First of all I have to say that this year was an amazing year for the gaming community, everyone and I do mean EVERYONE should be have at least one game that they just HAD to buy, and I do mean HAD TO. Every console had its own exclusive titles and they ALL delivered well, minus a few that could have done better but never the less it was all amazing. For those you are looking for Christmas gift ideas in the games department, hopefully this list can help you narrow down those choices.  Hit the jump to start reading.



Where do I begin and how am I going to do this? Let's just do exclusives first.

Lets start with the Wii. There are WAY too many games that came out of the Wii this year, a lot were bad, but if you want quanity it's got it, here are a few exclusives that come to the top of my head:

Super Smash Brother Brawl - Probably the fighting game of the year, I think it beats Soul Calibur 4 and Mortal Combat Vs DC. I mean Tekkan 6 has just been annouced for next year and Street Fighter 4 is only in arcades right  now. SSBB delivers to the hardcore Nintendo fan boys but I felt that it didn't appeal enough to the rest of the world, just because of the online functions, were absolutely TERRIBLE.

Mario Kart Wii - Another Nintendo fan boy game, game has now been changed from a 8 player game to a 12 player online game. They took our the 2 players per Kart thing that they did in Double Dash, and they tried to make an online community to get more people to play online. But with 12 players playing, the items get way to imbalanced and it feels like winning is by luck only, because your opponents couldn't get a blue shell to hit you in time.

Wii Fit - What can I say about this? It another game with another peripheral for the Wii, that targets another kind of audience. Even though the exercise that they make you do doesn't really help you lose weight by much it certainly tries to make you think it does.

Animal Crossing - This was Nintendo's fan boy game for the Christmas holiday, they tried to introduce once again, ANOTHER peripheral for the Wii, the Wii Speak. As you can guess, Nintendo is making you spend $30 for a MIC so that you can attach it to your Wii and talk to people while playing Animcal Crossing. No comment on the game though, not a huge fan.

Tales of Symphonia II - This game looked exciting, I still haven't beat the first one yet, so hopefully I'll beat that one first before I start this one.

Next Up, PS3. It was one amazing year for the PS3, with a lot of great exclusive titles, probably one of Sony's best years for software.

Gran Turismo Prologue - Gran Tusimo has always been the KING of drivng simulation games. I'm pretty sure that if you turn your car to the way you have it in the game, you'd have a really good shot of getting those lap times as well, provided that you can get over the fear of crashing and burning.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots - Kojima has done it again, with (what he says is) the final chapter of this Metal Gear Solid EPIC franchaise (c'mon we know thats not true) I think that Kojima had WAY too many ideas for this game, and as great as it was for me, I was only playing it for the story, there really isn't much when it comes to the gameplay. I think they could have split this game into two and it would have been JUST as amazing.

Little Big Planet - This game was Sony's prized game. They say that this game is the first game to fully use the PS3's capabilities. If you like level creation and stickers, mixed in with a platforming game then you will love this. There is just simply an endless supply of things you can create in this game.

Valkyria Chronicles - A beautiful game with a classic story. The artwork from this game looks like it comes straight out of a watercolour sketchbook. They changed how turn based strategy games work, and I think that it really works well and that they did an amazing job, just, take out half the cutscenes.

Fallout 3 - Bringing an old franchise back from the dead and modernizing the game so that it appeals to a lot of people. They say that the amount of things you can do are just almost endless, people are still finding new monsters and weapons in the game AFTER they've beaten it. The game kind of does what Modern Warfare did for the Call of Dutyfranchise.

xBox 360. A lot of people were doubting if Gears 2 would even make it this year but it did and the xBox community is very happy. That and the new "more casual" interface with Avatars (Another Mii gimmick) I don't have an xBox so most of these comments things that I have heard and read from other people.

Gears of War 2 - Same story, just more. Introducing a new stuff to the cover system (using a body as a shield, now that's awesome!) and bring the world EPIC into the franchise. Everything is just more and bigger, definitely one of the best looking games on the xBox 360.

Fable 2 - Introduced in this installment players get a pet dog as their companion, the dog helps you with quests and gives you tips and hints that things need to get done. Thought there has been word that the  game was overhyped and might not do as well as everyone is saying it will.

Ninja Gaiden 2 - With this second installment of the game there are now MORE ways for you to get your hands and pretty much your entire body drenched with the blood of our enemies. Slicing up people is always fun to do.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts - I don't know much about this game other than you have build everything you use. There is also word out there (chan) that says that the game is very buggy and even feels unfinished.

Castle Crashers - Four player side scrolling game. Lots of fun for a group of friends to play. Brings back memories of those old arcade machines with like X-Men side scrollers that are four players. Fun times.

On to PC, some people say that the PC gaming world is dying, I don't think so, I think it had a pretty good run this year, with a great variety of games that came out.

Left 4 Dead - I know this isn't an exclusive, but knowing Valve, the additional content that they will provide will only be on the PC (Just like Team Fortress 2). An amazing game to play with 3 other friends, survival horror games are always loads of fun.

World of Warcraft: Wraith of the Lich King - With the 3.0.8 patch coming out so that Death Knights can be made on any server and not just ones with a level 55+ on, Wraith of the Lich King will definelty carry on the torch that was lit from Burning Crusade and even through it doesn't do much to draw more people into the community, the game has grown so much from the day it first came out.

Audiosurf - Developed by BestGameEver, these guys were able to generate levels of gameplay by using MP3 that you choose. You use a plane of some sort (Kind of like F-Zero) and you collect times as you "ride" your music.

Spore - Another take on the Sims, where users can make their own race from a single uni-cell organism. The game goes from microscopic to planetary size. By the end of the uses will be able to use their race to attack other countries or even fend from space invasion, a very interesting concept.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 - After the long wait, EA is finally bringing this franchaise back from the dead, with pretty famous cast acting for them, the cutscenes are great fun to watch. This game is also on the xBox 360 and PS3  but I don't think people will want to play a RTS on a console.

Multi-platform Games:

Guitar Hero World Tour - Activision's first wack at genre with the band, the game was a good first attempt, it had some good features that they added in, but also had its own flaws.

Rock Band 2 - If you have Rock Band, then this game is pretty much a must have, since your able to import pretty much all your songs from the first 1 for an extra $5, this avalible tracks to play is this game is reach 200 by now at least, probably even more.

Grand Theft Auto 4 - A great sandbox game, if you like to shoot people or drive or just goof around, this is your game, it has a little bit of everything for everyone to enjoy. With download content coming to the xBox 360 soon and the PC version that was just release, this game has a huge potienal of being the game of the year.

Call of Duty: World at War - With the game going BACK to World War 2, the game is pretty much the same as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, just that it takes places about 60 years ago. Nothing new just more content, I suppose.

Mirror's Edge - The first parkour game ever, developed by the guys at DICE, this game takes a stab at the first first-person parkour game. The parkour part is fun and great, but the combat system is broken and definetly needs to be worked on.

Prince of Persia - Ubisoft's first next-gen Prince of Persia is here! The artwork looks amazing and beautiful and the combat says is very flashy and nice when pulling off combos with Elika.

And I think that pretty much sums up  most of it, there's a large variety of GREAT games that came out this year and choosing only one or two maybe quite difficult. If your NOT a gamer, then this year would have been a great time to start. The gaming industry is evolving, companies are not willing to spend more money on games and more time, the process is finally being looked at like movies and having people reconize this fact will mean that the quality of games should increase, unless everyone is just making them for the casual market, in that case they will turn out to be all trash.

happy holidays!

-annson