeps Tribes in third place. Tribes 2 had enough difficulty with multiplayer, and the last time singleplayer was attempted in the series, the game was canned. From what we witnessed however, the development team is very much on their way to recreating the speed and flow of the original. The balancing of the vehicles remains the trickiest part, but we hope that Irrational doesn't get stuck on the big issues. Small touches are left to be done as well, like a surprisingly weak-looking and sounding mortar.

Second Place - STALKER

Is STALKER the game with everything? Hard to say - you decide for yourself. Take a beautiful graphics engine and build a dynamic world around it - a world painstakingly modeled on the real Chernobyl reactor site. Populate that world with all sorts of monstrosities and loot, as well as rival AI STALKERs. Take this solid foundation and throw in a mystery, a plot, the deep dark secret around Chernobyl - one that you have to discover by ranging across the aforementioned dynamic world and plumbing the depths of the power plant itself. Sprinkle this beautiful cake with the icing of a very solid-looking multiplayer model, and you might just have yourself a Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 killer.

Check out our 52 STALKER screenshots in our gallery!

First Place - Rome: Total War

Rome as a national entity was not an empire known for its subtlety or cunning. Romans tackled problems head on, constantly attacking until the issue was resolved - it took them three tries to get a fleet to Carthage - and it has taken three tries for Creative Assembly to perfect Total War. The first two attempts shared an engine and thus flaws - such as an interface ill-equipped to handle a game of such magnitude. The new game fixes all previous issues and a whole lot more. The late game is exciting thanks to the Roman Civil War, rather than dragging out with a mop-up operation and revolt management. Diplomacy is compelling, permitting treaty options as complicated as Master of Orion 2 or perhaps even Alpha Centauri. To top it off, the battles are even more exciting than ever, with cavalry realistically charging through the flanks and rear of infantry formations, elephants tossing tight-packed legionnaires aside and all this is portrayed in glorious 3D. Creative Assembly might just kill the RTS and TBS genres with this masterpiece - what can measure up?

You can take a look at our Rome: Total War screenshots at our preview gallery.