Early this year Capcom managed to single-handedly reinvigorate the fighting game community with the release of Street Fighter IV. With traditional 2D gameplay merged with excellent new modern 3D visuals they proved that this formula works.

Capcom took a chance when they made Resident Evil 5 a cooperative game, a chance that paid dividends when combined with gameplay that didn't deviate far from the successful formula of RE4.

Given the DS’ massive worldwide audience, the fact that Rockstar wanted to make a Grand Theft Auto game for the DS raised some eyebrows. Little did players know that Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars would turn out to be one of the better games in the series because of its genius handheld interpretation of the GTA gameplay we all have come to love.

With Peggle and now Plants vs. Zombies, PopCap Games has now stepped up to the elite tier of PC developers that can create deceptively simple games that are completely addictive and amazing. Plants vs. Zombies is the best tower defense game of the year that has a lot of charm, strategy, and a ton of stuff to do besides the main campaign.

Open world games are a dime a dozen these days, so a game like inFamous really has to work hard to stand out. A protagonist with the power to channel and control electricity with his body is a very good start to what is a well polished game.

Whether it’s to be the Evil Emporer of the World or to be an Ambassador of World Peace, the freedom players have in The Sims 3 is unlike any game we’ve played before.

DICE has struggled to really figure out how best to bring the greatness of the Battlefield series to consoles, Battlefield 1943 is the first sign that they now know what they're doing when they released this great, little slice of multiplayer heaven.

While the retail shelves aren't filled with platformers much anymore, digital services like XBLA have seen quality titles like 'Splosion Man that help satiate the craving for a good platformer. 'Splosion Man is one of the most challenging, entertaining, and fun platformers we've seen in a long time and the ending is easily the best way to end a game since Portal.

Out of nowhere, Rocksteady Games delivered what is quite possibly one of the most surprising and enjoyable games of the year in Batman: Arkham Asylum. With a gripping story, exceptional combat, and quite possibly the best voice acting in any game this year (Mark Hamill still gives us chills as the ruthless Joker), Arkham Asylum easily gathered millions of sales and even more fans that can't wait for the sequel.

Every fan's dream come true, Dissidia: Final Fantasy lest you control all of your favorite Final Fantasy heroes and villains in an epic showdown. With a dynamic battle system and characters from all twelve main Final Fantasy games, Dissidia is one of those titles that every PSP owner must own.

Guitar Hero 5 came out at a time when a lot of people were really getting sick of the franchise as a whole. Turns out though, that it’s the best in the series and reminds us of why we enjoy these games in the first place.

Who knew that a touching story could be done in a music game, but the journey through the career of The Beatles is what makes The Beatles: Rock Band an outstanding game. There's also the matter of over 40 of the best songs in the history of music that can appeal to anyone, from the hardcore fans that know every word to people that didn't know they loved The Beatles.

Probably one of the most innovative titles of the year, Scribblenauts lets you use your imagination to choose from over 20,000 different objects to solve the challenges you're presented with. Add a charming art style that helped bring anything you desired to life and the fun lasted for a long time.

Halo 3: ODST originally left some to wonder if it would be an overpriced expansion, but a solid campaign mixed with an interesting story and cast along with the entire Halo 3 multiplayer collection shot that concern down. It felt just right and avoided being overkill for Halo fans.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is the first Kingdom Hearts game on the DS is also one of the best entries in the series. The battle system is as user-friendly as ever and the story with a full cast of characters only helps in giving you extra background info on events to come, hopefully leading up to Kingdom Hearts 3.

Q-Games did an amazing job in bringing the best console tower defense game to the PSP with PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe. Adding online play and new levels to a rebalanced campaign, PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe made this a fresh, new experience like this was the original vision for this game all along.

The best puzzle game of the year is the beautiful, HD Critter Crunch for PSN, which features one part solid puzzle gameplay and two parts weird stuff. Mix an Astropop-style puzzle mechanic with Biggs, its rainbow barf, and the overly enthusiastic wildlife expert that studies Biggs in the story mode and you have a memorable puzzle game

Death and revival as a requirement, all while helping other people survive and die? All that and more is why Demon’s Souls ended up being the biggest surprise of the year.

It's surprising that it took this long for a game to come out that parodies the Japanese RPG genre and Half-Minute Hero does an exceptional job in offering a unique take on the genre with great writing to back it up. The core concept of having 30 seconds to beat each level makes it a perfect fit for the PSP as one of its most original games of the year.

We were unsure how Naughty Dog could really top themselves with Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, but they managed to improve on Drake's Fortune in almost every way with most of the best moments we've seen in a game this year. Even the added multiplayer proved to be better than the typical online mode that's added to an exceptional single-player game.

Borderlands is a FPS/RPG that doesn’t take itself too seriously with anything it does. What it offers instead is an addictive mix of great gameplay and tons of awesome weapons and loot that kept us playing much longer than we initially anticipated.

DJ Hero tries to do for Dance/Electronic/Hip Hop music what Guitar Hero did for Rock. It may not be a perfect game in its first incarnation, but it is certainly proof that a good game can be made based around other styles of music than rock.

Microsoft’s flagship racing franchise finally hits its stride in Forza Motorsport 3 with its great, new approach to the career mode. It’s a bigger and better game than its predecessor in every way and is a worthy competitor to Sony’s Gran Turismo franchise.

The time apart for Ratchet and Clank did wonders for Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time with a good balance of the two heroes' gameplay styles that keeps this veteran series from getting stale. To be frank, we wouldn't mind having Mr. Zurkon replace Clank as Ratchet's sidekick just because he's too funny to be just another weapon.

An epic RPG by the brilliant Doctors at Bioware, Dragon Age: Origins is a fantasy RPG that’s not afraid to take the fantasy genre away from the androgynous, unwilling teenage hero that leads most Japanese RPG's today.

As games take further steps into a bigger limelight, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is one that will help the industry push towards more solid grounding with its huge fanbase. With an incredibly cinematic and gripping single player campaign and an expansive multiplayer experience, Modern Warfare 2 has almost everything you could need or want.

What looked like a remake of the DS version of New Super Mario Bros. ended up being what should probably be the most-played game on the Wii next to Nintendo’s own Super Smash Brothers Brawl from now on. New Super Mario Bros. Wii takes the pages of almost all the great Mario games before it and multiplies the fun by four, as it now features a robust, zany, and strategic 4-player cooperative mode for the first time in the series’ history.

After the way that the first Assassin's Creed ended, there was a lot that Ubisoft had to make up for with Assassin's Creed II and they did a great job in fixing the negative aspects of the first game. Ezio's a much more interesting character than Altair was and it was certainly interesting that we could use a group of prostitutes as cover when wading through guard-infested cities.

More zombies, bigger levels and melee weapons are only some of the major improvements that made Left 4 Dead 2 undeniably better than its predecessor. The addition of brand new modes only increases the game’s longevity and with a fanbase that greatly enjoys the co-op and multiplayer modes, Left 4 Dead 2’s popularity doesn’t look to stop anytime soon.

Because of the train and western look, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks left even the most hardcore Nintendo fans a little skeptical about what to expect. Spirit Tracks took everything that made Phantom Hourglass great and created a more challenging title that, for the first time, lets you partner with Princess Zelda to rid Hyrule from evil’s bane once again.