Well, it's that time of the year again. Time for everyone to parade out their end of the year awards, and I'm no different. But before I reveal all of the winners (which I can't - I haven't written up all of the awards yet!), I'll give you all something of a prologue, my best games on each console and my best multiplatform title over the past year.

Last year, Super Mario Galaxy took home top honors as the 2007 Game of the Year, edging out The Orange Box and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. This year, though, the field is even bigger, and thus, the process was a lot longer than I expected.

I've whittled each console/handheld's library for 2008 down to one game that was the best of the best. Since we've also got a category for multiplatform titles, any game released on more than one specific console was not included in the console-specific decisions. Each of these games, along with the multiplatform title, are eligible for the Overall Game of the Year award for 2008.

After many hours of thinking and making back and forth decisions, I'm finally ready to unveil my 2008 Games of the Year on each console and in the multiplatform category. They are:



Xbox 360: Gears of War 2



Playstation 3: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots



Wii: Boom Blox



Nintendo DS: The World Ends With You



Playstation Portable: Patapon



Playstation 2: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4



PC/Mac/Linux: Spore



iPod/iPhone: Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes



Multiplatform: Fallout 3 (Xbox 360/Playstation 3/PC)

These nine games are the finalists for 2009 Game of the Year, which will be unveiled along with the rest of the awards in a few days. However, that's not all, because there are two more awards I must mention, ones you will play a part in:

Community Moment of the Year

-and-

Story of the Year (not the band)

For these two new awards, it's up to you to pick the winners. I'll put up an official vote thread later (so don't post your picks just yet) but the awards are pretty much self-explanatory: you pick the community moment of the year and the best story Destructoid has done throughout the entire year of 2008. One vote per person, with votes being taken up until the last second I post my awards sometime next week. More info on this will come later, but for the community award, the inaugural winner will be forever immortalized in a special way. Trust me, you'll find out how. ;)

Let the debate/discussion/angry ranting begin!