Game Of The Year 2006

Gametrailers has finally finished announcing all their nominees for best this and that of 2006, and have finally revealed who took home the coveted title of Game Of The Year.

If you want to find out for yourself, go watch the clip before reading on.

Indeed, the much well deserved Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess took home the ultimate prize, and it's not hard to see why. With over 40+ hours of game time encompassed entirely in the story mode, and countless more including all the extra items to be found, caves to be explored and side quests to be accomplished that the series is so famous for, you can easily rack upwards of 60 hours or so before you could truly claim to have seen everything. And even then, you'd probably be wrong.

The Wiimote was daunting at first, but turned out to be perfect for the game, allowing an intuitive combat style, and precision aiming for your arrows and clawshot. And speaking of these tools, as Gametrailers mentioned, unlike the other many games that came out in 2006 that managed to do one thing very well, Twilight Princess will have you riding horseback, exploring dungeons, shooting arrows, solving puzzles, fishing, sword fighting, flinging giant spiked balls, walking on walls and roofs, and even riding a spinning top around the walls. And it does all these things expertly.

The story is cleaver, gripping and surprisingly dark for a Zelda game. With a new shadowed figure traipsing through the land of Hyrule, breaking the barrier between the realm of light and twilight as he goes. With glowing animal spirits, herculean Gorons, fish-like Zora's and even a giant Yettie or two to help tell the tale, you can't help but feel an appreciation for the writing direction.

The hardware, as everyone knows by now, is hardly going to rival the likes of the PS3 or the 360, but it truly is a matter of gameplay over photo realism in something as grand as Twilight Princess. The art direction is beautiful anyway, and these things count well above that of a high pixel count in my opinion.

So there you have it. Gametrailers Game of the Year. Will the other award ceremonies come to the same conclusion? Will they be able to sway my own opinions? Only time will tell.

CYOTFS
-Mav