BEST EMBRACE OF DEMOCRACY, FLAWED AS IT IS: EVE ONLINE This year CCP of Iceland (another potential finance joke sidestepped) invited the more than 200,000 players of Eve Online to vote for nine representatives from around the world to convey their concerns and suggestions about the game to the company. That alone was innovative. Then the company flew them to Iceland to sit down for a few days with the game’s developers. The company has committed to repeating the process about every six months, which makes this an idea that ought to spread beyond the game world. Maybe Microsoft should allow Windows users to vote for an officially recognized gripe committee. Maybe the airlines could have their chief executives sit down with an elected panel of frequent flyers twice a year. Hey, who says games can’t make the world a better place?

BEST DISAPPOINTMENT: SPORE If Electronic Arts has learned anything from its experience with Spore, it ought to be that a software company should just let its games do the talking, rather than relentlessly hyping a game for years before its release only to deliver a one-note electronic toy in the end. Spore would not have fizzled so quickly if expectations had not been so ludicrously inflated to begin with. Perhaps more important, it showed that maybe even a game god like Will Wright, the game’s creator, can stand to be reminded of the basics once in a while. Spore was great at letting the player create something from nothing. But in the end it just wasn’t that interesting to play with. Making cool stuff is a great part of video games, but the play, more than in any other media, really is the thing. (For Mac and PC.)

BEST VINDICATION: FABLE II Like Mr. Wright, the game designer Peter Molyneux also likes to talk. And he is also quite good at it. His games, however, have never quite been as golden as his tongue. Until now. With Fable II, his enchanting Enlightenment-era fantasy role-playing adventure, Mr. Molyneux finally achieved his goal of allowing players to feel as if they were inhabiting a living world. (For Xbox 360.)

GAME OF THE YEAR: GRAND THEFT AUTO IV G.T.A. IV came out in April, and for the rest of the year I kept waiting for some other new game to captivate and refuse to release me the way this masterpiece from Rockstar did. I’m still waiting. Beyond its formidable craft, apart from its well-balanced combat and driving mechanics, what impresses most about G.T.A. IV is its writing. It is one of the few games that even try to take on the real world in any adult way. (Of course, the game’s Liberty City setting is a parody of modern New York.) Penetrating through all the game’s gangster trappings is a hunger to engage with the idiocies, the contradictions and even some of the good things in modern America. After all, someone has to. (For Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC.)