Are you ready to play?

If the 18th annual E3 Expo is any indication, you'll have no shortage of extraordinary entertainment experiences to indulge in over the coming months and years.

The world's biggest video game trade show has just wrapped up and once again it served as a window to the future of the multibillion-dollar industry. More than 45,000 industry-only attendees packed the Los Angeles Convention Center to play upcoming games and new hardware.

The sheer size and intensity of the show means it's an exhausting one to cover -- no violins, please -- but after three days of roaming the massive showroom floor and getting hands-on time with games behind closed doors, the following is a look at some highlights of the 2012 E3 Expo:

Canada takes the lead

Whether it's EA Sports from Vancouver (FIFA 13, NHL 13), Digital Extremes in London, Ont. (Star Trek) or Ubisoft in Toronto (Splinter Cell: Blacklist), Canadians dominated this year's E3. Ubisoft Montreal, in particular, stole the

If there's one video game that has garnered the most amount of buzz at the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo, it's The Last of Us.

And for good reason — no other game at the show delivered the same level of intense action, gorgeous set pieces, smart artificial intelligence (A.I.) and character interaction.

Currently in development at Naughty Dog studios — best-known for its Uncharted, Jak & Daxter and Crash Bandicoot series — The Last of Us takes place in the near future, after most of the earth's population has been decimated by a deadly viral outbreak. Mother Earth has reclaimed much of the planet, growing over many of the streets and buildings.

You play as a hardened middle-aged man, Joel, who vows to protect a 14-year-old girl, Ellie, from a number of threats — including bandits with no regard for human life. While details are scarce about where they're going and why, the duo are making their way across the United States.

The behind-closed-doors demo of this PlayStation 3

A scene from the new video game "Watch Dogs" is presented at the Ubisoft news briefing.After two days of keynote presentations at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, there has been one company whose name seems to keep popping up: Ubisoft. And it appears that the developer's Canadian studios played a big role in helping it get there.

In addition to hosting their own keynote on June 4, where Ubisoft announced a number of titles including Just Dance 4, Avengers: Battle for Earth and Rayman Legends, Ubisoft made appearances in all three of the console makers' presentations, too.

As if a major presence in all of the other presentations wasn't enough (they announced eight new titles for Nintendo's Wii U alone), they also debuted at their own keynote a brand new game which many are already calling the game of the show.

Watch Dogs is being touted as a mix between Deus Ex and Grand Theft Auto, in which players can hack just about anything they pass to achieve their objectives as a spy. The game, which is rumoured to be in development for both current and next-generation consoles,

A look at the game select screen for 'NintendoLand' from Nintendo's E3 live webcast.In the last of the big press conferences at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, Nintendo provided some new insight into what gamers can look forward to with the upcoming Wii U console.

While today did mark Nintendo's official keynote, they began their presentation Sunday night with a special "pre-E3" address from Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who released more details about the Wii U and showcasing some of its abilities. The June 5 keynote didn't touch on the hardware as much, focusing instead on the games coming up for the new system.

Shigeru Miyamoto, the game designer behind many of Nintendo's most popular games, was on hand to unveil the new Pikmin game — complete with Pikmin added to the audience using augmented reality. Ten years after the release of the first Pikmin game, Pikmin 3 uses the higher-definition graphics of the Wii U to refine the look of the environments and showcase the more nuanced movements of the Pikmin themselves. As this is the first Pikmin game

Nintendo's Wii U tablet is shown on a large video screen (L) as it is used to play the video game In the past, Nintendo has been known for its incredibly strong roster of first-party titles, like the Mario and Zelda games, but has been notoriously light on impressive third-party games. If their presentation today at the Electronic Entertainment Expo is any indication, they're hoping to finally turn that around.

Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime took to the stage on June 5 to unveil the latest titles for the new Wii U console and the Nintendo 3DS, and he had plenty of titles to show off. There was the usual array of first-party games like NintendoLand and New Super Mario Bros. U, but titles from companies like Warner Brother Games and Ubisoft may be what boosts Nintendo's newest console in the long-run.

To kick off their third-party lineup, Fils-Aime announced a new version of Batman Arkham City exclusive to the Wii U. Batman Arkham City: Armored Edition puts Batman in an armoured suit, allowing the player to control its various special functions using the Wii U

PlayStation fans got a peek at what games and entertainment they have to look forward to in the coming year at last night's Sony E3 keynote. Their presentation included an array of games to please hardcore gamers, as well as one less likely offering.

Sony opened their show with Beyond, a highly-cinematic game by Quantic Dream. Many gamers may be familiar with another title by that company, 2010's Heavy Rain, which was widely praised for its highly detailed characters and game environment. Quantic Dream has taken that one step further by casting a Hollywood actress as their lead character. Ellen Page plays Jody Holmes, a troubled woman who has a connection to a strange invisible force. You can see just how much effort has gone into accurately capturing the nuances of Page's expression in this trailer:

Fans also got a chance to see the previously announced PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royal. The game takes characters from popular PlayStation franchises like God of War and Twisted Metal

Don Mattrick, president of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, speaks during the Microsoft Xbox press conference at E3.In a keynote titled 'Entertainment Evolved,' Microsoft sought to highlight not just video games, but the full breadth of entertainment capabilities offered by the Xbox 360 and the Microsoft Kinect. While Xbox SmartGlass will likely dominate much of the non-gaming entertainment news from the keynote, there were other announcements by Microsoft that are worth noting.

Continuing the work Microsoft has already done on integrating Bing voice search for movies and television shows, Xbox users will now be able to search by genre. New languages and region-specific content will be added to their media navigation, allowing for more people to use the Kinect-enabled voice command features.

Microsoft will be introducing more than 35 new providers to its current roster of content suppliers, including Nickelodeon and Paramount, as well as bringing NHL and NBA games to Xbox. ESPN will also be extending its presence on Xbox, giving Xbox 360 users access to 24-hour, seven-day-a-week content from ESPN 1,

Marc Whitten, the head of Xbox Live, demonstrates the new XBox feature XBox SmartGlass.Gaming buzz may be taking a backseat to news of Xbox SmartGlass, a technology unveiled at this year's E3 which integrates movie and television-watching with user tablets and smartphones.

Xbox SmartGlass connects the Windows Phone and Windows 8 tablet with the Xbox 360 console, allowing for the user to not just watch media across multiple devices, but also interact with it in various ways at the same time. Microsoft executive Marc Whitten described it in his presentation as a way to turn any television into a "smart tv" with devices that you already own.

Whitten demonstrated to the E3 crowd how you can begin watching a movie through Xbox Live on a Windows 8 tablet, then continue watching the movie where you left off on your television at home by "beaming" it to the system. Presumably this will be done over WiFi, but Whitten didn't offer specifics on the technology.

When the tablet transfers the movie, the screen will change to provide supplementary information, such as details on the