Winners: Mass Effect, BioShock, Rock Band, Assassin's Creed
Microsoft | 2K Games | EA | Ubisoft

Customize your character with a wide selection of special abilities. Hack into security cameras and turrets. And smack fools upside the head with a badass wrench in a dystopian station. No, we’re not talking about BioShock. We’re talking about System Shock. It’s no secret that there are similarities between the two titles. BioShock's creative director, Ken Levine has emphasized that the art deco-oriented BioShock was designed to be a spiritual successor to its cyberpunk predecessor on numerous occasions.

But the three other “new” games this year that’ve got everyone hot and bothered are hardly new at all. Rock Band is obviously the same as Guitar Hero. Sure, drums and karaoke have been added for good measure. But c’mon. Star Power or Overdrive? Colored circles or colored rectangles? Both Rock Band and Guitar Hero III even feature some of the same songs.

Then there’s Mass Effect’s much-talked-about dialogue trees that will supposedly give you an unheard-of freedom of choice with how you role-play. But wading through longwinded NPC speeches and responding with the typical goody-two-shoes responses or rude zingers will remind you of the times you skipped through overly wordy dialogues in KotOR and KotOR II.

You’ll also find that Mass Effect’s large list of side missions consist of about three recycled buildings and the typical go-kill-that-guy-over-there-then-come-back-and-talk-to-me chores that you’ve seen a billion times before.

Even Assassin’s Creed smacks of familiarity. If you experience an eerie feeling of déjà vu when counterattacking, leaping from rooftops and ledges, or slashing with Altair for the first time, it might be because Assassin’s Creed was developed by the same folks who made Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.