The overall list won't arrive till January 16, so I take it upon myself to predict the winners according to IGN's taste. I will be leaving my personal biases out the door, and only basing these choices on IGN's already published ratings and awards. These choices have little to do with my own personal opinion, and only a compilation on IGN's preferences. Here goes:

Action:

Metal Gear Solid 4. It beat GTA4 on the PS3 category, and they're basically the only two real contenders for this award, as they're the only ones who got 10's this year. Seeing as GTA4 is 360's action game of the year, it's pretty obvious that MGS4's win in the PS3 category means it's simply better in IGN's eyes. 95% sure.

Fighting:

Super Smash Brothers Brawl. No other fighting game this year delivered as much quality as Brawl. It was the only fighter nominated for any specific console game of the year. 90% sure.

Music/Rhythm:

Patapon. It is PSP's overall game of the year, and neither Rock Band or Guitar Hero were able to generate as many awards. There's a lot of love going around IGN's comments about this little title. 90% sure.

Platform:

LittleBigPlanet. Although de Blob or Castlevania are deserving winners of this category, neither had the amount of hype that LBP had on it's wings. Aside from that, the ratings are certainly better. 80% sure.

Puzzle:

World of Goo. It won Wii's overall game of the year, and pretty much every other game in this category didn't deliver the same kind of strength in nominations. 95% sure.

Racing:

Burnout Paradise. Judging by IGN's ratings, it got the highest score compared to GRID and Mario Kart. Since IGN didn't nominate Motorstorm 2, there's pretty much no other choice. 70% sure.

RPG:

Fallout 3. There were a lot of contenders, but there's no other game that delivered as much hype or high review scores than Fallout 3. It won in the 360 category over Fable 2, so the race is pretty much decided. 95% sure.

Shooting:

I have no freaking idea. It's simply a showdown between Gears and Resistance, which IGN both gave 9.5 to. There's no indication whatsoever on IGN's side which one they love more. It's fairly certain, however, that it won't be Call of Duty: World at War simply because, though it won on the Wii side, it was nominated, but it was beat in the category by the exclusives of the PS3 and the 360. 0% sure.

Simulation:

Animal Crossing. There's simply very little competition in the genre. 95% sure.

Sports:

MLB 08: The Show. All the notable sports games nominated on every console are present on the PS3, and this exclusive baseball game beat them all in the PS3 category. 85% sure.

Strategy:

Sins of a Solar Empire. It won PC overall game of the year, and is receiving stellar reviews across the board. Aside from that, strategy games have been traditionally PC territory, though Valkyria Chronicles might just pull an upset. 70% sure.

Graphics Technology:

Metal Gear Solid 4. Once again it's a race between GTA4 and MGS4 because GTA4 won on the 360 and MGS4 won on the PS3 side. Since GTA4 is also nominated on the PS3, it's fairly obvious that MGS4 wins this category as well. Aside from that, an argument can be made for Crysis Warhead, but IGN already awarded Crysis last year for graphics, so I'm pretty sure they won't do the same this year. IGN loves new things. 95% sure.

Artistic Design:

Patapon. Lots of love goes to Patapon this year, beating out God of War in the PSP overall game of the year. The contest for this is between Patapon, LBP, Spore, and World of Goo. As LBP bowed to MGS4 in the overall game of the year, and World of Goo is a rather controversial choice (as it's a WiiWare title ported from the PC), Spore has received mixed reviews, and Patapon has all the uniqueness in the world, I give it the nod. But it's a very, very close race. 50% sure.

Original Score:

Super Smash Brothers Brawl. Patapon and Fable 2 are going to be stiff competition considering the love that IGN gave to them in the ratings department, but as the site mentions the 30 odd composers present in Brawl with a lot of praise, I think it will be able to go over the edge. 80% sure.

Use of Sound:

I have no freaking idea. Fallout 3 OR de Blob. Fallout 3 won 360's best sound, which also nominated Dead Space, the winner of the PS3 category. de Blob's sounds is just pure awesomeness. I should give the nod to Fallout 3 if I trust my logic, but my heart goes to de Blob. 0% sure.

Voice Acting:

Grand Theft Auto 4. It won the PS3, PC, and 360 awards, an the other nominees don't come close. Pretty obvious choice, as the hype has to reflect somewhere. 95% sure.

Story:

Grand Theft Auto 4. It won the PS3 and 360 awards in this category. And once again, the hype has to reflect somewhere. No More Heroes has a strong possiblity of winning, but the amount of hype that GTA4 has is way, way, ahead. 85% sure.

