Over the next six days, Hardcore Gamer will be revealing its Best of E3 2015 Awards leading up to our Game of Show. Today we present you with the Best Fighter, Sports, Platformer, Indie and Adventure game.

Best Fighter: Street Fighter V

A slower and heavier-hitting fighting game than its predecessor, Street Fighter V offers quick satisfaction and accessible depth to newcomers and a change of pace for veterans. This light accessibility is something fighting games sorely need in this age where not enough people take the time to get invested in a deep 2D fighting game like Street Fighter. With a neat new V-Gauge system which makes every character even more unique from each other and special attack meters that gain much faster than before, Street Fighter V encourages a more aggressive, but paced, style of play. The result so far has been an empowering experience where we can feel far more capable in a fight than before, without being too powerful and without fear of being overwhelmed. While it is already shaping up in the right direction, we hope to see Street Fighter V come even more into its own next year when it comes out on PlayStation 4 and PC.

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Best Sports Game: NHL 16

Alright, so it's no secret that NHL 15 didn't exactly turn out as we had hoped. While the core game of hockey was incredibly solid, the game was stripped of some of its most beloved features and felt like an afterthought in EA Sports' catalog. So why are we so quick to award its successor with an award? Because not only are most of those sorely missed features returning in this installment, but the game manages to feel even better. Even months before release, this is a solid and realistic game of hockey that should ultimately result in many hours spent in our favorite Canadian-centric game (sorry curling/leaf watching).

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Best Platformer: Unravel

The platforming genre is extremely competitive these days -- and that’s just within the indie circuit. To really stand out amongst the crowd you need to ensure your game is doing something truly special. Unravel, developed by Coldwood Interactive, looks to be going down the right path. Starring a cute cat-like being named Yarny, players must traverse a beautiful landscape as Yarny unravels. Being made of yarn has its benefits! Thanks to the red yarn always trailing from its body, players can throw it to help climb, traipse, or swing across areas with ease. Beyond the engaging physics-based gameplay, Unravel also appears to have a message at its core which is likely to enchant gamers young and old. There’s no doubt Unravel will be one of the most charming platformers of the year when it finally launches on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

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Best Indie Game: Cuphead

Cuphead has been drawing attention since it was shown in a tremendously brief trailer during E3 2014. Since then, people have been desperate to see and learn more about this game with a 30s cartoon style. Now that it was playable at E3 we’re finally seeing that Cuphead indeed has killer gameplay to go along with its gorgeous art style. One thing that folks might not have anticipated is how difficult it is! Basically, Cuphead is a boss rush style game where you start at a hub world and then select the battle you’d like to take on. Once there, you’re thrust into a truly gorgeous animated world with a painful boss fight ahead of you. It’s hard but definitely the kind of game that will reward practice. This year was an amazing one for indie titles all around, but it’s hard to say that many came close to reaching Cuphead’s mix of expertly crafted gameplay and eye-popping graphics. It’s going to be a long wait until release on Xbox One and PC in 2016.

 

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Best Adventure Game: No Man's Sky

You will never see the vast majority of content in No Man’s Sky. It is impossible. You could spend your whole life hopping from planet to planet, system to system, and only ever scratch the surface. You’ll also likely never run into another player; you might find traces of other people, but you could very well never bump into another soul. These probably sound like negatives, but actually, they’re some of the most exciting things about No Man’s Sky, which has the potential to be the most expansive game ever created. But the big lingering question has been, well, what do you actually do in the game besides fly around and look at stuff? Finally, at E3, developer Hello Games answered: mine resources, participate in space battles, protect or rob freighters and blast robots, with more surprises to come. No Man’s Sky looks like it could be the ultimate space exploration game, and it was the coolest adventure game at the show. All we can do now is cross our fingers for Project Morpheus support.

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