Again, in 2006, only few PC games really caught my obsessive attention, well above the generic mass of mediocrity, and worthy to be considered among the best from this era.

1-Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Herald one of the most impressive RPGs of modern times, gracefully polished, utterly immersive and, not the least, user friendly to newcomers and veterans alike. Probably the only PC and X360 game to spur GOTY material on both platforms. Although this beauty has a straightforward combat system, the environmental riches and all the optional quests make it almost comparable to the best massive online games. It happens only every 5 years or so that I play a RPG's campaign more than once, and Oblivion now stands high on that select list.

2-Medieval II: Total War

This one's a resounding update of an already proven masterpiece of the RTS/TBS combo genre, propelling the arts of the late medieval warfare to new heights. The time consuming game not only keeps the franchise as a reference, but also strikes by its incredible balance whatever the faction played ( difficulties, units, LATE GAME challenge so seldom encountered in almost ALL other good strategy titles ). Battles and sieges are always awesome to see and manage, though the game has some technical issues on non-high end machines. Since I have a very high end one, I ranked this welcomed Total War to the number 2 spot for 2006, even if I gave it a 8.8 -  just a notch below the 2 gems below.........

3-Half Life 2: Episode One

How strange, this excellent sequel to be ignored by many gaming sites as the best PC shooter of the year!? Probably because of its shorter campaign ( 4-5 hours ), but what a campaign: including a rightly timed gameplay, effective atmospherics, upon a near perfect polish like only Valve ( and Epic of course ) can do. The Valve engine has been rejuvenated with some nice twists still great to see. I also adore the new sequences involving said twists with the Gravity Gun. Now Episode Two is coming far too late, eons after the original, yet still manage to get my equal attention than the most anticipated DirectX 10 behemoths coming in late 2007. Totally unprecedented, to ''can't wait'' an add-on expected to be released almost 3 years after vanilla HL2.

4-Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords

Despite a still simplistic combat system, Brad Wardell and his Stardock team have just simply made the best 4X space empire game since.........the legendary and still played Master of Orion II ( 1996 ), though without the real galactic atmospherics of the latter. . Period. But wait, the expansion freshly released, Dark Avatar , rightfully enriches the whole experience onto something even more challenging, and now beautiful to see at the same time. That's saying a lot for a pure TBS.  DA brings features altering considerably the strategies to make, particularly the planet environmental types during the colonization phase, and also some other twists not stranger to what we found in MoO2. How comes nobody succeeded to beat a gem released 10+ years ago??? Brad is a AI buff and it shows in these latest incarnations. The expansion is so compelling, tightly balanced ( though some may whine about mega events ), with a ruthless AI for non-hardcore addicts ( the maniacs will always complain ), a highly customizable sandbox mode, and cosmetic updates ( new explosions are sweet ) that an earlier release in Q4 2006 would have certainly pushed the whole package to the numero uno spot tied with Oblivion. We'll see for my next Best Of.

Best Game I didn't play ( lack of time ): Company of Heroes.

My Two Cons Of 2006:

1-release day patches;

2-the PS3 launch line-up. And I won't change my mind: though acclaimed as a great shooter, I still don't fully agree for Resistance: Fall Of Man which remains too aggressively rhetorical for me and that shows in my ' low-ratio-approved ' review. Right now, the console serves the role of a Blu Ray movie player 95% of the time.