Despite the thousands of mouth-watering high resolution video games available at the show, my favorite game was the queasy little independent shmup coming to the PlayStation 3 -- Everyday Shooter. If I could have taken one game home, that would have been it. The game is completely unassuming -- it looks like a cross between a trapper-keeper and geometry wars, with a hint of Rez for flavor. The simplistic enemies and flat cell-shaded graphics are the complete antithesis of what we were told next-gen games would be like, which is why it is so refreshing. Little did I know that it has been around since the 29th of March, 2006! I've been living in a bubble.

While Everyday shooter looks simple, there is more depth to this game than Geometry Wars. The chain system is completely different in each level has a lot of depth and makes the game as challenging as you want it to be -- you can either ignore it and enjoy the sheer pew-pew-pew joy of it or waste E3 away trying to get on the leaderboard. Last but not least: I had the pleasure of playing it with headphones and can't say enough about the music. It has a simple rock guitar riff that sounds like a roadie doing warm up session at a Tom Petty concert -- and everything you react with also plays a chord. This is no discredit to big studios like EA who had some of the best looking games I've ever seen at a gaming conference, but I'm chalking this one up for the independents who are still making great casual hardcore games that have nothing to do with me cooking, playing tennis, or doing aerobics. Check out the developer's site: http://www.everydayshooter.com/

Runner up? Army of Two. The stealth co-op system is fucking amazing.