This year's E3 in Los Angeles was 2,400 products strong.  What PC games stood out?  Here are the seven games we think made the biggest impact – and stay tuned for our lists of the games that surprised us as well as the ones that left us unimpressed.  

The new citadel in Black and White.   Screenshot Gallery

Black and White
Developer: Lionhead
Publisher: Electronic Arts

E3 2000 marked the third E3 appearance of Peter Molyneux's build-your-own-utopia adventure.   Three years ago it was just a wire frame engine with people represented by dots, but this year the game is practically done.  The most exciting news is that Molyneux has pinned himself down to a release date: September 23, 2000.  He says that means the game has to be finished within six weeks.

Based on what was on display at E3 it seems reasonable to expect Black and White this fall. For those unfamiliar with the story, you play a young sorcerer coming into the land of Eden, a happy-go-lucky world where your presence and actions are all that's needed to swing the social ethos for or against you.   This year Molyneux demonstrated some of the story aspects of the game (separated into three "books").  One example he showed from the beginning of the game involves a mother who looses her son in the forest.  As the sorcerer you can decide how to handle the situation: go find the son and return him to mom; go kill the son; or worst of all, go kill the son and then bring the mother over to see her dead son.  The game is completely open-ended, allowing you to make the game whatever you want it to be.

My lingering question in past years has always been how such an open-ended game is going to have some type of linear plot progression.  Molyneux assures me there is a structured story and a series of events that play out, including the introduction of the player creature -- the animal so often featured in game screenshots -- toward the end of the first book.    Good and bad advisors (think Theme Park's advisor dressed either in devil's ears or a white angel halo) also help move the plot along.

What's most impressive about Black and White is that Molyneux keeps adding new layers to the gameplay experience.  This year he debuted the citadel interface, which uses a completely new 3D engine and allows players to visit their creature in a playpen and keep track of what's actually happening in their world.  Molyneux has also added a feature that allows your creature to actually publish a webpage on the Internet that will talk about who you are a sorcerer (and master).  

Amid a sea of sameness on the E3 show floor, Black and White stands out for its innovation, but it also has the gameplay to back it up as one of the best games due for release in 2000.