1. Prison Architect (Introversion)
From the studio that brought you Darwinia and DEFCON, the unassuming-on-the-surface management sim Prison Architect was one of the most popular games at the convention, and promises to be a sleeper hit. It was the one game I was told I had to play, but unfortunately I was foiled in this by the immense crowd of attendees hovering around the booth all weekend hoping to take a turn at Introversion's intriguing new game. The premise sounds simple enough: you're tasked with building and managing a prison system that has to cater to the many and various needs of the prisoners while also preventing them from escaping. Heavily influenced by both Dwarf Fortress and The Sims, Prison Architect is also rooted in developer Chris Delay's obsession with engineering, and the game's insistence on realistic consequences is supported by an immense AI system. Apparently, this system extends to the point where if your prison catches fire, alarms will go off and all the prisoners will rush to the showers. Possibly one to avoid if you're the type to spend hours at a time engrossed in SimCity... Prison Architect is still in development, with a release planned for later this year. So there's my top 10, and yes, there's a few big titles missing from it: I was completely underwhelmed by The Secret World, sadly didn't get any hands-on time with Far Cry 3, and passed over Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Online, Serious Sam 3 and End Of Nations. Think this was unfair? Feel free to argue your case for your top picks from Rezzed in the comments.