Family:

Rock Band 2. It won the 360 category, and while Boom Blox and Buzz have good chances, RB2 has a higher review score. 70% sure.

Local Multiplayer:

I have no freaking Idea. LittleBigPlanet or Super Smash Brothers Brawl have an equal chance of winning, and neither game has the upper hand in this category. Aside from that, IGN editors seem to love them equally as well. 0% sure.

Online Multiplayer:

Left 4 Dead. The nod has to go to Xbox Live. Resistance 2 has a decent shot, but nothing compares to the ease of playing over Live's service, and that has to tie in with IGN's considerations. 70% sure.

New IP:

LittleBigPlanet. Dead Space, the 360 winner, is also nominated in the PS3 category yet LBP beats it. The other games on the list just don't measure up in terms of hype. The hype has to go somewhere. 85% sure.

Innovative Design:

LittleBigPlanet. Endwar, the 360 winner, is also nominated in the PS3 category yet LBP beats it. The race is pretty much between World of Goo, Sins of a Solar Empire, and LBP, but once again, the hype has to go somewhere. Aside from the hype, IGN's editors have praised more no other game than LBP in the innovation department. 90% sure.

Overall Game of the Year:

Metal Gear Solid 4. The race for game of the year on IGN was pretty much decided in June, when it gave a '10' to MGS4, tying it with GTA4. At that moment, the race became automatically between just these two games. That '10' has to be justified somewhere. As GTA4 didn't win in either the PS3 or 360 category, the only other logical choice is MGS4. Still, I'm giving a pretty big chance to GTA4, and it could still win viably, as it's '10' hasn't been justified yet. The fact that GTA4 didn't win in the 360 or PS3 races can be very telling, and it could well be the overall game of the year. Still, I have to trust my deduction. 65% sure.

(Small edit)

This is all I care to comment on. I'm just going to re-print my counter argument to this thought process that I wrote in another thread.

I'm sure the Overall will be done in one of two ways:

1. They use every vote given to every GOTY nominated game across all the platforms to get the Winner and runners-up.

2. They re-vote, which will leave most of the votes exactly the same, but may change for a few editors that may have their real GOTY on a platform they don't write for.

Either way, it's only going to benefit the multiplat games. It may appear that MGS4 will win, because it beat out Fallout 3 on PS3 and Fallout won on 360, so some people's logic will conclude that MGS4 is the front runner, it's probably not. You see Fallout 3 has the highest average of votes on 360. It probably has some votes on PC and PS3 too. The total of those votes should be able to push Fallout 3 over MGS4 once all the voters come back together.

Onyxmeth's official prediction: Fallout 3 takes Overall GOTY. MGS4, Sins of a Solar Empire, Gears 2 and GTA IV are the other nominees.

^good point.

but i still think that the 10's have to go somewhere, and be justified somehow. IGN doesn't give 10's often. They've only given a 10 to like.. 5 games maybe? I'm not sure. But if they don't reward that 10 with a hefty award, I doubt they'll be credible for much longer. Besides, if we go by your perspective, they wouldn't give a 10 if they didn't like it THAT much in the first place.

While I loved Fallout 3 to death, and it should be GOTY, IGN's ratings simply have to be justified here. I just cannot see how anything can win apart from GTA4 and MGS4.

Overall Game of the Year -- GTA IV. They were just being nice and let some of the other good games get some pops with their PS3 and 360 Game of the Year awards, but like a great NCAA Tournament Championship basketball team, GTA IV wins when it comes to crunchtime and the One Shining Moment is theirs.

I think that the reason why motorstorm didn't get nominated is that it was pretty much the same as the original one.

IGN would have given Metal Gear Solid 4 an 11 out of 10 if they could, so I think it's probably their Game of the Year.

Well i'm off till tomorrow then. I hope to get more comments :D i spent quite some time compiling this list together lol. happy hunting :)

The thing is you're saying that they need to respect the opinion of the one reviewer that decided to give these two games a 10 and award them for it. I say it'll be up to the voters to decide, and I say that because they obviously didn't make them do anything they didn't want to do in the section awards. They let the Wii team vote in World of Goo. They let the 360 team vote in Fallout 3. They let the PC team vote in Sins. I honestly think they'll let them choose their own GOTY, and I have a good feeling the majority will choose Fallout 3.

It's not, there's a bigger difference between the original and Pacific Rift than most other racers which received sequels.

The game is well enhanced in almost every aspect, in addition there's a lot more varierity in environments. Really you need to play this game, if you liked the original Motorstorm, you will probably love this one!