E3 Winners: Halo, God of War, Zelda (not Mario)

As many industry professionals can attest, E3 2009 can be extremely productive in meeting and discussing business, but actually playing the games in question is a difficult task.

Thankfully, many thousands of attendees fill the role of "game player" quite nicely, and IndustryGamers had some fun keeping an eye open for what we saw as the hottest games on the show floor.

It comes as no surprise that first-party games scored the longest lines of the show, but would you believe that the biggest game at Nintendo was not the recently announced New Super Mario Bros. Wii?

Instead it was Link, the hero in The Legend of Zelda games, creating lines that stretched past the confines of the Nintendo booth. The system of choice wasn't even the Wii, as The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks is for the Nintendo DS. Although the free stylus that was handed out to players was a nice enticement, the lines continued well after the booth agents ran out of free swag.

Over at the Sony booth, the violent God of War III was easily the most popular game, with lines that had people waiting for well over an hour to control Kratos on his first PlayStation 3 adventure.

Although Microsoft's booth stayed away from the Nintendo and Sony-dominated West Hall, South Hall was consistently abuzz with Halo 3 ODST, the latest edition in the blockbuster series of games. If the two-hour waits were any indication, any concern over Master Chief not making an appearance should have been easily squelched.

Other games with lines of note included Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo), Uncharted 2 (Sony), MAG (Sony), Forza III (Microsoft Game Studios), Splinter Cell Conviction (Ubisoft) and Avatar (Ubisoft).