Winner: BioShock
2K Games | 360, PC

This game didn't enthrall us with a single "new idea" - it had a million of them.

It was a shooter that didn't require guns or bullets, but loaded you with the power of fire, ice, wind and bees - yes, bees - instead. It was an RPG that assigned disturbing genetic upgrades like silent footsteps and armored skin instead of experience points. It was a horror adventure in which you, and not your enemies, committed the most terrifying and unspeakable crimes. It was an action-packed story of philosophy and psychology. Oh yeah, and the whole thing was friggin' underwater.

The list of inspired insanity goes on and on. Even if we wrote a few dozen more pages (which we have), we would barely scratch the surface. Even if you've played the System Shock games, we promise you'll be surprised by something here. BioShock is so overwhelmingly original, the mind boggles.

Honorable mention: Call of Duty 4
Activision | 360, PS3, PC

Forcing us to experience a point-blank execution from the perspective of the victim? Making us crawl, dying and unarmed, through a nuclear holocaust? The Call of Duty games have always shifted characters and perspectives in order to tell a better war story, but never like this.