Gears of War With gaming, it's sometimes a careful blend between evolution and execution that makes for a good game. Gears of War does some of that evolution by taking a slightly different approach to the average run-and-gun formula, but the "execution" is this game's real strength. The production values are through the roof, and the game just consistently feels and plays slick. The promise of seamless co-op play also captured my heart the instant I heard about it and the multiplayer is simply awesome. Gears of War really is a perfect action gaming experience and the best game in 2006. - Dave VanDyk, GameShark Contributor.

Dead Rising Dead Rising is probably one of the most misunderstood games of 2006 because some players didn't get the whole concept of holding on to skills and experience while losing progress in the game and starting over. This concept was first introduced in Capcom's Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter for the PS2, which received an equal amount of cheers and jeers, but those gamers that embraced this interesting concept found it very intriguing and fun. Dead Rising builds on that experience and progress system but adds a plethora of unique characters and a cast of thousands of marauding and oftentimes overwhelming undead. But the real monsters in Dead Rising are the humans that have managed to stay alive. These miscreants and social misfits need to be saved or destroyed and the game’s protagonist is forced to make a lot of careful chances as he takes his pictures, gathers clues and avoids getting his brain eaten in the sprawling mall complex. Dead Rising, liking many of the others games on this distinguished list, is one of the great time wasters of 2006 and offers an infinite amount of replay value as you try to unlock the incredibly difficult achievements (like killing 50,000 zombies in one game session, as an example). At the end of the day it's hard not to fall in love with a game that let's you kill thousands of zombies using chainsaws, guns and even vehicles...

Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion If you fell in love with Oblivion in 2006, chances are you fell hard like I did. This epic role-playing game offers so many things to do, people to meet and places to explore that it's easy to sink over a hundred hours into it. While Oblivion maintains many of the same gameplay conventions introduced in the console version of Morrowind, it adds a lot of polish, a deep and interesting plot and more things to do than you can shake a stick. Oblivion lets you do just about anything you want - be an assassin, a rogue, a powerful mage, a pit fighter, a champion, a knight or even a vampire. Dark and good paths abound and more dilemmas lie at every turn. Oblivion is the benchmark by which all future Xbox 360 role-playing games will be judged and for that it deserves to be honored and celebrated.

Rainbow Six Vegas Rainbow Six brings the popular tactical squad-based action series to the Xbox 360, delivering a more streamlined gaming experience that both long-time fans and new comers have embraced. The single-player player campaign is streamlined and well crafted and the multiplayer is arguably the second most played title on Xbox Live (behind Gears of War, of course). It's hard not to love this game for its attention to realism, frenetic fire fights and decent use of a variety of real world counter-terrorism tactics. Rainbow Six Vegas rocks and deserves to be honored as one of the best Xbox 360 games of 2006.

Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy takes the familiar Star Wars universe and puts it on its ear with some well crafted over-the-top humor that can only be achieved using the popular LEGO building blocks. But beyond it's colorful interpretation of the events of the first three Star Wars films, the second title in this series goes out of its way to interlace these two vastly different universes in a way that is as charming as it is fun. For parents this is probably the safest game on the Xbox 360 for kids to date, but at the end of the day it's the LEGO pieces flying everywhere that really make this second LEGO Star Wars game truly rock.