E3 2012 came and went, and after four days of getting to see nothing but awesome, upcoming video games, not to mention the crazy amounts of miles we racked up from just walking between the two convention halls, we're back and ready to share all our experiences with you guys. Amongst all of the games we saw, there had to be standouts of course, so without further ado, here is GameZone

BEST OF THE SHOW: E3 2012

Matt Liebl

To pick one "best" game out of the dozens I saw and played at E3 is just stupid. There are far too many games coming out to pick one so I will pick my top favorites. Although I didn't get to play any of them, these are the games I'm most excited for now:

Watch Dogs: Ubisoft had an incredibly impressive showing at E3. They announced a strong lineup of games that included Assassin's Creed 3, Just Dance 4, Rayman Legends, and Watch Dogs, a new open-world action-adventure that "blends cutting-edge technologies and sophisticated game design into a realistic and living open world where players must use any means at their disposal to take down a corrupt system." The demo showed off Aiden Pearce, a "new class of antihero" who has the ability to hack into any connected electronic system; Pearce uses that ability to track down targeted marks. It looked fantastic and I can't wait to see more from it! Oh, and the game threw a curveball at us when they zoomed out and showed multiplayer gameplay. Awesome!

The Last of Us: In my opinion, Sony had the best E3 briefings of the three major platforms. This game is one of those reasons. We finally saw some gameplay footage and it looked incredible. If there was ever any doubt that Naughty Dog couldn't create a game to rival the excellence of Uncharted, then they are now gone. It was visually pleasing, action-packed, and a ton of fun. Plus, it was badass when Ellie smashed that dude with a rock.

Beyond: Two Souls: Another stunning PS3-exclusive. Remember when everyone freaked out about Ellie from The Last of Us, claiming she looked awfully familiar to Ellen Page. Well, this game actually stars Ellen Paige. I don't know why, but people LOVE her! And I'm excited to see what this game has to offer.

Assassin's Creed 3: I've never played any of the others, but this one has peaked my interest. Gameplay looked smooth, graphics looked great. Assassin's Creed 3 looks to be an all-around solid, fun play. Also, my favorite part of E3 was when they said you don't only kill British soldiers in the game and then proceeded to show an entire video montage of Connor killing British soldiers.

Verdict: Honestly, did you really expect me to pick just one game?

Michael Splechta

I have to fully agree with Matt. It's almost impossible to pick one single game I saw or played that stood out as the best amongst the rest, but with that said, I did get very excited about a few new announcements.

The best game I can look forward to this year: Assassin's Creed III has by far exceeded any of my previous expectations. Not only did we actually get to see more varied gameplay this time around, we got to see a completely new mode of play with Connor as the captain of his own ship, complete with sea exploration and some intense naval battles. As far as size of map goes, we've been told that the land size exceeds the size of any previous Assassin's Creed games, so those who like their open world big, will get exactly that.

The best game I never knew about: Watch Dogs took us all by surprise. From the cryptic announcement video to the actual gameplay, that featured a gorgeous open world and some serious hacking abilities, the game looked simply amazing. Ubisoft managed to keep this game completely under wraps and blow all our minds with the unveiling of Watch Dogs during their press conference. You can believe this game is on my "must watch" list for 2013.

The best game I only got to watch: Square Enix was showing off actual gameplay of Lara Croft's origin story. Tomb Raider first released an incredible trailer that was almost too hard to watch. In the Square Enix booth however, we finally got to see most of that trailer, in gameplay form, and boy did it not disappoint. This was truly a game about survival. Lara had to hunt, gather, make fire, cook food, and most of all survive her attackers. Even though I only got a glimpse of what the game is like, I'm super excited to see how the full game shapes up, when it releases next year.

Verdict: While I had many favorites, most of them came from Ubisoft, so if there has to be a winner of E3, it is definitely them.

Lance Liebl

If I had to choose one game, it would be In and Out Burger: The Video Game. I kid, I kid! Seriously, there's no possible way to choose one game. Everyone is saying the Tomb Raider/Assassin's Creed III/Watch Dogs answer, so I'll go with three different ones.

1. Injustice: Gods Among Us: The presentation for this game blew me away. I'm not even that into fighting games; I enjoy them, sure, but am I good? No. I suck at fighting games. NetherRealm did an awesome job with the newest Mortal Kombat, and Injustice looks even better than that. I've never seen environment interaction taken to such great heights. Write this down: When Injustice: Gods Among Us releases, it will become the #1 fighting game. TAKE IT TO THE BANK!

