Every year, nearly 40 publications vote on the annual E3 Games Critics Awards. I've put the full list of award nominees below (with the winners bolded), but here are a few highlights:

• Bethesda's Open World Post-Apocalyptic RPG Fallout 4 wins three awards (Best of Show, Best PC Game, and Best RPG), while Guerrilla Games' Open World Post-Post-Apocalyptic RPG Horizon: Zero Dawn wins only one (Best Original Game). Post-Post-Apocalypses take note.
  
  
• In what is surely a mistake of some misfiled paperwork, Just Cause 3 is nowhere on this list. That's... odd.
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  Uncharted 4 actually took home the same number of awards as Fallout 4: Best Console Game, Best Action/Adventure Game, and a "Special Commendation for Graphics." The game didn't have any competition for that last one. I don't just mean that it looked really good, I mean that the category wasn't even listed on the nominee list.

• Fallout Shelter, which was up for the Best Handheld/Mobile Game award, might just be the first nominee to technically be released before the E3 it debuted out. It is not, however, the first mobile game to be nominated in the primarily Handheld focused category: Contre Jour was nominated in 2011, and Infinity Blade Dungeons was nominated in 2012. The latter was never released.
  
  
• Yeah I just double checked and apparently there isn't even a "Most Dashing" award for Just Cause 3's Rico Rodriguez to win, so I don't know what these awards are even good for, really.
  
  
• Like major awards in other media, these lists often feel focused narrowly on products and developers with the biggest established cultural cache. I don't think you need to get all conspiratorial to groan at this: It's just the nature of the industry and of E3 as an event that the majority of games critics only get to see the Big Games. But that show floor was filled with really great looking (and totally playable) games from developers both new and established. I know it's a big thing to ask, but I'd love to see these awards figure out how to reflect the breadth of E3's offerings in the future.
  
  
• The Oculus Touch won the Hardware/Peripheral category, beating out multiple VR/AR headsets, including the Oculus Rift itself. I would've sworn that having two Oculus entrants would lead to the vote being split, but I guess not!

Anyway, I put the full list below and I'm at least vaguely interested in all of these games... But I didn't get to play any of the winning titles this year. So here are my First Annual, (Un)Official "Austin Walker (is a) Game Critic" Awards and Honors for E3 2015. This year, the theme is "Touch":

Game I Most Wish I Touched: Just Cause 3

Strangest Touch Controls: Butt Sniffin Pugs

Moment That Most Touched Me: That time Shigeru Miyamoto showed off his old design notebooks.

Game That Got Me Touched Most: In Tune (Which Vinny and I discussed on The Beastcast a few weeks ago.)

Game That I Was Promised I'd Get To Touch More This Summer: Galak-Z: The Dimensional (Please don't be lying to me, Jake!)

Game Where I Reached Out and Touched Someone With a Blood Laser (Yeah, for real): Moon Hunters

Game That Most Made Me Feel Like I'd Lost Touch With Reality:Wattam

The First Annual "Finishing Touch" Special Commendation for Polish in Art and Animation: Cuphead

Okay, okay. I'm done. I'm done. You can see the real awards below.

Game Critics Awards Best of E3 2015 Winners

Best of Show

- Fallout 4 (Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda)

- Horizon Zero Dawn (Guerrilla Games/SCE)

- Oculus Touch (Oculus VR)

- Star Wars Battlefront (DICE/EA)

- Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (Naughty Dog/SCE)

Best Original Game

- Abzu (Giant Squid/505 Games)

- Cuphead (Studio MDHR)

- Horizon Zero Dawn (Guerrilla Games/SCE)

- The Last Guardian (GenDesign/SCE Japan/SCE)

- Unravel (Coldwood Interactive/EA)

Best Console Game

- Fallout 4 (Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda)

- Horizon Zero Dawn (Guerrilla Games/SCE)

- Star Wars Battlefront (DICE/EA)

- Super Mario Maker (Nintendo)

- Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (Naughty Dog/SCE)

Best Handheld/Mobile Game

- Fallout Shelter (Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda)

- Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam (AlphaDream/Nintendo)

- Persona 4 Dancing All Night (Atlus)

- The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (Nintendo)

Best PC Game

- DOOM (id Software/Bethesda)

- Fallout 4 (Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda)

- Just Cause 3 (Avalanche Studios/Square-Enix)

- Star Wars Battlefront (DICE/EA)

- Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)

Best Hardware/Peripheral

- Microsoft HoloLens (Microsoft)

- Oculus Rift (Oculus VR)

- Oculus Touch (Oculus VR)

- Project Morpheus (Sony Computer Entertainment)

- Xbox Elite Wireless Controller (Microsoft)

Best Action Game

- DOOM (id Software/Bethesda)

- Halo 5: Guardians (343/Microsoft Studios)

- Just Cause 3 (Avalanche Studios/Square-Enix)

- Star Wars Battlefront (DICE/EA)

- Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)

