Game Of The Year 2006 Picks From Other Sites

This is the time of the year where web sites give out their annual Game of the Year awards and it's always interesting to read the reasons other people give for their picks. Next Generation and GameSpot both picked Epic and Microsoft's Xbox 360 shooter Gears of War as the best game of 2006. Here is Next Gen's thoughts:

Sometimes, words fail. Superlatives don’t do justice to Gears of War, the game no one should be forced to read about and the one everyone should be forced to play. The third-person shooter offers gruesomely bloody warfare, a simple play style where the hero takes cover or dies, and a series of memorable moments piled on one after another. Its multiplayer options cement the game’s immortality; Gears of War is not only the best game of this year, it is the best game of an as-yet-undetermined number of years.

GameSpot has some similar reasons:

Gears of War's influences are apparent, and most of them are cinematic in nature. Take all of your favorite science fiction action movies, mash them into one, and put yourself in the starring role, and there you go. Better yet, put yourself and a friend in the starring roles; you guys decide who will be the sidekick. Other games have offered cooperative play in the past, but again, Gears of War does it better. An intuitive tactical combat system, visceral close-quarters shooting, likable characters, a highly replayable campaign, an intense competitive versus mode, and a great visual style all contribute to making Gears of War such an amazing game.

GameSpy and GamesRadar give the top prize to Nintendo's Wii version of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Here is GamesRadar's take:

It showed that it's possible to take a conventional game and have it control accurately and intuitively with the Wii remote. Princess also made good on Nintendo's mantra of "gameplay over graphics" by offering a polished, aesthetically jaw-dropping experience without the need for cutting-edge hardware. Princess didn't rewrite the book on action-adventure gaming, but it did close a chapter. Next time we expect revolutionary things out of Nintendo and Zelda; for now, this is as good an experience as you're going to find anywhere, on any console.

GameSpy's reason for picking Zelda

The sense of adventure and achievement offered up by Twilight Princess is about as epic as it gets, and I had a magical experience from start to finish. I'll be the first to admit that I'm a total Zelda fan, but when the games are this good, it's really not that hard to understand why. Fabulous, fabulous stuff indeed.

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