An unknown, eight-man development studio from Waltham, Massachusetts seems like an unlikely recipient for a Best in Show award. But from what we saw of Alliance: The Silent War, Windward Mark Interactive may very well soon be a household name. The team had a small booth in the lobby entrance to the West Hall, where we caught our first glimpse of this ambitious first-person shooter.

Imagine this scenario, as described to us by the team's president and founder, Asi Lang: Major armed conflicts around the world, from the 1917 Russian Revolution through the Yom Kippur War in 1973, were all controlled by members of one dominant family, who were the ones pulling the strings behind the scenes, and looking out for their own vested interests. This is the basis for Alliance. You'll play as a character in different generations of this family through the aforementioned wars, plus other pivotal 20th-century conflicts, like World War II and the Cuban Revolution.

The demo began at the WarStudio. This helpful in-game manager charts all of the 200 real-world firearms you'll have access to. The database can be searched using multiple fields, like the country the gun originated from, its rate of fire, and its weapon class. Then, choose the gun that works best for the given scenario, and you're good to go.

One added fringe benefit of the game's weapon selection is the multiplayer opportunity. Windwarkmark has plans to incorporate an online component to the game when it ships and anticipates a completely theoretical multiplayer combat situation, where opposing sides can choose weapons from two completely different time periods. Want to see if the Thompson M1928 trumps the M4 Carbine? Now you can.