GS.com GOTY Overall Xbox360 PS3 PS2 PSP Wii NDS PC Genre Awards Special Awards PS3 Game of the Year: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune When the first screens of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune came out I have to say I was impressed, but at the time I didn't own a PS3 nor was I very excited about the game since Jason Rubin left Naughty Dog and I figured they lost all their creative juices. By the end of 2007 and after playing this game it was undeniable that my initial reaction was wrong and that this stands as one of the best experiences in gaming this or any year and easily wins Game of the Year on the PS3. Absolutely no load times, wonderfully done CGI cutscenes with nicely acted voiceovers, drop dead gorgeous graphics, a beautiful score with a DTS option (!) and an exciting romp through this seven to ten hour action game added up to a fantastic game. Add in the Indiana Jones-like storyline where the main character is trying to find treasure from his ancestor Sir Francis Drake and the pure likeability of Nathan Drake as a character created a solid hit for Sony. Living the life of Nathan Drake for those hours was an experience rivaled only by Portal this year. Everything from the cover/shoot system refined from kill.switch and Gears of War to all the jumping and climbing that take you back to the days Tomb Raider was a brand new experience just creates an experience unlike any other. Uncharted had it all and bundled it up in a nice, cohesive package that along with other latter half first-party games has set the PS3 up nicely for a possible 2008 push. - Loren Halek Runner-Up: Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction If you had asked me earlier in the year what the PS3 Game of the Year was going to be my answer would have been Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. It seemed to have all the pieces in place: great graphics, a return to the series roots of platforming, more Clank gameplay, etc. When the game came out I snapped it right up and enjoyed every minute of it, then a month later Uncharted came out and pushed Future down a spot. This just added to the fact that if anything defined Sony during the last half of the year, it is that they brought a number of fun games to the table to start their push toward respectability again. This is no more apparent in Future than the single best weapon in the game (and possibly any game this year): the disco ball gun that makes all the enemies on the screen dance disco style. Any game that can do that and make it a valid weapon to help you continue on in the game deserves to be owned. Insomniac has the Midas touch and we can only hope there are more games in this series to come. - Loren Halek Runner-Up: The Orange Box There are two reasons why The Orange Box made it into our list of runner-up titles on the PS3, and they are Portal and Team Fortress 2. While I can take or leave Half-Life 2 and all of its extra working parts (these games look and play better on other platforms and aren't exactly fresh or exciting at this point), Valve did a great job with this package on Sony's platform delivering a one-two punch with Portal's excellent and fresh adventure game concept and Team Fortress 2's stylized team-based multiplayer. As a long-time fan of Team Fortress, I am of the strong opinion that it delivers the familiar game play of the original with perfect controls, re-imagined classes and slick graphics. The Orange Box isn't perfect but Portal and Team Fortress 2 more than make up for any its shortcomings. - James Fudge