Welcome to our annual game awards here at Gamenikki. After some heated argument about what our Game of the Year should be, we decided to kick off a new tradition. Instead of handing out the same old "Best First Person Shooter," "Best RPG," "Best Overall," or some other boring old award you can probably find on some bigger site anyway, we're handing out somewhat...different awards this year. Expect to be coming back next year, as well.

So, without further ado, let's get on with Gamenikki's Game of the...Whatever.

First off is Chris, and Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, his pick for Best Cow-Milking.

When it comes to cow-milking, Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life certainly doesn't mess around. As soon as you begin the game, you find yourself with a nice fresh cow, groaning with milk. You are positively encouraged to milk her for all she's worth, as it's the most profitable option you initially have, and if you don't, she's only going to get uncomfortable and possibly even fall ill.

One cannot say enough positive things about Harvest Moon: AWL. While blockbusters such as Ninja Gaiden, Halo 2, Half-Life 2, and Metal Gear Solid 3 battle for attention, AWL just calmly takes a seat in the background and waits for people to come investigate its laid-back, relaxing appeal. While the village, Forget-Me-Not Valley, is on the small side, those that populate it all have their own intruiging appeal, and the use of color and texture create a soothing and welcoming atmosphere. Let's be honest: the game has to be doing something right if you end up searching the internet for recipes to use in your polygonal kitchen.

However, it is the cow milking that is deserving of most praise, if only due to the sound of uncomfortable shock from the cow when you reach down only to remember you'd already milked her that day...

Stealthy hooded dude, check; razor-sharp ninja sword, check; ninja throwing stars, check. Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox starts off as a typical day at the office for most video ninjas, with a nice little romp through a sunlit area, and some sporadic fighting with a handful of chump-ass enemies. So you're fighting, and you're running, and you're jumping or ninja-ing however you please...and then all of a sudden, you've got a crazed ninja sensei to deal with - and he's hardcore enough to fight you with nunchucks. So you dispatch him easily enough, and you sigh a sigh of ninjistic contentment. Ahh, but the second you see your home village on fire, besieged by - yes - more ninjas, you know it's not time to rest.

The more you progress through the game, the more intense the ninja action becomes; soon you'll need to develop the reflexes necessary to destroy scads of horse-riding ninjas, exploding dart-shooting ninjas, demon ninjas, and other such things that even our friendly local superninja would have trouble dealing with...you know, like ridiculously armed soldiers from a powerful military empire, gigantic tentacle beasts, or zombie dinosaur lizard mutant things with hot ninja mercenary chicks chasing them with hammers. Soon enough though, you'll be more than ready to take things on; armed with a multitude of weapons and items - some of which can be purchased from conveniently positioned ninja shops - and stocked with ninja magic, nobody should stand a chance against you around Level 7 or so. Could you possibly be ninjaed out by this game's wealth of insane action? Not a chance. In fact, after a run through this game, you might end up turning in your street clothes for a ninja costume. Of course, they usually give people medicines and padded rooms for that - but the way of the ninja is law. Besides, Ninja Gaiden doesn't even end the madness there; simply download the Hurricane Pack expansions from Xbox Live, and the ninjitsu is turned up to that mythical place some people call "eleven". Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden is a triple threat - the best action game released this year, the best ninja game ever, and a perfect example of why you can never have enough ninjas is a video game. It's so fluid, so over-the-top, so...ninja-y. That's why it's my Game of The Whatever.

When Blizzard announced they were making an MMORPG, people didn't doubt it would be good on a technical level but rather wondered how the support and content would work. After releasing to massive demand (with almost three quarters of the available copies sold and logged in before five p.m. the first day) they were hit with massive connection problems. These problems were fixed within a few days, and players were comp'ed time depending on when they first logged in. Bugs have been addressed, content has begun to trickle in, and realm downtime has been ironed smooth leaving a game that is an absolute work of art.

World of Warcraft has been designed from the ground up to be a game anyone can play. Casual gamers can play for a few hours a week and still get a feeling of accomplishment, and hardcore gamers have their instanced dungeons and raids. It doesn't go overboard with the fantasy genre, and a light-hearted vein of humor runs through it (a mage quest that parodies Ghostbusters, a Fight Club reference in the Undercity, etc.) They cater to everyone equally, and have done so without shorting anyone in the process. The only bad thing I can think of that the game patches have been delivered by a horribly inefficient in-house Bittorrent client. To their credit, they are getting player feedback on that for a possible update/replacement.