Best Action/Adventure Game

- Horizon Zero Dawn (Guerrilla Games/SCE)

- Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Kojima Productions/Konami)

- Rise of the Tomb Raider (Crystal Dynamics/Microsoft Studios)

- The Last Guardian (GenDesign/SCE Japan/SCE)

- Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (Naughty Dog/SCE)

Best RPG

- Dark Souls 3 (From Software/Bandai-Namco Games)

- Fallout 4 (Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda)

- Fire Emblem Fates (Intelligent Systems/Nintendo)

- Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam (AlphaDream/Nintendo)

- Sword Coast Legends (n-Space/Digital Extremes/Wizards of the Coast)

Best Racing Game

- Forza Motorsport 6 (Turn 10/Microsoft Studios)

- Need for Speed (Ghost Games/EA)

- Trackmania Turbo (Nadeo/Ubisoft)

Best Sports Game

- FIFA 16 (EA Canada/EA)

- NHL 16 (EA Canada/EA)

- Madden NFL 16 (Tiburon/EA)

- Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 (Konami)

- Rory McIlroy PGA Tour (EA Tiburon/EA)

Best Family/Social Game

- Disney Infinity 3.0 (Avalanche Software/Disney Interactive)

- Guitar Hero Live (FreeStyleGames/Activision)

- LEGO Dimensions (TT Games/WBIE)

- Rock Band 4 (Harmonix)

- Super Mario Maker (Nintendo)

Best Online Multiplayer

- Call of Duty: Black Ops III (TreyArch/Activision)

- Halo 5: Guardians (343/Microsoft Studios)

- Star Wars Battlefront (DICE/EA)

- Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)

- Tom Clancy's The Division (Massive/Ubisoft)

Best Independent Game

- Abzu (Giant Squid/505)

- Below (Capy Games)

- Cuphead (Studio MDHR)

- No Man's Sky (Hello Games/SCE)

- Wattam (Funomena)

Special Commendation for Graphics

- Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (Naughty Dog/Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation 4)

I don't understand the whole idea of platform awards. I mean everything comes out on everything I don't see the point.

Thank you Austin for making incredibly uninteresting and meaningless news like the E3 game awards fun to read. Your awards are more real than the awards handed out at the show.

I thought Giant Bomb took an anti-E3 award stance. ...or was that just Alex?

Anyway good to see Fallout 4 doing so well. I think all the hype for that game is well deserved.

These awards are about as dumb as the "Who won E3" arguments.

So is this the judges week thing Jeff goes on? Or something different?

I thought Jeff said somewhere you need to have a playable demo to be considered which feels weird that Horizon won something, unless some people got hands on?

Those choices seem to make sense. Fallout, Uncharted, Horizon, Star Wars and No Man's Sky are the games I've seen the most talk/excitement about.

Best game starring an actor from the short lived FOX television program "Touch": MGS5 The Phantom Pain

Every platform needs a selling point.

Hold dat L Last Guardian

Man, those Miyamoto notes. Unreal.

Yeah, having Fallout 4 win for best PC game is really pointless.

Never got the point of these awards aside from being a morale boost for the teams that crunched for E3, it's a really safe list of winners that probably could have been picked just by names alone. Fun recap though.

Why are all the nominees for best PC game multiplats? How can Fallout 4 win game of show but not win the other categories it was in? I thought it was the best of show.

Why are awards given to games that no one played?

Man I totally thought The Color Purple: The Game was a shoe-in for this category

Your awards are way better than what the GCA comes up with Austin. Not surprised they gave best in show to Fallout 4, but what was with the lack of love for Just Cause 3? Miyamoto showing his old design notebooks was an amazing bit in the Nintendo Direct!

Fallout 4 deserved it, simply the best presentation there

Yeah I keep running into Zach Aikman, lead programmer at 17-bit, at industry parties and asking him about the release for Galak-Z which has an ever evolving release window. Played it at PAX Prime last year and thought it was a blast, hopefully it will make it out before this year's PAX Prime.

So Just Cause 3 is an action game but Rise of the tomb raider is an action adventure game. There's no adventure to be had in Just Cause 3 apparently.

And how can you give out awards like 'best multiplayer' to a game that's not out yet, and might not function at all during release.

If these awards are meant to mean something , they really need to do an overhaul of these weird categories. I understand that it's an 'attaboy devs! ' thing to show they're on the right track, but it could be so much better.

Ah yes, the rankings that make game publications look like the worst threads on these boards.

I'm sure I'm just being a cynical jerk, but it's baffling to see these knowledgeable folks "award" games based on hype, personal bias, and the effectiveness of a marketing team's ad budget. Giving gamers the impression of quality from that ancillary stuff and demos made specifically to impress (often at the cost of the eventual released game) just seems to reinforce negative practices in the industry.

And it's increasingly disheartening to see folks in the games media dismissing claims (ignorant though they may be) of games seeming "downgraded" from their E3 demo counterparts, when those publications so brazenly feed the hype machine that causes these problems in the first place.

