Given how many videogames are released each year, I'm a bit surprised that our staff and the readers lined up as much as we did in this category. We shared 50% of the same nominations with three that just missed the cut for us earning a nod from you. Part of that is because we named a few iPhone apps as potential candidates while you focused upon console titles as well as the occasional PC release. In the end, we all agree on the game of the year, though.

Arkham Asylum earned more votes from you than the second and third place finishers in combination. Whereas we had a tight race for first place, you were all about cleaning up Gotham one thug at a time. We are fully with you on the point. There was no videogame moment last year that approached the satisfaction of hanging from a gargoyle and subduing a room full of villains one by one. The game even appreciated the majesty of the moment by offering a game device that monitors the heart-rates of the criminals as they begin to realize they are not alone. After almost two decades of abject failure for Batman videogames, Arkham Asylum single-handedly reverses the fortune of this console franchise, not unlike the way Chris Nolan undid a decade of Joel Schumacher.





The game with arguably the best marketing campaign of the year, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, did not make our list, but you offered it the lofty spot of second place in the Reader Award for this category. Similarly, Assassin's Creed 2 struck us as a lackluster follow-up yet you determined it to be the third best title of the year, pushing a pair of our top three selections in the process. You were with us on The Beatles: Rock Band and we were with you on Resident Evil 5 as well as Halo: ODST, two titles that just missed our list. We also love your selection of Dragon Age: Origins, a game that we hadn't had time to appreciate fully when our voting period ended. Similarly, we hope you have since discovered why we praised Borderlands so much. It just missed earning a selection from you. Perhaps the surprise of the list was that Modern Warfare 2, easily the biggest seller of the year, didn't do any better than ninth place in the category. As was the case with Avatar, massive sales didn't mean that you would automatically give the title high placement over better releases. Thank you for showing the balloting process that sort of respect.

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