GameShark 2006 GOTY Awards
GameShark.com honors the best games that 2006 had to offer.
Date: Friday, January 19, 2007
Author: James Fudge

Gameshark.com presents its first annual Game of the Year Awards, honoring the best interactive entertainment that 2006 had to offer across every platform. 2006 was a grand and wonderful year for gamers. Besides being introduced to two new next-generation platforms that offered new and innovative ways to play games, current generation platforms saw some of the most innovative games ever conceived. There were in fact so many great games that it was rather painful picking a limited amount of titles to honor.

For our first annual awards we decided to use a top five system for every platform, allowing us to honor more games but also honor one title in particular for its outstanding achievements. But beyond our platform specific top five awards, we also chose an Overall winner - the best of the best - and selected specific titles in a handful of genre awards categories. We rounded out our awards with a special awards section to allow our writers to give specific honors in their own "unique categories" just for fun. But enough talk, let's get right to revealing our GOTY 2006 Award winners:

GAMESHARK.COM'S 2006 GOTY AWARDS

Bangai-O Spirits Review
A hardcore 16-bit style shooter from the masters of the genre, Bangai-O Spirits exceeds all expectations with manic action and a metric ton of stages
Final Fantasy Tactics A2 Review
It’s a Tactics title, only it’s missing some of the classic strengths of the series.
30 bucks and a slice of your soul.
A super-charged retro revival that successfully updates a 30-year-old classic.
2D side scroller that looks to push the DS.
Classic, top down, RPG gets revamped.
The first real time strategy game designed for kids.
Tony Hawk's Motion and Pixel Painter together in one package.
SimCity Creator Preview
Get your SimCity on with the upcoming Wii version.
I Heart Geeks! City Life DS, My Little Baby Previews
Toni gets a brief look at some upcoming offerings from CDV.
We get a hands on look at the PSP version of the upcoming ninja platformer.
It’s not every day that one gets to play a game using one’s butt.
LEGO Batman: The Videogame looks and plays a whole lot like its LEGO predecessors, which is its greatest strength and weakness.