As much as Hollywood critics tend to spurn movies involving exploding zombies, video game critics appear to love them.

A game centered on the adventures of a scientist who blasts an invading army of zombies has bested a field of rival offerings -- including a driving adventure and a game first developed as a U.S. Army training tool -- to win a coveted award from game commentators in results released on Tuesday. "Half-Life 2," the sequel to one of the best-selling PC games of all time, won top honors in the "Game Critics Awards: Best of E3 2003," voted on by 35 judges from both mainstream and industry newspapers, magazines, and Web sites following the industry's biggest trade show in mid-May. The game, a graphically intense first-person shooter, has been hotly anticipated by gamers who still play 1998's original and the various modifications, or "mods," that it spawned in the years since.