It may be a little early since I haven't played my Christmas games yet (hopefully NiGHTS, DBZ BT3, and Sonic Rush Adventure), but I'd like to mention some of my more enjoyable gaming experiences of the year, then say what I believe is the 2007 game of the year.

Mario Strikers Charged is my favorite Mario sports title and no that's not just my Brazilian-ness talking. It's fast-paced, fun, and unrealistic (almost always a plus when it comes to games for me) with my favorite Mario character -- BOO! I got through the aggravating single player pretty fast, and unlocked my favorite captain Petey, then I started playing online. More often than not, people I'd play against were unskilled, and I ended up with double-digit scores against them upon their... disconnecting. So online isn't too great thanks to such sore losers, but I still recommend this game to anyone and everyone .

I'm not a big Metroid fan. I think the Medal of Honor series has been downhill since Allied Assault. However, both Metroid Prime 3 and Medal of Honor Heroes 2 have shown me, and developers, how FPS games should be done on the Wii. MP3 had a sweet beginning and end. MoH:H2 is fun online; the controls are really a nice change for FPS games.

Mario Galaxy left me in awe upon playing through many of its amazing levels. It was an experience similar to me playing Super Mario 64 many years ago. Unlike Super Mario 64, I actually got all the stars in Galaxy! Every single star was fun to get, and I could happily replay this game again. What a great year it was for this not to be my game of the year...

Well it was a great year for gaming for everyone, and the game of the year is really up for grabs among the games with good reviews. However, I'm going to choose a game that's truly brought me back. A game that I feel I've achieved more in than any other. A game with a huge following of both fans and resentment lol.

Pokemon Diamond/Pearl!!!

Even as I've been typing this, I have the game on right below my keyboard. I have all 490 Pokemon in my dex right now, so why am I still playing? I have a whole list of things that I want to do in this game still! I have multiple teams to make for my beloved double battles, which means many more Pokemon to train. I haven't been as enthusiastic about Pokemon since Pokemon Red/Blue.

Back in the elementary school days of Pokemon Red/Blue, we used to have battles and trades during recess and after school. My favorite Pokemon Tangela was always getting destroyed by everyone using legendaries lol. Thanks to the internet, I found that great MissingNo. which deleted my great Pokemon Red save file. I did manage to transfer some Pokemon over to Yellow, which I transferred over to Silver when that came out. However, when Silver emerged, I was in Middle School and Pokemon just wasn't "cool" anymore.

Sapphire/Ruby, Emerald, Fire Red, and Leaf Green all passed by without me playing them. I just couldn't possibly play a Pokemon game since the social aspect would be cutoff completely (trading/battling). Upon hearing about the online capabilities of Diamond/Pearl, I rushed out to buy Pokemon Emerald so I could get back into the swing of things. Emerald has some pretty cool legendaries, which are now in my Pokemon Pearl game.

Pokemon Pearl revitalized my enthusiasm. I couldn't send my legendaries and team Pokemon from Emerald from the start like I was expecting. No, I had to play Pearl just like I played Red many years ago... at least until I saw all the Sinnoh Pokemon. Upon obtaining the National dex, I created two new goals for myself: get all 490 Pokemon and make all my favorite Pokemon into good battlers. I finished goal #1 a couple weeks ago thanks to the serebii.net Wifi trade chat channel mostly, and I'm still working on my "Pokemon army" .

start -> save... 345 hours and rising of playtime. Thanks Pokemon Diamond/Pearl for letting this 19 year old college student become a Pokemon Master!