1. "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess" (Wii, GameCube) — Armed with a sword, bow and arrow and shield, a farm boy named Link slashes his way through the forces of evil and into your heart. Filled with tantalizing puzzles and breathless battles, this is probably the best "Zelda" game ever, and that's saying something.
2. "Gears of War" (Xbox 360) — It was tough for this third-person shooter to live up to nearly a year of hype, but it did so with a vengeance. So refined are the mechanics of this shooter — which forces you to use cover and flanking maneuvers with precision never before seen — no games of its like can follow without being influenced.
3. "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas" (Xbox 360, PS3, PSP) — In a year of three phenomenal Clancy titles, this jaw-dropping counterterrorism game set in Sin City manages to nose out "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter" and "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent" as the year's most intense and involved real-world combat game.
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4. "New Super Mario Bros." (DS) — A loving throwback to the past, this fiendishly addictive side-scroller not only recaptured the magic of "Super Mario Bros. 3" and "Super Mario World," it managed to expand upon it to heights previously unreached.
5. "Resistance: Fall of Man" (PS3) — It didn't take long for Sony to produce a killer ap for its beleaguered new system. One of the first titles out of the gate is the most thrilling first-person shooter in recent memory. It's set in an alternate world in which World War II never happened and the American military was forced to contend with a genetic plague that seems to transform men into war-hungry beasts.
