In 2008, industry insiders (namely Bobby Kotick) made us keenly aware that gaming companies exist first and foremost to make money. Clearly the most profitable intellectual properties for companies are not just those games that sell well, but those that lend themselves to becoming franchises, a la Madden or Halo. This year saw a host of new titles with viable long-term potential. Braid made platform games truly timeless. Mirror’s Edge and Left4Dead showed how the first-person genre need not stay mired down in World War II in order to be great. Castle Crashers and LittleBigPlanet showed that cute and cooperative go hand-in-hand with addictive gameplay, and Professor Layton and The World Ends With You made us all break out our handhelds. Each and every one of these games deserves recognition near the top of their respective genres, and their developers would be crazy not to mine the franchise potential in each of them.

One game, however, stood at the top of the list as the most fully realized, the most completely immersive, and the one game that we can’t wait to see more of.

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