The following broadcast brought to you by Southern California, 7Up, chocolate malt, the impending prospect of what DS game to buy next, and some sunshine on top.

So, Game of the Year. Aaah, choice.

Wait? You say choice?

Well, honestly, I was at such a loss as to what my Game of the Year was, until I saw RyleBoy's blog. My good friend Ryle is basing his game of the year on a personal decision rather than just limiting it to 2006 releases. For example, he's featured Counterstrike: Source on it even though to my knowledge it was originally unleashed back in 2004.

So on my list, I'm going to do largely the same thing, though not quite with the same awesome imaging and layout that Sir Ryle lavished his with. I'm going to feature my top 10 games this year, no matter how long ago they were released, and i put them in a list of nominations. My real decision will be announced on New Year, seeing as I'm getting 6 or 7 new games for Christmas so there may well be a few last minute additions to a new revised list on December 26th/27th, when I've played my Christmas games to a limit where I can judge them sufficiently.

So here is my top games I have played this year, in no particular order, and again, the winner will be announced on a quite lovely Californian New Year's Eve. Quite possibly at 11:59, too, just before 2007 steps in. :P

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Unreal Tournament 2004

OK, face it, you had to be expecting this one. This is the game that I have spent most hours on Xfire, this is the game I'm actually pretty decent at, this is my most-played online game of all time. This game is, to date, the most accessible and the most complete online first person shooter, ever. I don't give a **** about any other online shooter that might even come close to Unreal Tournament 2004's level of accessibility and general polish, this is the bomb my friends. This is, quite simply, as said by Xan Kriegor, the alpha and the omega. Now lock and load marines, we got warlords over the hill. Let's saddle some redeemer rockets, boys, and take to the skies.

This is also quite an old game, and its quite a controversial decision of me to put this here. I've spent 54 hours on this game, making it my second most played game on Xfire and also one of my favourites too. This is my favourite RPG of all time, beating off Fable, Morrowind and then stamping on Neverwinter Nights before casting heady brews of Chain Lightning and surrounding them in Firewalls. But quite honestly, this game is addictive as **** and while it may not stick to traditional RPG rules, it's still a hell of a ride, especially on Battle.net. Must be played to be experienced, my friends.

Who would have thought it, eh? A shooter that works well on a DS. Actually, I'd go as far as to say that other than a mouse, this is probably the most responsive and enjoyable control method that could possibly be featured in an FPS. The stylus works so smooth, I tell ye. You can forget your thumbsticks, they can break and they give you calluses. Styluses FTW. I was one of the people that enjoyed the singleplayer to some measures, liked the inclusion of offline bot play, and liked the Wi-Fi online play even more. I'm even playing it now on and off. Addictive and immersive, while still keeping some of the atmosphere that it created on the GameCube incarnations. Innovative shooting at its finest.

The jewel in the crown of completely pointless but compelling gaming. There is absolutely no reason to play this game, as to be blunt, there's no surprises when you've got sucked into the game for a fair few hours, you won't unlock any new maps. You'll be confined to the same town for most of the time. yet there's some very very cool qualities in this game that force you to keep going, whether its the stylus control, the fact that the game is in fact very customisable, the fact that you can fish, the fact that you can do gardening... this game is like life mixed with cuteness. And it happens to be very addictive. Some cruel, cynical people could argue that this game could be offered to people who need another life because the one they have isn't good enough. I tell those cynical people to shut the **** up and not to knock things until they try them. Thank you very much, play this game.

This game is in all honesty the greatest first person shooter single player we will ever ever see. Until Half-Life 3, that is. Variety pours out of every seam, not unlike Radiohead's back catalogue. You'll be shooting down manhacks in canals, driving airboats down fortified rivers, firing sawblades through zombies in a cool horror town setting, you'll be driving a jeep along the coastline, you'll be storming a prison with firearms and rocket launchers, you'll be holding the fort at a dystopian city, and you'll be meeting your maker at a huge towering citadel at the climactic finale. This game has to be played to be believed. Chaotic versatility on a disc. Try some.

It's another controversial decision to put this one here, as technically, I only played the game for two days then I boarded the plane for California. I played it for 8 hours without an internet connection, hence why Xfire didn't log it, so in total I've played the game 9 hours. Hold up there, say the cynics. You can't include a game in a GOTY list if you only played the ****ing thing for 9 hours!! But in the 9 hours I played this game, I realised that tactical shooting is not to be overlooked, as I've done all these years. Methodical apocalyptic conflicts in futuristic cities with snow falling onto your helmet is rather heartpounding, and Battlefield 2142 combines tension, skill, tactics and an excellent ice age setting that has to be included in my GOTY list because I say so. Take that, enemy coalition.

ZOMG liek teh mozt 1337 portabul stratejy gaem EVAR!1!!11! No, seriously it is. Advance Wars 1 & 2 feel like they were waiting for the perfect game console to plonk themselves on in future instalments, because the GBA was just adequate. Oh yes, I said it. They found that console, its the DS. The stylus control is awkward, yes, I'll admit, but only until you get used to it you realise how precise it is, and even better, it speeds up battles. This is a must if you're looking for a varied complete package of turnbased strategy.

This game has my highest personal rating of the list. I gave this game a 9.6, which is my highest rating of all time, along with, you guessed it, the first Unreal Tournament. So, yeah, you're saying "this game is teh beztezt. this is scott's GOTY." but fear not, it may not be. Civilization IV may be perfect in almost every way, and that's a big almost, but I did, I admit, slightly overrate the game in my review and I SHOULD revise that score. The game does get a bit old after a few months of play, and there are a few little flaws, especially in the visual and technical aspects of the game. However, that doesn't change the fact that this game is without doubt Civilization refined and honed to be the best it can be. Try some.

Now here's a surprise entry. Not only did I originally rate the game lower than most of the games on this list, I didn't really mention this game or declare it as a real fixture in my gaming schedule. I played it a little before I left and it really reminded me of how much an accurate driving simulation this game really is. And it's fun while it does it. While games like Forza and Gran Turismo get the accuracy part right, they never offer much fun or enjoyment, and that's usually what gets them down. TOCA has that fun, it feels looser and faster. And it's just ****ing awesome. A must for racing fans.

Another somewhat of a surprise. Burnout is completely over the top, screaming and squealing, going nuts, exceeding in every single area possible in terms of speed and drama. Just like My Chemical Romance. While this sounds, well, a bit over the top, the game is awesome while it does it, truly truly awesome. Unlike My Chemical Romance. The game depicts racing chaos at its most extreme, its got a huge amount of speeeeeed, and heck, its got hotrods. What's not to like?!

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Okay, that ended up long. veeery long. And even worse, I have a vague feeling I left an important game out... anyway there will be revised versions of this list, additions to this list, and possibly more refined rewrites of this list, and in the end the Game of the Year may well come out as something I stupidly forgot to include in the first place. But as far as memory serves me, this is my top 10 games I've really enjoyed this year, whether it's down to innovation, new experiences, intensity, refined, complete factor, or all around awesomeness. You should worship these games, and if you don't own them but own a platform that features them, I seriously do recommend them to you and you really should own them, these are benchmarks for their corresponding genre in my opinion and face it, they're real masterpieces, well, if not masterpieces, they're pretty ****ing awesome. Buy them, love them, that's as far as my recommendations go.

Thanks to RyleBoy, without whom I wouldn't have got the idea for writing this absolutely HUGE blog, and NeonNinja, who was the first GOTY blog I read today. Hell, this sounds like an acceptance speech. So, I'll end it there... give your eyes a rest. I'm off for the sunshine and the 7Up.

Later d00ds and d00dettes!