Game: NBA LIVE 09
Innovation: Player DNA
Hands up who didn't like FIFA's Adidas Live Season? The benefits of hiding behind a screen means we don't have to count those of you with your arms raised, but we will say this: are you mad? You're playing a football simulation but you're not keen on it being too up-to-date? Crazy! It's revolutionary! It's the future! It's not as good as NBA Live 09's player DNA.

Player DNA is the way forward for sports games: the data which tells you whether a certain player will favour one move over another. Adidas Live Season updates alter your players' performance quality, but NBA LIVE 09's version modifies how they play; whether they favour particular moves one week, or struggle with others the next. EA is well versed in sharing ideas between the sports game catalogue – from the Be A Pro mode to the one-design-fits-all front-end - and with any luck the Player DNA will be the next system to be adopted by other sporting titles.

Game: Geometry Wars 2
Innovation: Leaderboards
What do you do when conventional methods of dealing with hi-scores aren't enough? You plaster your game with even more. Bizarre Creations recognised that their game centred round its competitive community and embraced that by plastering your friends' achievements absolutely everywhere that they could.

Goading you with such information would normally be considered a hostile challenge, but by eliminating the unnecessary steps between putting in a good performance and then seeing how you shape up against your competitors, Bizarre managed to strip away all extraneous menus and deliver a core idea without distractions.

Game: Tomb Raider: Underworld
Innovation: Grime
We realise Tomb Raider: Underworld isn't out yet, but when you do get to play it, we're sure you'll love the new dirty Lara. After battling tigers, swimming through an underground cave system, climbing ancient walls and splashing through mud. Of course it's going to show.

We've lost count of the number of racers where the cars become caked with mud as they hurtle round a country road, and we're well aware that Nathan Drake's soggy shirt after a quick swim made his traipse through the jungle more believable, but Lara's dirty legs manage to, for the first time ever, make us realise how much we've put our character through over the course of a level.

There's no Edward Carnby-style pre-rendered cuts which open and close according to how much damage you've sustained, just layers of dirt which slowly build up on Lara's skin as she continues to roll around in the undergrowth. Utterly pointless, but infinitely absorbing.

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