2006: Top 5 Games of the Year
C3 Staff :: 31st December 2006

Just before we go out and make idiots of ourselves, drink too much and realise once more that New Years is the biggest anti-climax ever to grace the partying world, we're going to talk games! Join the C3 team as we all rabbit our way through the games we've enjoyed over the last twelve months. See, we can do work during the Christmas break, we just prefer not to. Begrudgingly then, we deliberated...

James Temperton

1) The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii): It has proved instantly that the Wii can do 'proper' games and do them brilliantly. Twilight Princess is a truly epic creation. It looks brilliant, sounds brilliant, has an excellent plot, great characters, stunning environments and dungeons, epic battles and from start to finish it is challenging and brilliant fun. An unbeatable combination and a title that expands upon the excellence of Ocarina of Time to make a masterful video game. For me, it is the combination of traditional and conventional video game styles that makes this title the best game of the year.

You get all the best bits of Ocarina of Time refined and then improved by the superb implementation of the Wii remote controller. So much to see, so much to do and whilst I wasn't mad keen on spending three solid days (and nights) playing it to get the review done in time I am now able to enjoy the greatest game of all time at my leisure.

2) Wii Sports (Wii): Wii Sports might not be the best game of 2006, but it is certainly the most important. TIME magazine called it the greatest video game of all time, whilst that is a pack of lies and just a slight overreaction to the hype, Wii Sports is certainly very good. Everyone who I've got to play this game has loved it. Young old, male or female it seems that everybody loves this game. Bowling, tennis and golf are the best elements of it without a doubt and I've had great fun with all three. The Wii Fitness Test and Training elements are a great way to expand the game and anyone that doesn't have fun playing this game needs help. A great social game and one that gets gamers to enjoy their hobby with the rest of their families and friends. This is the first game to get me genuinely excited about the industry in quite some time. You can talk all you want about graphics and HD, but this game is simply magic.

3) Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (DS): And so I started to struggle to remember just what had come out in 2006. Off to the C3 archives I headed and found out (rather happily) that Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney only made it to Europe in March. Whilst it hit Japan and the USA quite a bit earlier during 2005, translation issues halted it in Europe for a while. Without a doubt this is my favourite DS game ever. I'm quite a bookworm a lot of the time and all the reading fun that this title provides is more than enough to keep me entertained. The graphical style, plot and humour are the best aspects by far. This game really is a treat.

4) FIFA 07 (GC): I thought the GameCube deserved one entry into my top five and the most obvious choice for me is EA's latest crack at the football. Being an avid footie fan this one has spent quite a bit of time under the hood of my GameCube and even now in the lovely glowing slot on my Wii. Easily the best FIFA game ever made (not much of a task) and a massive leap forward for the franchise that brings it a lot closer to the Pro Evolution series. Great fun in multiplayer too.

5) Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS): Another cheeky option. Once again translation shenanigans kept this title out of European stores until the New Year. One of Nintendo's best promoted titles of the year with a massive campaign in shops, on TV and in the print media too. I was a big fan of the GameCube version but found myself quickly getting bored with it once I'd completed most of the main 'objectives' in my life. The DS version then was a breath of fresh air. My brief love for it lasted just a few months but during that time I fell for the enchanting world of Animal Crossing all over again. Pure Nintendo brilliance and a whole lot of fun and cute childlike giggles to boot.

Adam Riley

1) Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS): There were three Castlevania games on the GBA, each of which was special in its own way, but then Dawn of Sorrow came out on the DS and blew them all away. However, there were a few aspects that seemed out of place, such as the touch-screen seals and need to quickly pull out the stylus and brush away ice blocks. This time round, though, with Portrait of Ruin Koji Igarashi-san has brought DS owners a pure Castlevania adventure that drops the gimmicky touch screen usage and gives us better additions in the form of two players on-screen at the same time.

Yes, now you can interchange between protagonists Jonathan and Charlotte in real-time, using either the male lead's brute force to work your way through, or make use of the sexy Charlotte's magical prowess wherever necessary. But not just that, as you sometimes have to use both in tandem to solve various puzzles and reach new areas as you aim to make your way around the main castle to uncover special portraits drawn by the main evil, Brauner. Once these portraits have been found, your characters are warped to new stages (similar to the way Super Mario 64 works) that offer up new style locations, such as a dark forest, terror-filled desert and eerie old town.

With more intricate detail poured into the graphics, a soundtrack that beats out the majority of past iterations and more variety overall than other editions, Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin not only shines out as one of the strongest in the franchise so far, but one of the best DS games on the market since launch...

2) Phoenix Wright: Justice for All (DS): The first Phoenix Wright that hit Europe was such a joy to play through that people were desperate for Capcom to translate the second GBA game in the series for the DS. Thankfully that is exactly what happened and the Japanese release came with a full English translation, thus allowing importers to play through what is definitely one of the funniest, most in-depth adventure games of the year. The cases are much more like real-life ones now, the process of evidence collection is far more elaborate and everything fits into place better than you could ever imagine. A sequel that betters its predecessor in every way!

3) Yoshi's Island DS (DS): Yoshi's Island on the SNES is still hailed today as one of the best 2D platform games of all-time. Therefore, when the development of a successor was handed to a Third Party (Artoon of Yoshi's Universal Gravitation fame), people were apprehensive. Luckily, though, the original template has been stuck to, with enough extras thrown in to make this a worthy follow-up. The use of both screens and the inclusion of different babies other than Mario that adds various new aspects to the gameplay means that the game is much more complex than the 16-bit version, but definitely in a good way for veteran platform fans.

4) Final Fantasy V Advance (GBA): This year has been massive for the Final Fantasy series, with three huge releases coming in the last quarter of 2006