2. Guardians of Middle-Earth: I'm a huge, huge, HUGE MOBA fan. I play League of Legends pretty much every night. I always wonder how it would play on a console. Well WB Games makes my list again due to Guardians of Middle Earth, a League of Legends-esque MOBA for consoles (Xbox 360 and PS3). The game was fast and frantic, had unique aspects to it, and played great with a controller. And it was an awesome feeling getting a triple kill and then having Dan Dinh shoutcast your game saying how great you did.

3. Dollar Dash: I really had no idea what this game was, but I had a blast playing it. It's a great four-player multiplayer game where you run around as a crook, trying to collect more cash than the other robbers, all while using power-ups to benefit you and hurt them. Thanks to Kalypso, I was taken back to middle school and high school where me and my friends would stay up all night playing multiplayer games that just had us shouting and laughing (no pillow fights, don't worry).

So there's my best of E3. Everyone can rave about the obvious titles, but I felt like these flew under the radar and should get some recognition

Verdict: In-n-Out Burger is still a winner in my eyes!

Andrew Clouther

As the majority of the others, I’m having difficulty choosing a single game to vote as the ‘best’ of E3. I’ve decided to choose an ordered top three instead.  So here goes:

1. Tomb Raider: there, I said it.  I am someone who has never been interested in a single Tomb Raider game but everything that I’ve seen about this new title has me enthralled. I’m a sucker for backstory, I like to see how protagonists rise to their heroic states, and I like to see what ordeals the hero (heroine) has to go through to become the way they are. From the game play demo and trailers I’ve seen, you know Lara is going to get run down to the breaking point and have to overcome some horrific obstacles to become the ‘Tomb Raider’ folk are familiar with.

This new Tomb Raider is a blend of an action-adventure, platformer, and survival game now mixed with RPG elements. You gain experience and have perks you can give Lara to customize your adventure more. What really got my hyped for this game is what Square Enix is doing with the evolution of Lara’s psyche as the game progresses. She will transform from someone who is nervous and scared about crossing a thin bridge to being someone sneaking up and shooting mercenaries in the face. I want to play the game just to see how this metamorphosis goes down; the trailers make everything seem so dark and wicked. As of now, this is a must buy for me next year.

2. Watch Dogs: The cyberpunk child inside of me is malnourished. Watching the reveal of Watch Dogs at the Ubisoft press conference was like a feast for the little guy. It’s like a combination of the Matrix without the ‘real’ world and Shadowrun without the other races and magic. The ability to hack any phone, mechanical device, and street light from a mobile device is enticing.  I also liked the part when the protagonist was at the party and just by targeting someone he knew the entire file on them: like past crimes, blood type, and name. Now add these cyberpunk qualities to a GTA type open world and my mind is blown. Lastly, at the end they also teased multiplayer. Yea.

3 End of Nations: I see myself dishing out lots of money in 2013 for games such number 1 and 2. Let’s not forget about those who take on the free-to-play model.  End of Nations is a RTS game with RPG elements attached. Join a faction, get some commanders, level those commanders, choose your ability lay out, choose your troops, and then battle online cooperatively or vs other players.  Is 1v1 your style? That’s cool. What about 28v28? Yea, because that’s thing. I love RTS games and RPG games, I can’t imagine not liking this game. It’s also free… so why wouldn’t I try it? Plus, you can deck your units out in bacon camo and have your profile picture be a honey badger – just saying.

Verdict: Tomb Raider completely stole my heart.

Vito Gesualdi

As the site's resident pessimist, I spent most of E3 wondering when video games started taking themselves so goddamned seriously. Everybody seems only interested in making these heavy epics, spending more time hooking up the motion capture suits and penning thousands of pages of dialogue, rather than just making something stupidly fun. Meanwhile, the industry's stride towards hyper-realism is honestly scary to me. I mean, people are really excited to play semi-realistic war simulations like Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Shooting Nazis was one thing, everybody hates Nazis, but it's now becoming apparent that our game developers don't have the moral compass to properly manage this whole "modern warfare" thing.

Games are supposed to be fun, but having a guy plead for his life before we blow his head off with a shotgun isn't the kind of fun I'm interested in.

That's why my pick for Game of the Show is Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, a game where you cut a helicopter in half with a samurai sword. This sort of thing is awesome, and what I believe video games are supposed to be about. Mindless, gleeful violence, perpetrated against cyborgs and other enemies I feel okay with murdering in great numbers. Games can still be violent, let's just get back to shooting cyber demons instead of foreigners.

Verdict: Konami blew me away with MGR Revengeance.

Do you agree with our picks? Got an idea for a future GameZone Roundtable?  Let us know in the comments!