1. Mass Effect 2

First and foremost is BioWare’s Mass Effect 2 the sequel to E3 2006’s Best RPG of the Year. Being touted as the grim second act in the Mass Effect Trilogy, ME2 promises to bring an intriguing story, more action and higher detail graphics with less pop-in and shorter elevator rides than it’s predecessor. I’ve become so excited for this game that I started playing through the original one more time just so I will be able to see how the plotline in ME2 varies depending on the choices that I made in the first. Funny thing is that the texture pop in never bothered me the first time around, but now it’s getting a little obnoxious.

2. Dragon Age: Origins

Next up on my list is Dragon Age: Origins. Yet another BioWare title—yes, I have become a fanboy—DA:O is a new RPG series set in the medieval fantasy realm of Ferelden. You are playing as a member of the Gray Warden, a society who’s purpose is to stop The Blight from encroaching upon the world. The Blight appears to consist of dragons, antlered-ogres, and an assortment of walking corpses. You can see from these clips that DA:O continues to look fricking superb. BioWare is going to a dark place in order to bring the intensity to DA:O, which becomes evident when you visit their newly updated blood-soaked website. In an interview with Gamespot, Dan Tudge gives a little more detail regarding where the inspiration for Dragon Age: Origins came from.

Fans who loved the rich story, interesting characters, and tactical combat in the deep fantasy setting of Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights will love what we’re doing in Dragon Age: Origins. We’re capturing the same great spirit of story, exploration, tactical combat, and character progression that we delivered in those previous titles and bringing it to a dark, heroic fantasy setting. We’ve taken a lot of what we learned from creating Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights to make Dragon Age: Origins even better, so fans can expect a lot of what they enjoyed about those games, but with next-gen improvements.

3. Crackdown 2

When I first heard the signature beeps at the beginning of this trailer my arm hairs stood up on end. I thought to myself,“No way, it’s too good to be true.” But there it was right before my eyes, Crackdown 2. The highly anticipated—by my gaming buddies at least—follow up to the original sleeper hit, Crackdown 2 brings you back to Pacific City where you will be responsible for bringing order and justice to the city by any means necessary (read: by jumping really high and blowing stuff up). According to Xbox.com you will be able to play with up to 16 friends in online versus mode and up to 4 in co-op mode in a wide open sandbox playground that appears to be experiencing some sort of invasion by a monstrous virus. The only unknown for this title is whether developer Ruffian Games can surpass the fun-factor that Realtime Worlds brought to the first installment of Crackdown.

4. Tekken 6

I might have mentioned a time or two that I am stoked to see Tekken being ported to the 360. It is my all time favorite fighting series. The controls have always felt intuitive and the response time is top-notch which means the gameplay is ultra-slick. With any luck this will translate over to the latest console ports of this arcade game, and Ivy can have a blast pummeling me with whatever cheap move she masters. The bit of the Tekken 6 E3 preview that I enjoyed the most was watching the robo-licious scenario mode preview. Doesn’t that look like a ton of fun to play through?

5. Shadow Complex

Besides Crackdown 2, Shadow Complex was the only other title that I hadn’t heard of already which interested me during Microsoft’s E3 keynote. The story behind Shadow Complex is pretty standard fair. Set in Orson Scott Card’s Empire universe, you’re on a mission to stop some “evil” paramilitary group from taking over. The style of gameplay is what interests me. By melding polished 3D graphics and high end physics courtesy of Epic’s Unreal engine with classic side scroller action that’s reminiscent of all of those NES titles that frustrates the hell out of me as a kid, Chair Entertainment is creating a unique retro-modern title that promises to be the next generation of Xbox Live gaming.

I could probably go on and on with more highlights from E3, and trust me I very nearly did, but this post has already been a week+ in the making. Instead I’m going to ask you, what are your Top 5 picks from E3 this year? Was there something that you were hoping to see but didn’t? Was there something that completely blew your mind?

Well, it’s not the Halo movie, but Peter Jackson and Neil Blomkamp have teamed up for another alien flick, District 9, set to hit theaters on August 14.

The description from IMDB is sparse, but the trailer itself makes this movie look pretty intriguing.

An extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth suddenly find a kindred spirit in a government agent that is exposed to their biotechnology.

Like all good sci-fi conspiracy movies these days, D9 is chock full of ARG goodness, with an informational website about the human/nonhuman segregation guidelines, and another site Multi National United, which I can only assume is the evil corporation in this story. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there with the time and inclination to get sucked into this world, but I will save myself the trouble and wait for District 9 to hit the theaters in August.

Bunnies vs. Llamas (I think?) fighting it out in a parody of the Iran hostage crisis. This is a strange anime, but I ‘m still stoked to see it.