The price-to-play is in-line with current MMORPGs, but you're getting a bit more. So far it's one of the few I don't feel bad spending the money on and if the coming content has the same support and polish that the game carries now Blizzard will in effect have a license to print money. It's that good.

This year brought a lot of conservative sequels. Plenty of games where you shoot things, or drive really fast, or maybe sneak past some guards. That's great and all, but sometimes you want something different. And it just doesn't get any more offbeat than Katamari Damacy. Your drunken father, the King of All Cosmos, has destroyed all of the stars in the sky, and it's up to you to make new ones. From the random junk laying around on Earth. By rolling it up into giant balls. Yeah.

Everything is just so sublimely weird. A pack of cats has treed some toy dogs. Phones and fruit and bowling pins are laying around, cast aside at random. Everything is oddly cubic and stylized and unique, giving Katamari Damacy a look you can't find anywhere else. There's also some surprising graphical tech behind the scenes, too, as KD scales up transparently, from rolling up thumbtacks to rolling up skyscrapers, with no noticable breaks.

The look isn't everything. Katamari Damacy slips under your skin, hitting that mastery-of-a-simple game note that arcade games used to hit. You'll find yourself rolling up thumbtacks to take revenge on that annoying mouse, and before you know it, you're rolling up islands so you can finally pick up that mountain. It's hard to describe why it's so addictive, but it gets under your skin and stays there, and damned if you can't help but like it.

There are more reasons to love it. The soundtrack is perfect. The pricetag is low. It's a perfect combination of value and style and silly and awesome, and there need to be more games like this. Katamari Damacy is, without a doubt, the best whatever it is for 2004.

The Madden series has owned the hearts of console football fans for a decade now. Competition has come and gone, but EA has managed to keep the momentum they picked up on the Genesis all the way to the current consoles. But then, a curious thing happened. An unlikely alliance of Sega and Take Two came together to challenge the behemoth that is EA, and managed to hit EA in the pocketbook.

ESPN's NFL series (previously known as the NFL 2K series) was already neck and neck with Madden, quality-wise, in previous years, but the fans turned their noses up at it. It's hard to beat name recognition. With 2K5, Visual Concepts and Take Two actually moved ahead. Both ESPN and Madden were not gamebreakingly different this time around. ESPN had online leagues. Madden added free online seasons. ESPN added stadium music (on Xbox), more fluid running animations, and improved an already pretty good game engine.

Take Two did more than just offer the superior game, however. They slashed the price, offering ESPN NFL 2K5 for $20, compared to Madden 2005's $50 price tag. EA answered with buy-two-get-one-free offers and price cuts, but never did match Take Two's daring price cut. With more realistic game play, a closer connection to the TV sports leader, and a dynamite price, ESPN had started to steal market share from EA, and the effects could be seen on the sales charts.

Good things do come to an end, though. Rather than meet Take Two in the marketplace, EA struck a deal with the NFL, securing exclusive access to the NFL's team names, stadiums, and player names, lasting for the next five years. It remains to be seen if the previously-in-development ESPN NFL 2K6 will see the market in any form, but it won't be an NFL game, that's for certain.

And that's why ESPN'S NFL 2K5 is my Game of the Whatever. It's the Best Game that we won't see a sequel for for FIVE years.

It isn't that Mario has the most tenure of any current video game character, although you could probably make a case for that, too. The thing is, Mario is the most versatilevideo game character. How many times have we seen Lara Croft climb rocks in search of treasure? How many times have we seen Mega Man battle some uncreative boss or other? How many times has Sonic taken off in search of Chaos Emeralds, rings, and not-so-jolly fat men?

Mario's done the whole Bowser take-down a few times, but in the last 20 years, he's done so much more than that. He's been a free-for-all brawler, a 3D revolutionary, a go-kart racer, a graffiti cleanup artist...well, okay, maybe he'd like to forget about that last. He's also been the star of not one, not two, not three, but four separate RPGs, however - a claim no other platformer hero can make. More to the point, all three have been exceptional titles, and Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is no, well...exception.

From the brilliant artistry to the Nintendo in-jokes, to the Bowser romps through throwback Mario worlds, Paper Mario: TTYD is the game that should have been Mario's debut on the GameCube, rather than the lead act of the last set, as it were. Whatever else the Nintendo Revolution holds in store, one can only hope PM:TTYD has paved the way for additional innovative Mario titles.