I have to give a vote to Fallout 3.

I vote for Gears of War 2

Looking through the list of 2008 nominees...I realize that I haven't bought alot of games made in 2008. What I have played I've really been indifferent too. What I've demo'd I've been thoroughly impressed with.

Dorito's Dash of Destruction. For its price...its the best game you can get this year.

Fallout 3, no question about it.

Mega Man 9. a little retro love.
maybe it doesn't quite deserve GOTY, but everyone else is going to vote Fallout 3 (deservedly so). so my vote goes MM9.

I'm thinking I'm going to go with MGS4. The cinematics and pure awesomeness makes it my game of the year.
I may need to get Fallout 3 though.

Grand Theft Auto 4. It just has to be. That game took the GTA style and refined it, and grounded it with a good story and well fleshed out characters.

Fallout 3 is horrible. Enough said.

No More Heroes goddamit.

Persona 4 is definitely my game of the year. Subtract my long work days in which I only get to play the game for an hour or two and I'm averaging roughly 8 hours a day when I do have time to play it.

Compared to about ten sessions of Lost Odyssey which have culminated in a whopping ten hours, I'd have to say that's something for fun factor. Granted, I do intend to go back and play Lost Odyssey sometime in the future, but it didn't bring the fun for me like Persona 4 has thus far.

Frankly, I'm not big on most new games...the only games I bought when they came out this year were P4, SH:Homecoming (egh!), and Rock Band 2. I do want to play Dead Space at some point, and if AITD ever gets the patched version like the PS3 has, I definitely WANT to play that game.

Persona 4, and Kanji-kun for the win as best character ever.

MGS 4 with Persona 4 coming in close second

MGS4 is definitely my pick. It grabbed ahold of me as I played through it, and blew me away in the 4th and 5th acts. Once I played the final boss, I knew that it was my #1 game of all time. So far, anyway. Time may change that, but it is still the only game I've played this year that I have wanted to play through over and over again.

world of goo.

so much happy and sad all at once! i was about at tears at the end.

No More Heroes. Suda 51 continues to drop the hotness.

Lost Odyssey.

Braid followed by Persona 4 with Fallout 3 somewhere off in the distance.

Fallout 3

idk if Dissidia: Final Fantasy would count for this year, but if it does, i think that's where my vote goes instead.

Lost Odyssey

I think it's the best made game of the year, it felt like a high quality movie throughout. It was the only JRPG I could actually get out of the first town in, so it gets my vote.

Persona 4 for the Gold.

As much as I have enjoyed Animal Crossing, L4D, and GTA4 this year, my game of the year goes to...

Metal Gear Solid 4

This game is immediately captivating, letting you know simply that your mission is to kill Liquid. Then when it gets going, it fleshes out the story, the backstory, and the peripheral character stories to create this extremely dense Dickensian videogame novel that is self-encapsulating (if you haven't played the previous games) and also a satisfying ending to the few quadrilogies that have been released by tying up every single loose end that has been dangling in the past ten odd years.

The gameplay is varied and never boring, allowing different approaches to the end points. If you're a gun whore, this game has them all- almost too many to use.

The soundtrack, cinematics, and presentation are top notch. You can tell that the people working on this game let nothing pass through them until it was perfect.

Overall, the game was just plain fun. At the same time, this GAME that you were playing also felt like serious business with the topics and philosophical discussions going on, but it never lost that fun feeling that comes with being a video GAME.

Finally, the reason it is my game of the year is because when I played it, nothing could distract me. When I did not play it, everything felt like a distraction until I could play it again.

MGS4. i've been reading destructoid for about a year now, and my love for MGS4 finally led to me leaving a comment.

i work way too much, and don't have much time to play games anymore (despite the lack of difficulty, it took me two weeks to beat deadspace), but i still found the time to get six playthroughs of MGS4 before moving on to play GTA4. MGS4 has to be my biggest reason for getting a PS3.

the story, action, graphics, humor and unlockable weapons (SOLAR GUN) were the most impressive i've seen all year. i can't even describe the feeling of heartbreak in knowing this was solid snake's last mission.

Haven't played enough of the games in question to have an honest vote, but from playing a good chunk of fable 2, I'm pretty surprised that it hasn't been more praised, at least for it's surprisingly breathtaking atmosphere. Persona 3 FES has also been excellent, but I'm sure that there could be greater story there, and I haven't played any other new rpgs to compare. Unlike that lucky bastard Sterling, I have not played my dream game Metal Gear Solid 4, which I'm sure would make my number one game.

GTA IV for Xbox360

So addicting. Can't wait for the new DLC.

Left 4 Dead

My vote goes to MGS4. It wrapped up a series as convoluted as MGS, and managed to do so cleanly. Plus it came packed in with MGO, which is super awesome. Plus MGO keeps getting those expansions with the new modes like Stealth Deathmatch and Team Sneaking, proving that all games would be better with cardboard boxes and stealth camo. Heh, I kinda wanna say that I would put MGO above MGS4(but for the sake of argument, lets just consider them to be the same game).

Persona 4(which I just beat literally moments ago for the first time) is my runner up. It never reaches the emotional height of MGS4, but it had a fun combat system, engaging story and characters.