E3 2011 wasn't short of visually arresting work, from the breaktakingly dynamic backgrounds of El Shaddai to the comic book-inspired look of The Darkness II. Yet it was the gorgeous minimalist look of Journey that ultimately won us over for our Living Artwork award. After Flow and Flower, the character-based platforming of Journey feels almost like a natural next step for developer thatgamecompany. The 15 minutes of hands-on time we spent on the game was more than enough to make our decision but we really could have stayed at Sony's E3 booth the whole day had the final version been available. This was part of an Examiner awards hat trick that publisher Sony pulled off (more than any other publisher this year), placing Journey in the same company as Uncharted: Drake's Deception and Sound Shapes.