Team Fremont's 2006 Game of the Year Awards

Another year, another batch of awards. If you weren't able to attend
the live ceremony - The Team Fremont Daryls - first of all, what's wrong with
you? Nevertheless, we have pity and have compiled the list of the top ten games voted by readers of TeamFremont.com and listeners of Team Fremont Live. Thanks to all of you who voted and who joined in the
festivities. We hope to see you all next year!

Scroll down and enjoy.

10. Elite Beat Agents (DS) Developer: iNiS Coming in at number ten is the convoluted, yet heart-warming story of perhaps the most frighteningly chipper, all-male cheer squad since the founding of the Madison Scouts color guard. After all, where else you would be asked to gently tap a ball with your tiny stick in time to some of the most ridiculous bubble-gum pop music available today? Don’t get us wrong, we love the game! But seriously, Sk8r Boi? Oh my God, gag me with a spoon. But we digress. Elite Beat Agents for the Nintendo DS is the Englishified version of the wildly successful (and highly imported) wacky Japanese title, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! (translation: Hey! Fight! Cheersquad!) for the touching machine. Instead of the traditional cheersquad garb of bubbly, child-abductor black trench coats, the Elite Beat Agents are dressed more in the vein of every American child’s dream job, FBI agent or Blues Brother. Not the fishnet stockings, high heels and women's panties of your parents FBI, but the hip Men in Black FBI. And they dance. A lot. Fortunately for the English-speaking world, the little story scenarios make little, or less, sense than the original Japanese version, which was the key to its charm. In spite of several crap-ass selections to the licensed soundtrack, this gem of a game has begun to carve out a little space in the must-have category of the ever-expanding library for the world’s handheld of choice.

9. Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day (DS) Developer: Nintendo For a certain President's 60th birthday early in 2006, a very generous Nintendo of America sent this title along with a brand new Nintendo DS Lite to the commander-in-Chief. We like to think of it as their patriotic duty… as well as a kind birthday gesture. The first in a series of brain-training" games by Nintendo, intended to break into a new demographic came as a series of mini-games about math, color-matching, memory, reading, and the crazy pop-fad of Sudoku. Nintendo's clever marketing claim was: "train your brain in only ten minutes a day." Does it work? Depends on who you ask. We aren't so sure, but it sounds like G.W. might be starting to wise up a hair. Either way, Brain Age did, in fact, accomplish Nintendo's wet dream of exploding into an entirely untapped market of soccer moms. Still today, six months after its release, you can consider yourself lucky to find a DS Lite sitting on a retail shelf.

8. Dead Rising (360) Developer: Capcom You're alone...at night...with Zombies in a mall. A no-brainer for number eight this year is Capcom's tribute to the undead, Dead Rising for the Xbox 360. It's a no-brainer because we want to keep those damn zombies as far away as possible. They love brains, you know. Although the premise behind the game is quite simple (and kicks all the ass) the execution of this particular game just melted our chilly hearts, and then served them up to our zombie friends. Okay, enough of the zombie cracks. This is by no means the prettiest game for the ultra-sexy, high-def capabilities 360, but the ease with which your character is able to access nearly every store in the mall, use just about every possible item imaginable as a weapon, and only save your game in the bathroom (the biggest pain in the ass – how appropriate!) are traits that made this one of the most entertaining, must-play experiences of the year for Microsoft's next-gen system, which seems to build more and more momentum with every passing week.

7. New Super Mario Bros. Developer: Nintendo Best Platform Game Voting for a Mario game for a game of the year award is a no-brainer. It's like voting Tim Duncan into the all-star game, or nominating Martin Scorsece for an Oscar. It's just a given. How is it that Mario can still kick so much ass twenty years after he saved the gaming industry from extinction? While Nintendo added a number of nifty features for Mario's first original outing on the mutated handheld, the song still remains the same. Hop on Koopas, avoid the Bob-ombs, and save that helpless Princess from Bowser. But with an adventure that will take days to complete, and a ton of hidden levels and bonus goodies, this game returned the series to its roots in spectacular form. We're just hoping that for Mario's next outing, we'll have the option to leave Peach for dead while we go eat mushrooms with the Koopas. That chick's more trouble than she's worth.

6. Wii Sports (Wii) Developer: Nintendo Best Sports Game Please stand. We gather here today to hail the coming of a new generation, maybe not the gamer-titled "next" generation, but an undeniably new direction and experience in the hallowed halls of electronic gaming. No longer shall you sit, slowly enhancing your earthly girth with bag upon bag of cheesy nips. Stand, my people...and sweat! But for Christ's sake, hold on to the damn things. They're not meant to be projectiles. Every videotard we know has tried to affect the performance of their on-screen character by suddenly diving left or right on the couch, inevitably ending in an uncomfortable orange cloud of Cheeto dust. But today is the dawn of a new era; a time when the aforementioned videotard is successful in his obnoxious display of couch-diving; a time when your 90-year old grandpa can bowl a 273, then play a full set of tennis after participating in the homerun derby; a time where the controller does what you THINK it should do as opposed to requiring an operating manual similar to the flight controls for the space shuttle. But most of all, a time when playing video games with your family, friends, and even complete strangers leaves everyone with a face full of smiles and a promise to do it again...soon! Wii Sports is the pack-in game [Wait a minute. Pack in?) with the brand new Nintendo Wii. Perhaps one of the more bizarre concepts in recent memory, but without question, one of the most successful at the start. The game includes five popular sports titles: boxing, golf, baseball, tennis, and the father of the all… bowling. Although little more than a glorified tech demo, Wii Sports has proven to be the force that is selling the system to people who had little or no interest in video games prior to their time with those darling, little Miilympians. Several media sources have given this title their Game of the Year honors. While we didn't go that far, there is little disagreement that this will prove to be one of the most important games of 2006.

