Rock Band, developed by Harmonix

The Game Critics Association, of which the Level Up staff is a member, has just announced its 2007 Game Critics Awards nominations for the best games shown at the recent E3 Media & Business Summit in Los Angeles. Leader of the pack? That would be the would-be Guitar Hero slayer known as Rock Band--developed by Harmonix and published by MTV and Electronic Arts--with five nominations. Lighters up, people.

Just behind Rock Band, with four nominations each, are Infinity Ward/Activision's military shooter Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and Irrational Games/2K Games' action-RPG BioShock. The three games were nominated for Best of Show, along with Bethesda Softworks' Fallout 3 (three nominations) and BioWare/Microsoft Game Studios' Mass Effect (three nominations.) Our personal favorite, Media Molecule/Sony Computer Entertainment's LittleBigPlanet, received three nominations, including one for Best Original Game. The winners will be announced next week, but in the meantime, you can get a fuller breakdown of the awards by the numbers here.

For the full list of nominees, click on the link below.

Mr. Yellowhead, from the Craftworld prototype of Media Molecule's PS3 game LittleBigPlanet, courtesy Gamespot

Going into the E3 Media & Business Summit, our Best of Show shortlist consisted of two choices: Rock Band and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. And until the last day of the show, the two titles were still our front-runners. Then we attended a closed-door showing of Media Molecule and Sony's LittleBigPlanet, followed by our first hands-on experience with the game, and we were reminded once again why LBP stole the show at this year's Game Developers Conference. It's got the creativity possibilities of a child's toy box, the charm of a Pixar movie, and the joyfully simple controls that were promised in the now-legendary GDC stage demonstration, shown here. We have no idea what our fellow Game Critics Awards judges will nominate tomorrow, but for us, the choice is clear.

During the Q&A portion of LittleBigPlanet's E3 demonstration, we asked founders Mark Healey and Alex Evans about Craftworld, the different-but-equally charming 2-D prototype that had convinced Sony to sign the startup to a deal, which they'd shown during a smaller session at GDC. Specifically, we wanted to know whether Media Molecules had any plans to further develop and release it. The response--which involved shock, stammering, a near-admission and ultimately a demurral--is transcribed below.

Level Up: The 2-D prototype that you guys did was also very striking. Do you have any plans for that? PSP? Playstation Network? A hidden unlock? Something else?

Mark Healey: [Laughs.] There's--we're not allowed to talk about that, are we?

Playstation publicist: No.

Alex Evans: Sorry, we can't.

Healey: But that prototype you saw, the physics in that is exactly what's being used here. This is almost that prototype, just with remastered graphics really, and the added extra layers.

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