EG Expo Game of the Show: The Nominees

Eurogamer is delighted to announce the 10 nominees for its Game of the Show, Eurogamer Expo 2011.

The winner will be announced on Monday 26th September. The winner and nominees were chosen by Eurogamer.net staff.

As with our recent Gamescom awards, there's only one Game of the Show, and we make no distinction between platforms and genres in the selection process. Good games are good games.

Since the Expo is all about affording gamers - that's you, hello! - a chance to get hands-on time with the biggest and best upcoming games, all of our nominees are playable on the show floor.

Here's the list of nominees, in alphabetical order. Words by Tom Bramwell, Martin Robinson and Oli Welsh.

At a Distance

An Expo exclusive in more ways than one, VVVVVV creator Terry Cavanagh's latest is a game designed to be played amidst the scrum of a show floor. (Though it's probably not designed to be accompanied by Take on Me, but that's what happens when you pop the thriving Indie Games Arcade next to Just Dance 3.)

First aired at NYU's No Quarter exhibition earlier this year, At a Distance places a premium on co-operation; two players are plunged into an abstract pixelated maze and they must help each other negotiate to an exit. What follows over the next 30 minutes is like an episode of Knightmare with Escher acting as the dungeon master, though to say more would spoil the special air of mystery that At a Distance conjures. It's unlikely that this particular curio will get a commercial release, so play it while you can. (MR)

Batman: Arkham City

One of the longest queues on the show floor is for the feverishly anticipated Arkham Asylum sequel from local heroes Rocksteady, based just a few miles away from Earls Court in Highgate, North London. It's clear enough from the demo that Arkham City is only going to cement the studio's reputation as one of the hottest in the world.

After introducing Catwoman's lightning-quick, acrobatic combat moves, the demo switches to Batman himself, showing how the familiar mixture of stealth, muscular brawling, detection and exploration is linked by a new open-world structure rather than Asylum's meandering, Metroid template. Now you can glide between rooftops and dangle from gargoyles above city streets, Rocksteady's suite of Batman wish-fulfillment is complete. (OW)

Battlefield 3

DICE has brought over several different setups for Battlefield 3, so you can get a sense of the different aspects of the game ahead of its release next month. There's console and PC competitive multiplayer, plus the single-player Operation Guillotine campaign level, which sees players joining a platoon assaulting Tehran at night, racing downhill into mortars under a sky latticed by flares and tracer fire.

The final game also features a dedicated co-op section, so it really can be all things to all people. Can it topple Call of Duty? Who cares - you can't go wrong with either. (TB)

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

A late addition to the Expo line-up but a very welcome one, Modern Warfare 3's setup lets you check out Spec Ops Survival mode, where two players have to work together to survive waves of enemy troops invading their space and getting up in their grill.

You can buy weapons, upgrades and tactical support - like riot-shield-wielding security forces, or airstrikes - in between rounds. But watch out for the enemy's own variations, like helicopter gunships, bomb dogs and juggernauts. (TB)