Game of the Year in January?

I just finished Mass Effect 2. If I play any game better than this all year, I'll be very surprised. This game was without a doubt, one of the best games I have ever played. What makes it so great? I loved the original Mass Effect, despite it's flaws. The combat wasn't the greatest, but the character interaction was amazing. Mass Effect 2 fixes nearly everything that was wrong with the first one, and improves upon the best parts. BioWare completely scrapped the combat system of the original, and in its place is a new system that is extremely familiar to anyone who has played Gears of War. The story is fantastic, and the dialogue is some of the best I have ever seen. Every moment of this game is unforgettable, and if you own an Xbox 360 or gaming PC, you must own this game. Mass Effect 2 is undeniably a major improvement over the original in every way imaginable, and has earned its place as one of the greatest games of all time.

Halo 3: ODST

Halo 3: ODST is a very solid addition to Bungie's greatest franchise. The game is split up into two parts; sections where you are a lone rookie ODST, and sections where you are a trained ODST in a squad. The sections that have you playing as the Rookie wandering the streets of a destroyed city are something that I hadn't seen in a Halo game before, and were a nice change of pace to the Halo formula. After every few minutes of wandering the dimly lit streets though, you will trigger an event that forces you to play a typical Halo level as a soldier from a squad of ODSTs. These levels are very fun and feel like nice formulaic Halo levels. Does ODST bring the franchise into completely new territory that we've never seen before? No, not really. Does it do enough to make fans of the brand satisfied? Yes.

Red Faction: Guerrilla

Destroy everything! That's the hook of Red Faction: Guerrilla. You are given an arsenal of weapons, an open world, and a game engine that allows the destuction of anything you can touch. The arsenal you are equipped with by the midpoint of this game leads to some of the most fun I've had all year. Sticky bombs that you can detonate at any time? Check. A rifle that desentigrates anything (or anyone) that you can see? Check. A giant thermobaric rocket launcher capable of destroying half a village with one shot? Check again. Throw in the ability to drive a truck THROUGH A BUILDING in order to rescue the hostages inside, and you have yourself a pretty enjoyable 10-12 hours of gameplay. Sure, the story is forgettable, but remembering that I got to stick bombs to a guy's face is good enough for me.