And it's that time of the year again. All the video games are played(well, all the ones worth playing) and it's time to decide who shall wind up as the game of the year for 2010.

In what was hyped as the best year ever for video games, 2010 has ended up looking more like the year of the disappointment. There's been a ton of underachievers, but maybe that's because we've set our standards too high. But oh well. There has to be a winner, and not every game was bad.

That said, here are the top 8 games of 2010 as rated by me. And then the playoff brackets.

#1: Halo: Reach - In what didn't turn out to be a disappointment at all, Reach delivered everything promised and more. Easily the best story, probably the best gameplay, and the best multiplayer of the year. The new characters, gameplay features, and the new features that they added to firefight to actually make it fun makes it look like a runaway choice for game of the year. And as if it wasn't good enough, the music and graphics are undoubtedly the best around. I've never seen a company put it's heart into a game into this like Bungie did. (9.7/10)

#2: Metroid: Other M - It's a sad year in video games when an 8.7/10 on the MT scale gets a #2 seed. Granted, this game had it's problems: it stepped on it's toes repeatedly when it tried to tell a story, and leaving the nunchuk out of the gameplay design was a huge mistake, but some of the gameplay features were incredibly fun. One of the greatest sidekicks(if you can call him that) appears, and the return of the speed booster made this a game not to miss. And as if it didn't have enough reasons to be bought...it has the controversial moment of the year...(8.7/10)

#3: Donkey Kong Country Returns - RETRO STUDIOS RETURNS! The guys from Metroid Prime have easily made the 2D game of the year, and quite possibly the hardest game of the year too. What makes this game so great is all the challenges that keep the game still fun, and probably keep you going when you want to throw the controller at the window. The difficulty is kinda insane though. There's no way a game needs to be this hard, and it seems like the hardness covers up for some of the level design simplicity. (8.5/10)

#4: Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Overrated? Sure. But it's still good. While definitely not deserving of the 10/10 it got from nearly every website ever(maybe if they actually tried hiring a storyline designer...), the gameplay was fun, and some of the new Mario powerups were actually decently entertaining. Sadly, the game gets so bogged down by it's fights: the bosses pose no challenge whatsoever(the reason why you won't find Kirby on this list) and it's repetitive gameplay in those fights kept it from being the 2nd A of the year. (8.5/10)

#5: Starcraft II - A strategy game? A GOOD strategy game? Holy.... well, really, any game with "zerg" in it is probably gonna be good. Among the things I liked about this was the amazing story. The voice cinematics were a pure joy to listen to after dealing with Monotone Aran for a week and a half. The reason that it's not higher then? The gameplay is, quite honestly, annoyingly slow. And yes, I know it's a strategy game, and it's supposed to be slow, but I just can't bring myself to love a game that progress in gameplay this slowly. Still, it wasn't bad, and it winds up at number 5. (8.1/10)

#6: Mass Effect 2 - Well, I still don't get why it's rated so high, but it was a heck of a lot better than the first one. Don't have a lot to say about it, except the gameplay is VASTLY improved. It's a lot more than just walking around, looking over a shoulder and shooting a gun. (8/10)

#7: Red Dead Redemption - Like Mass Effect, I didn't think this one was as good as advertised, but, hey, that's why you don't buy the game, right? The story seems a bit muddled, but the gameplay and the amount of characters more than makes up for it. Still, the game's fun, and that's what makes a game good, amirite? (8/10)

#8: Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood - Well....not quite as good as II. But still fun. My main issue with it is that so much of the game is doing the same thing over and over: assassinating tower captains. And sadly, it seems like they didn't even try to improve the gameplay. Plays really similar to II, but not in a good way. Story's really good, though it's a little annoying when Ezio pulls a Samus and gets all his stuff destroyed at the beginning(8/10)

"WAT?! NO CALL OF DUT"-yes. All of these games are far better than this.

So here's the matchups:

#1: Reach vs. #8: Brotherhood

#2: Other M vs. #7: Redemption

#3: DKC Returns vs. #6 Mass Effect 2

#4: SMG2 vs. #5: Starcraft II

Since I obviously vote for whoever I ranked higher than the others, the scores stand:

Halo 1, AC 0

Metroid 1, RDR 0

DKC 1, M#2 0

SMario 1, SCII 0

-MT