The next twelve months of gaming hold significant promise if this year's E3 was any indication. Hundreds of games will be released for numerous consoles, handhelds, and smartphones, and many of them are looking fantastic. The ten games below stood out to us as being a cut above the rest, or at the very least shone with potential during this year's show. 

10: South Park: The Stick of Truth

Part of the reason that South Park: The Stick of Truth blew us away as much as it did was undoubtedly that we simply weren't expecting this much from a RPG based on a sitcom. When the game featured at Microsoft's press conference, the visuals and humor, which were indistinguishable from those of the television show, made the game jump up a few notches on our E3 ladder. Couple that with a surprisingly strong character customization and loot system, and you've definitely got our interest.

9: Star Wars 1313

Star Wars 1313 may essentially be Uncharted but in the Star Wars universe (it certainly looks that way at the moment,) but there's no denying just how impressive the action looked at E3. The game is made all the more exciting by the almost inevitable possibility of it dropping on next-gen platforms. If this is our first peek of the future, consider us excited.

8: XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Take away the subtitle and the flashy graphics, and Enemy Unknown is still pure XCOM. The depth of the base building looks to rival that of the combat, which will now make frequent use of cinematic camera angles to highlight particularly cool kills. Developer Firaxis even addressed fan concerns by having the game playable exclusively on an Xbox 360 controller at the show. If what 2K and Firaxis were showing off at E3 is any indication, an alien invasion might not be so bad after all.

7: Halo 4

The Halo franchise is getting old. With four Halo games having been released between the launches of Halo 3 and 4, it's easy to see why some might be feeling a bit of franchise fatigue. We certainly didn't go into the E3 proceedings expecting to be this impressed with 343's first effort. But in the end, Halo 4 came out looking like a very solid evolution of the beloved series. New enemy types were a big focus in Microsoft's demo, with one particularly interesting drone actually tossing your grenades back at you. New weapons crafted by the Forerunners appeared later on in the demo, and although we'll need to get our hands on them to be sure, they look as if they pack quite a punch. All in all, we're certainly more excited about Halo 4's release later this year than we were before E3.

6: The Last of Us

Gritty and violent in a way that Naughty Dog titles typically shy away from, The Last of Us showed us a different side of the apocalypse. There were no heroics in Sony's demo. Sure, the player fought his way through some looters and killers, but he did so with efficient brutality that suggested something awful, something dead residing deep inside of him. The bursts of horrendous violence were countered by the claim that you could also take a sneakier route through the situation resulting in less bodies piled up in the end. With promises of more survival-focused gameplay coming at the end of E3, The Last of Us continued to impress us.

5: Far Cry 3

Hundreds, maybe even thousands of bullets were dispensed during this year's E3 demos. The ones that really stuck with us were fired in Far Cry 3. The open island environment, clever enemy AI, and beautiful graphics are all great, but it's the psyche of the player and the characters that surround him that make this game something special. That's a topic that has rarely been broached by video games before, but when it has, it's turned out some pretty great stuff. System Shock 2 or Bioshock ring any bells? If Far Cry 3 can convincingly pull off the feeling of being surrounded by and eventually succumbing to insanity, we could have something truly special on our hands.

4: Assassins Creed III

If you had asked me six months ago if I was planning on playing the new Assassins Creed game, I would've answered a resounding "no." I'm sure many others felt the same way. And then Assassins Creed III came along. This game has been in development for years, and every hour of that time showed through in the E3 build. From hunting and skinning animals to free running through the trees to blasting ships apart in epic naval battles, the newest Assassins was always upping the ante.

3: Beyond: Two Souls

It's not the stunningly realistic depiction of Ellen Page that sold us on this game. It's not the bombastic demo that followed Sony's press conference, in which the player destroyed an entire squad of SWAT using only her mind. It's not even the promising blend of developer Quantic Dream's standard quick-time event controls with more normal, combat-oriented inputs. What really has us itching to play Beyond is the story. We all know that Quantic Dream's main writer David Cage can go in some crazy directions with his plotlines (sometimes not for the best,) but at least he and the studio are willing to put themselves out there with something completely and totally unique to the industry.

2: Watch Dogs

Ubisoft blew us away when they revealed Watch Dogs at the end of their press conference. Much is still unknown when it comes to the game's specifics, but the overarching premise of being able to hack anything in your enviroment and manipulate it to suit your needs is incredibly promising. In the demo shown at E3, the player hacked a traffic light, causing a large accident. If players can look forward to that level of interaction with most objects in the game, Watch Dogs could change the way we approach combat in an action game. 

1: Dishonored

Of the games on this list, Dishonored is actually the one we'll be able to get our hands on soonest. With a release date coming in just four short months, it's nonetheless impressive that the demo shown at E3 seemed polished enough to release tomorrow. The really liberating thing about Dishonored, though, the thing that really made it stand out from the pack, was just how many options players will have when approaching an objective. By posessing a fish and swimming through a drainage pipe, you might be able to sneak into an enemy facility. Alternately, you could use a mixture of parkour and powers to sneak in unnoticed. If you're more of the flashy type, you could simply brandish a sword and engage the enemies in in-depth combat. The options go on and on, and so does our excitement for Dishonored's October release.