E3 2009 has passed and it will probably go down as the best, even better than the often glamorised 1998. There was a stream of constant quality this year which revelled in the extended hardware life cycle. Every developer knows exactly what to do with the hardware on the market and us gamers get to revel in their expertise. The following are some of the best surprises of E3, titles and phenomenon that completely came out of the left field:

Crackdown 2: The mere existence of this title restores my faith in gaming . Lots of people absolutely fell in love with the fun over fiction game-play of the original, but at retail it was tainted by the Halo 3 Beta key which immediately devalued the product. As a result it was expected that nobody would see anything more of the exaggerated super cops bounding through the city, but the trailer at the Microsoft Conference changed all that.

Left 4 Dead 2: Valve are slow, its an industry fact. They pushed episodic gaming to its schedulinging limits and many can’t wait to get their hands on Episode 3. We all need to know what happened to Alyx Vance and much more importantly playing with the Portal gun with living enemies around. But it will be a while for any of us will see that properly as Valve have another sequel up its sleeve, one which was released only a year a go. This represents an odd counter-culture to a relationship which is usually extremely healthy between the Half Life developers and fans. Even birthing a protest group in the Steam community named “L4D2 Boycott”. But screw those guys because frankly Valve are absolutely awesome when it comes to free content; Orange box represented a crazy amount of value and the continued support of Team Fortress 2 puts other developers (apart from Criterion) to shame. Gamers need to realise nothing comes for free, so anything we recieve is a bonus and not a pre-requisite with any developer.

Splinter Cell Conviction: Back to the drawing board is usually a nice way of saying cancelled, and this cherished Tom Clancy franchise had definitely gone through the ringer. But this year Sam Fisher is back with a bang and he seems an entirely different agent to any game before with a sense of quiet anger which only Michael Ironside can deliver. Action this year seems quicker and very Bourne-esque but that doesn’t mean that all the gadgetry which the series is famed for is out of the window.

Halo Reach: Okay so a new Halo is never going to surprise anyone, the never ending Microsoft cash cow will probably never end with constant spin offs fleshing out the universe. But Bungie have always taken their fiction extremely seriously and setting a game on the fantastic book by Eric Nylund is a master stroke. Effectively the bloodiest battle in Halo history, this title promises to be dark and savage.

PSP Go Price Point: £250for a console which has no UMD drive and actually has a smaller screen. Hopefully there will be more power under the hood because there cannot be many gamers out there willing to shell out that much money for a handheld which will probably be replaced sooner rather than later.

Persona PSP: Original game for the PS1 re-released and enhanced for Sony’s handheld. Everything is newly localised so more in line with the excellent translations which Atlus performed with the latest sequels. Now the reason why Gaming Goodness is excited about this is because it really has become the JRPG choice for those who don’t usually like JRPG’s, they are different and you to actually think and involve characters which are anything other than boiler plate.

Smiles, right?

Cammie Dunaway at Nintendos Press Conference: Dearest Mrs Dunnaway was criticised a lot last year for what was a symbolically shoddy E3 showing from the “Big N.” This year was much better with titles such as Metriod M and New “New” Super Mario Bros on the Wii. Perhaps what was most surprising was how Nintendo bravely stuck by their charismatic VP of Sales and Marketing in the face of such criticism and actually gave her more host time than fan favourite Reggie Fils-Aime. Although there was a slight change from Cammie “Smiley” Dunaway, she seemed a lot more sullen and nowhere near as happy as her performance last year. Perhaps it was the repeat appearance of Wii Sports Resort and Motion Plus which got her down, who would wouldn’t want to demo that thing in front of thousands of hardened gamers once, let alone two years in a row.

Kojima whore-ing it out: Apart from PES and Dancing Stage, Konami could easily be dubbed  Kojima company at this point. But his appearances both the Sony and Microsoft conference signalled a big push for new Metal Gear content including a prequel with Peace Walker on the PSP and spin-off dubbed Rising, which is based on Raiden’s story. What is most surprising is that Hideo Kojima’s games are never, ever huge system sellers. Metal Gear Solid 4 performed poorly at retail and is considered such by most of the specialist media, so why is trotting him out at a press event such big news? Well its a status thing, Kojima represents the cutting edge of story telling in our growing meduim and he is a figure which the core-st of audiences latch on to and respect. He is a courting figure and seeing him reach such prominence at this years E3 was both suprising and humbling at the same time.

Final Fantasy VII on PS3 and PSP: It seems like PSN:Japan gets all the cool games for download, titles which us Westerners can only dream about. But with releases such as Trash Panic during E3, announcement and subsequent release of classic PS1 title Final Fantasy VII. It seems as though the European division of Sony is finally understanding that Europe represents one of the most under-appreciated gaming centres in the world, its ripe for a hostile takeover.