Following the end of E3 this year, we decided to give ourselves a day or two to absorb what we had observed at the show and choose our nominees for best of titles. Inititally, we had unanimously agreed that another title deserved to receive this honor, but with further thought we realized that a certain other title had affected us in a profound way for what it represented.
Adhesive Games' Hawken caught our attention earlier this year as it seemed to come out of nowhere and drop jaws all around with its incredible engine, addictive looking gameplay and fantastic art direction by the talented Khang Le. What surprised us the most is just how much a team of under ten at the time had been able to accomplish, using intelligent game building decisions and choosing to start small, with an initial plan of offering a small slice of the game to the public and expanding from there. Needless to say the game caused enough of a buzz to catch the eye of a small Seattle based free to play publisher known as Meteor Games, and the game now has the backbone to become something even greater than we had ever imagined.
With a slew of new features for the upcoming beta, including skill trees, heavy mech customization and more maps this title might single handedly revive the mech combat genre. On the other hand it also represents the power of a focused, indie outfit to create a title that could be easily mistaken for a AAA title. In a way we hope the example set by Adhesive games will empower smaller developers to realize that with the right people on board, a 100 man team is not required to create a visually stunning, fun game. For being an incredibly promising title and also potentially having the power to cause ripples in the game industry, we're proud to bestow Hawken with our second ever Game Of The Show award.
Now please come out already so we can stop throwing money at our screens.
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