Best Shooter: (Tie) Gears of War II (Epic Games) Xbox 360 / Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft) Multiplatform

GoW2 is a sequel that promised (and delivered) on being “bigger, better and more badass” but which also put some effort into developing its soldiers beyond the monotone monoliths of the original. Plus, I’m a sucker for third-person, cover-based combat and graphics pretty enough to make my father-in-law pick up a controller.

Far Cry 2, meanwhile, has next to nothing to do with its predecessor aside from a first-person perspective and a propensity for gunfights. But misleading title aside, this open-world game utterly outdoes the original in scope and ambition. We’ve all fought aliens before, but how many times have you been dropped off in the middle of the African Savannah, during  an all-out civil war, where you ultimate goal is to assassinate the arms dealer supplying both sides? And if the violence gets too much, you can always just drive into the wilderness to watch the wildebeests.

Best Downloadable Game: Braid (Number None) Xbox 360, PC
This melancholy take on the Mario mythos was one of the year's most striking efforts, downloadable or not. While some found the lovelorn, interstitial prose to be pretentious, you can't knock the Portal-esque design-meets-mechanics gameplay, where every level is a puzzle in and of itself that can be cracked by sussing out how to manipulate time/space.
Runner-up: World of Goo (2D Boy) Wii, PC
With game budgets ballooning into the stratosphere, a pair of indie designers proved all you really need is a good idea. This simple, addictive physics-based puzzler--just get the hand-drawn goo balls from one place to another--was the Wii's second-best reviewed title.

Best Music Game: Tie: Rock Band 2 (MTV/EA) / Guitar Hero: World Tour (Activision) Multiplatform

With both titles now offering up a full band’s worth of plastic instrumentation, deciding between them practically moot at this point. Rock Band 2 has slightly improved its drum kit (not enough for RB1 owners to bother re-buying them) while GH:WT added hi-hats and a record-your-own music feature that holds more promise than realization. It depends on which of the previous iterations you bought and which tracklist you prefer but, according to my wife, nobody needs multiple plastic drum kits.

Best Port: BioShock (2K Games) PS3
Yes, it took too long for poor PS3 users to get to play 2007’s game-of-the-year—and a strong candidate for best-game-ever, if not for that disappointing ending—but once it was ported, the game’s underwater art-deco dystopia proved to be just as rapturous an experience. Plus, the Playstation faithful got a few bonus “challenge rooms” for their patience.
Runner-up: Kirby Super Star Ultra (Nintendo) nDS
Fuck Mario and Link, pink puffball Kirby is the real shit. This enhanced remake of the SuperNintendo should-be classic spruces up the sprites and adds a few new games but maintains Nintendo's classic side-scrolling level design and Kirby's adorable ability to inhale enemies.

Best Racer: Burnout Paradise (EA/Criterion)  Multiplatform
It seems blindingly obvious but most racing games fixate on not hitting the other cars while the brains behind the long-running Burnout series have always known what real-worl racing fans already know--the more spectacular the crash-up, the better. In this year's iteration, though, Criterion boldly upending their proven formula, moving from a track-based racer to an open-world concept. But the change fuel-injected the franchise and with its seamless online element, became the first full-fledged massively-multiplayer online racing game.
Runner-up: Pure (Disney) Multiplatform
Mixing off-road racing with Tony Hawk-inspired trickery and vertigo-inducing airs, this ATV game surged out of nowhere to finsih in second place. Kudos.

Best PSP Game: God of War: Chains of Olympus (Sony) PSP
Handheld games took a backseat this year, but this shrink-wrapped God of War game squeezed the last-generation's greatest action franchise into a portable player without loosing any of the game's trademark beautiful graphics, brutal combat, and brain-teasing puzzles.
Runner-up: Patapon (Sony) PSP
Mixing graphical stylization, a tribal aesthetic and rhythmic gameplay--you tapped out beats to give orders to your silhouetted soldiers which, by the way, look like walking eyeballs--Patapon is right up there with the original PSP classic, Loco Roco.

Best DS Game: The World Ends With You (Square-Enix) nDS
Is there a more fantastical place than the inner-city Tokyo neighbourhood of Shibuya? No, not really. This youth culture ghetto is the setting of this surprisingly epic urban RPG, which incorporates fashion, music, cell phones, a decidedly moody protaganist and societal neglect to create basically the most teen-friendly game ever.
Runner-up: Professor Layton and the Curious Village (Level-5) nDS
Triplettes of Belville graphics mix with point-and-click adventures and old-school brain-teaser riddles to create basically the best roast-trip game ever.

Best Fighter: Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Nintendo) Wii
If Nintendo had taken their beloved mascots--from the popular (Mario, Samus, Pikachu) to the obscure (King Dede, Jigglypuff, Lucas)--and let them mix it up in a no-holds-barred multiplayer brawler, it would have been enough.Using the rest of the disc as a repository of Nintendo history, was a mitzvah for Nintenerds.
Runner-up:  Soulcalibur IV (Namco Bandai) Xbox 360, PS3
Yes, Yoda sucked, but using a lightsabre-wielding Darth Vader as a fighter was pretty cool. But mostly, this was just an impeccably well-polished and well-balanced entry from the venerable 3D weapon-fighting series in its first now-gen at-bat.

Best Massively-Multiplayer: World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King  (Blizzard) PC
It's not easy keeping millions of gamers addicted enough to keep paying monthly subscription fees (just ask the Age of Conan guys) but Blizzard pulled off another perfect storm. Its latest Warcraft expansion not only added some levels, a new character class and more virtual lands to grind through, it also tried to fundamentally fix a game that wasn't broke and in doing so made the experience even more epic.
Runner-up: Um, are there even any other MMOs out there?