GR's Best of 2006 Awards

The way people fight about systems, you'd think you could play them without any games. But even a sexy piece of tech like Sony's monster PS3 is less than a waffle iron without something fun spinning in that fancy Blu-Ray disc drive.

That's why we chose to recognize the systems that gave their owners the most most love, all the way through 2006. You may find it conspicuous that neither the Wii nor the PS3 are present, and this is not a judgment against either system. Both have bright futures (we love waffles), but neither had a 2006 as good as the...

Xbox 360

The Best RPG of the Year. The Best Sports Game of the Year (and the runner up). The Best Racing Game of the Year (and the only runner up). The Best First Person Shooter of the Year ...and the runner up. Starting to get the picture?

Well, if you own a 360, you're getting one of the best pictures possible. Several games, including Gears of War, Fight Night Round 3, and Dead Rising looked incredible. But their beauty was more than skin deep, as each used the 360's horsepower to deliver smoother physics, better animations, or more terrifying zombie hordes than ever before.

As the first system to prove that next-gen means more than just better graphics and broken TVs, we hereby proclaim the Xbox 360 the Best System of 2006.

Playstation 2
 

It's not the best system of the year, just the best of an entire generation. And 2006 showed why. Although few PS2 games actually won Best Of awards, the PS2 had more solid games in 2006 than any other system.

Sure, the 360 and PS3 sport features this old codger could never wrap its dentures around, but those whippersnappers don't have Guitar Hero II , Okami, Final Fantasy XII or Bully either. It's nice to know that even broke jokers like ourselves can get a heaping helping of some of the year's best games and still have the cash to, you know, eat.

Playstation Portable
 

Are we kidding? No. This is not a punchline. The Sony PSP had an excellent year in 2006 with two of the best action games anywhere and a slew of other quality titles like LocoRoco, Tekken: Dark Resurrection, Gitaroo Man Lives! and Daxter.

We don't know why the system hasn't caught on with gamers, but its 2006 games sure have caught on with us. No joke.