Games of the year, my foot.

Here's the problem: the top ten list contains... a shooter. A shooter. A shooter. A shooter. A racing game. An action game. A shooter. A shooter. A Cold-War-themed war strategy game. Oh, wait, there's also a music game and a platformer.

Sure, some of these are great games. But we're talking two games with possible mass appeal (music game and platformer). The rest are niche games for a niche market -- the shooter demographic -- mostly very young guys looking to get their crosshairs on. Nothing wrong with that, shooters can be great fun, but that's not the only kind of gaming experience out there.

Glad to see SMG take another award!

@ cool48: Note their rationale for selecting SMG.

"Nintendo didn't take so much as a single step back with Super Mario Galaxy, and instead reinvented Mario's traditional platformer adventures with beautifully designed levels that make unique use of zero-gravity gameplay and clever, enjoyable puzzles. All of the levels are varied and look fantastic, and they even add replay value because the game has a set of collectible stars that you can go back to hunt for, as well as a limited but still enjoyable multiplayer mode. This is a game that plays great and looks fantastic; this is a game that you can recommend to basically anybody who might have any interest in video games--without having to qualify it or apologize for it with 'it's great, but.'"

SMG can be enjoyed by anybody, whereas Bioshock is geared specifically toward the 18-34 crowd. That's probably why SMG had the edge, and I agree wholeheartedly with that reason.

 As I've said before, this is why most "gaming media" sucks. They don't understand gaming outside of their little hardcore sphere. That's why so many sites are giving GotY awards to games like Bioshock and CoD4, which nobody with no interest in shooters would have any fun with.

If "gaming media" were on the same wavelength as the rest of us, for example, Wii Sports would have swept the awards last year.

As it should be...

Did anyone really expect Gamespot not to give it to SMG? I would have been shocked if another game got it simply because I expect Gamespot to play things safe after what happened earlier this year.  Expect no surprises or shockers from them for at least the next year.

Superb games all around, and SMG is a deserved no.1. More people should play World in Conflict though...or maybe I'm just hoping for it to do well because it ways made in Sweden... No really it is awesome. To bad there just isn't time to play all these great games.

I hate the idea of anyone giving it to CoD4. Bioshock I can tolerate, although it's given more credit for originality than it really deserves (As anyone who owns both it and System Shock 2 can tell you). CoD4 though plays EXACTLY like CoD2, but with better online multiplayer, and a really short campaign. I think they had a lot of opportunities to evolve the CoD franchise with CoD4 and didn't take any of them...

My #1 choice for GOTY if it's not SMG is Orange Box without contest. Again, I don't mind Bioshock getting it either.

agreed, no game beats Half-Life 2 in story, gameplay, and beauty. 

@naznatips

orange box is just a bunch of old games with new features. (except for portal which should have been a goty contender!) but orange box still was gr8. galaxy deserved it! bioshock was excellent! forza motorsport 2 shouldn't have been there. it's just microsoft's version of gran turismo. gt5 will be 3 times as good as forza. mario kart will beat them all though!