Ok, rant over, and I like Austin's awards above. Though I'm still waiting to see the recipient of the coveted Giant Bomb's Best Air Conditioning in Your Behind Closed Doors Demo Room award.

Special Commendation for Graphics

- Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (Naughty Dog/Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation 4)

The fact that this is a category is kinda hilarious.

Whatever man. Fallout 4. Gimme

I don't even think Super Mario Maker fits in the category "Best Family/Social Game" - maybe they just shoehorned it in to give it some recognition.

Austin, I find your awards significantly more interesting and meaningful and way less weird and anachronistic than those other awards.

every thing about e3 was good except for no quake 5 announcement ... WTH >< coome on gimme quake 5 arena w/ built in rocket arena just remake quake 3 basically with current graphics idc.

The caption for the uncharted screenshot is pretty good!

I find the entire idea of e3 awards to be terrible. "Who did a better job at fooling people this year?"

Haha, I feel sorry for the Xbox controller. Not a chance in going up against all that VR/AR stuff for best hardware.

Hold on, how can Fallout 4 be Best of Show but not Best Console Game? I mean, if it's the best game, it's also the best console game, right?

I literally had a whole sub-point about this thing, but Jeff let me know that it was only running on PC at the show, which explains the voting.

You've no idea how much that worries me given the issues the console games tend to have.

@butano: Most Graphics Award of E3 2015.

Then why is it nominated for best console game? I mean I actually do understand why they would do it (I work in video game marketing and we need those sweet e3 nominations to make our trailers look super "rad"), but some of these categories really need to be revamped. Categorizing a game as Action or Action/Adventure in 2015 is super dumb.

My winner for Best Just Fuckin Blow Shit Up, Plot Is Overrated Game is Just Cause 3

Looking at these awards, they tell me absolutely nothing at all about the quality of these games... In fact, they seem kinda weird. Maybe I've been reading about this stuff for too long... Like, do people pre-order based on E3 judges awards?

Austin, don't sell your awards short, they're the real awards where it counts...in my heart. :')

This Uncharted sweep proves what a sham this stuff is.

Oculus Touch defeats Oculus Rift in the best hardware?
Strange.

Just wondering, was it a dev-guided demo with the "we'll let you wiggle the analog stick so you know it's gameplay" thing?

People continue to fall for Bethesda and Naughty Dog hype. I'll never understand it. I guess people just like big worlds and set pieces more then actual, fun gameplay.

Is Battlefront even going to be good? It keeps winning E3 awards but every time I see it played it looks like a dumbed down battlefield with shit vehicle controls. I still can't figure out if there is even a rifle with a sniper scope in the game...

online multiplayer really

its not like any of these games were being played online, that is such a dumb category.

This will only make sense if the best game is exclusive to a certain platform.

The weird thing here is that F4 is coming to both consoles but U4 have grapped the price while creating a whole category that no can compete in... apparently!

Seriously, this is why a lot of us can't take video games awards seriously because it always looks fucked up.

This.

I was thinking the same thing about Battlefront. It's Battlefield with Star Wars skin... it's not that I don't like it but really... they have only multiplayer mode, no story, looks pretty, but in reality it's Battlefield clone (I know... old Battlefronts were Battlefield clones as well). Oh... and maps they've showed during E3 were empty if you looked in exact spot.

Can someone please explain me why Uncharted games are soooooo amazing? Why do they gets so many almost perfect scores and game of the year rewards? I've played through all of them and they always have the same issues. Tell me! How a game with scores 10/10 should have this:

1. AI is bad... it's really bad; (enemies shoots you from anywhere and even through the walls sometimes)

2. Artificial amount of enemies; (every couple steps they throw at you 10-15 enemies... Call of Uncharted?)

3. Plenty of graphic issues... falling through maps;

4. Hitboxes and dmg dealing are complete garbage; ( sniper rifle + headshot? well you need to shoot 2-3 times in a stupid head to kill some enemies who has no armor! )

I could find even more if only I spent more time with it... They have good and interesting maps and story is ok... but really... I hope new team is going to repair those broken mechanics in newest Uncharted.

@kishinfoulux: Or maybe, you know, people think those games are fun. Or maybe you're right. Perhaps I've played through every Uncharted (Vita one doesn't count) multiple times just because someone forced me to. Not because I was having a blast.

@noli: I think you're grossly exaggerating your perceived issues/bugs with the Uncharted series. More to the point though does it really bother you that much that people enjoy and think highly of the games?

If you like it more power to you. I just think those games try to cover up their awful flaws, in different ways that people tend to fall for.

Yep.

How did No Man's Sky win anything for E3 2015? I don't mean it doesn't deserve awards, but I was under the impression that it was very deliberately not even being shown.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't basically everybody involved with it constantly saying "We're not showing anything from No Man's Sky at this year's E3"?