After the results of the Game Critics Awards were announced two weeks ago, we reached out to several winners for their reactions and some updates about their games in progress. Despite some tough competition against established brands, newcomer Dead Space took home the award for Best Action/Adventure Game. We emailed some questions to Glenn Schofield, executive producer at Electronic Arts Redwood Shores. Here are his responses:

What was your reaction to winning Best Action/Adventure Game? The original Resident Evil is one of the progenitors of the survival-horror genre--are you surprised you beat Resident Evil 5?

The whole team and I were excited, honored and humbled by winning. To even be included in that list was fantastic, but to win was amazing. I'm proud of this game and the team. The passion, talent and effort that went into making Dead Space are being recognized and we are very appreciative of that.

When I first saw the vertical slice of Dead Space running two years ago on the original Xbox, it was not only the best-looking Xbox game I'd seen, it also had all of the major systems in place: dismemberment, zero-G, integrated menus, etc. What are you doing on Xbox 360 and PS3 that you couldn't have done on the Xbox?

Wow, that's right--you were one of the very few to see the original slice. As you can imagine every system was pushed to its limit. Dismemberment at that time didn't have realistic physics and there were just a few dismemberment points. We've tripled or quadrupled all the dismemberment pieces at the very least. We added a brand new lighting tech that gives Dead Space its distinctive look, mood and feel.

Special effects, audio, textures, polys and all the content are at the very edge of what the hardware can handle. Thousands and thousands of animations and, of course, an AI system that is extremely complex because of the many variations a dismembered character can have. We added the video logs which is a very cool feature to the game and one of the ways we tell the story. Once you see how dense with detail and enemies these decks are you'll know this could never have been pulled off on the last gen. Not even close.

One of the dangers of putting together a compelling vertical slice is that the finished product merely photocopies that slice of gameplay over and over again. What can you say to assure us that this won't be the case with Dead Space?

To read our Q&A with Glen Schofield in its entirety, click on the link below.

 Fallout 3, developed and published by Bethesda Softworks 

After the results of the Game Critics Awards were announced two weeks ago, we reached out to several winners for their reactions and some updates about their games in progress. The big winner was Fallout 3 from Bethesda, which won two awards: Best of Show and Best Role-Playing Game. We emailed some questions to Todd Howard, executive producer at Bethesda. Here's what he wrote back:

What was your reaction to winning both Best of Show and Best Role-Playing Game for Fallout 3?

Honestly? Total shock. I didn't think we were going to win. I was elated to be even put in the top 5 of so many great games at E3, I think the quality of what people were showing this year was really high, some really great games out there this year. I think it could have easily gone to another game, it's almost like a "what's your favorite color?" test when you get to that level. Still, we're extremely excited here, the whole team has put a lot into this game, and to be acknowledged like this is pretty awesome.

VATS [Vaul-Tec Assisted Targeting System] has gotten a lot of praise. Do you expect this more deliberate and tactical mechanic to open up Fallout 3 to a wider audience than your previous games?

I don't think VATS equates to a wider audience, probably the opposite, but it just felt like something we wanted to do. It started as trying to find a new way for your character on-screen to be a total badass, even though you, the gamer, are not one--not you N'Gai, I mean the hypothetical non-badass-gamer. The struggle for us was finding ways to make it fast enough and simple enough that someone new to the genre would "get it" quickly. So, I think we're happy with how it plays.

Also, the camera angles in VATS, while dramatic, are sometimes odd and confusing. What needs to be done to fix this by launch?

To read the rest of our Q&A with Todd Howard, click on the link below.

1. EGO...trip: nature abhors a vacuum, or, along comes a conversation
2. REW...Grand Theft Auto IV revisited and reconsidered, sexily
3. REV...ersal: used to doing the screaming, Sega gets screamed on
4. RND...We have seen the future. Now you can do so as well