5. Guitar Hero 2 (PS2) Developer: Harmonix Best Music Game Attention all 80s metal sluts! Loosen your bra straps, spray up your scary bangs and pack your stage-throwin' panties cuz' Guitar Hero II is taking you on another tour of North America! Harmonix did us right last year with their mega-surprise success, Guitar Hero for the PS2, and have followed up with nearly everything the other lacked, which admittedly wasn't much. This time around, the game comes packaged with the very sexy cherry-red Gibson SG for your shredding delight and waaaaaay over 50 new tunes both in game and for sale with the cash your manager doesn't embezzle from your ignorant ass. Seriously, if you spent more time with your accountants than the townie meat you'd have a hell-of-a-lot more money and a hell-of-a-lot fewer rashes. Two of the greatest innovations to the game are the addition of a bass line and rhythm guitar part for the second player so you can tear that shit up the way God intended...or at least as the D intended, as a power rock duo. Now you competitive bitches can pull your panties out of your ass because you can still player against each other...but what the hell for? I'd kick your ass out of my band. The other addition is the practice loop, where you can select the section of the song you would like to "shed" and the work it out at a gradually increasing tempo until you are ready to take the stage again. Harmonix...you have rocked our collective world once more. We offer this prayer: may your rock spring eternal and your genitals never inflame. ROCK!!!

4. Gears of War (360) Developer: Epic Studios Best Shooter Garnering more buzz than the latest shots of Britney's nether regions (and much less disgusting), we didn't think there would be any chance that Gears of War could meet the hype. After all, it's made by a guy who calls himself "CliffyB". Taking one of the geekiest names of all time, and turning it into a hipster moniker? Why not just call yourself "Poindexter X"? Anyway, silly pseudonyms aside, Clifford Bleszynski's post-apocalyptic masterpiece was spooky, frantic, and worth all the pre-release attention it received and immediately shot to the top of the Xbox 360's must-have list. From its cinematic presentation to the bad-ass shaky-cam run, we loved every dark, screaming moment of it.

3. Okami (PS2) Developer: Clover Studios There aren't many games that are able to out-Zelda Nintendo's flagship franchise. And if one Zelda game starring a wolf wasn't enough for you this year, Capcom's Clover Studios blessed us with another. Unfortunately, Okami also turned out to be Clover's final game. Appearing as a hand-painted visual masterpiece, Okami offered a deep, clever, and lengthy adventure that nearly topped Link's adventures. Playing as a god in the form of a wolf, players explored vast dungeons, talked to bizarre townsfolk, and solved intricate puzzles, many of which utilized the in-game paintbrush. The fact that Clover could put out brilliant games like Okami, God Hand, and Viewtiful Joe, yet still be forced out of business, is a sad commentary on the state of the gaming industry. Here's hoping they turn up in some form in 2007.

2. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii) Developer: Nintendo Best Adventure Game Seriously: how do they do it? How does Nintendo keep raising the bar with their Zelda games? Expanding the experience provided in Ocarina of Time tenfold, and making every fanboy's wet dream a reality, Twilight Princess is to Ocarina of Time as Lord of the Rings is to The Hobbit: larger, darker, more grand, and much more satisifying. While the game was originally slated as a GameCube exclusive sometime in the 1980s, it only takes a short time with the Wii version to understand that the decision to transfer it to the Wii wasn't just to move more Wii units on launch day. Okay, so that was probably a big part of it. Either way, swordfights kick all kinds of ass with the Wii remote. Despite the fact that we all loved Wind Waker, many were skeptical that Nintendo could deliver a serious and compelling storyline within the world of Hyrule. Twilight Princess is their answer.

1. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (360) Developer: Bethesda Softworks Best RPG Many gamers first experienced the world of The Elder Scrolls via Morrowind for the Xbox. The game was expansive and provided weeks of entertainment. Yet it wasn't quite there. A few years later, and on next generation hardware, Oblivion is the game that many of us wish Morrowind would have been. Never have we been so engrossed in a single-player world, and never have we had so many things to do that completing the main story arc is merely scratching the surface, not to mention the least interesting aspect of the entire game. It's such a massive game that Oblivion is like experiencing a MMORPG without all the assholes calling you a "homo". A game filled with so many great moments and so many possibilities for expansion simply deserves our highest accolades. And now Moe wants us to write, "To Oblivion...AND BEYOND!" But we think that's lame.

Article By: Team Fremont