30. Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis

Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar San Diego
Released: May
Primary platform: Xbox 360
The collective snickering that emerged when Rockstar announced it was bringing ping-pong to the next generation of game consoles was silenced when Table Tennis came out. The game was gorgeous to look at and surprisingly deep in its mechanics. Odder still, its online play had—and this is no exaggeration—people playing ping-pong and enjoying it. These are truly days, as Paul Simon noted, of miracle and wonder.

29. Call of Duty 3

Publisher: Activision
Developer: Treyarch
Released: November
Primary platform: Xbox 360
A short list of things better than shooting video game Nazis includes the following: absolutely nothing. Once again, World War II-based first-person shooter Duty made it possible to stick it to mean old Uncle Adolf, this time over the course of 1944’s Normandy invasion. As the Americans, Poles, Canadians, and British, players stormed across Europe’s most hotly contested battlefield in the rush to liberate France. Although plagued with problems, Duty’s online multiplayer action ultimately proved a fine way to extend the game’s lifespan.

28. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07

Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Electronic Arts
Released: October
Primary platform: Xbox
Once again, Electronic Arts brought a shorn, neutered version of its well-loved golf game to next-generation consoles—and made players pay an extra $20 or so for the privilege. For Xbox and PlayStation 2, Woods put up 21 different golf courses—nine more than were seen on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3—and held a career mode that was, to use the lingo, a slam-dunk hole in one.

27. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar Leeds
Released: October
Primary platform: PSP
Crime pays big dividends here, as Rockstar thought to add an absolutely fine criminal empire-building mechanic into Vice City Stories. And when protagonist Vic Vance was done bribing cops, setting up brothels, and whacking people, he could explore his sensitive side, escorting tourists on sight-seeing trips and rescuing drowning swimmers. Six goodfellas in multiplayer games via WiFi play was criminally good fun, too.

26. Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day

Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Released: April
Primary platform: Nintendo DS
Fun Fact: Nintendo sent a copy of the quirky math- and verbal puzzle-laden Brain Age to President Bush this year for his 60th birthday. It’s uncertain if Nintendo meant the present as political commentary or a good-natured jab, but there’s no denying the simple fact that there’s not a person or president out there who couldn’t stand to have a lower brain age.

25. F.E.A.R.

Publisher: Sierra
Developer: Day 1 Studios
Released: October
Primary platform: Xbox 360
With all due respect to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, there’s absolutely plenty to fear, such as creepy little girls who can single handedly take out a squad of trained commandos. F.E.A.R. showed exactly how unsettling a first-person shooter could be, and did so without taking its players to far-flung locales Mars and Hell, as the now-classic Doom 3 did.

24. Fight Night Round 3

Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Electronic Arts
Released: February
Primary platform: PlayStation 3
Fight Night Round 3 made it impossible to watch a fighter get hit and not feel something. Each successful blow was like some cautionary tale, with the recipient’s face scrunching and distorting in agony, the blood and sweat flying, and the sound of raw meat smacking punctuating the affair. This was visceral stuff, and each pugilist’s face told a grim tale. Forgive the game for its blatant and excessive product placement; it’s a heavy price to pay, but still worth it for the best boxing game ever.

23. LocoRoco

Publisher: Sony
Developer: Sony
Released: September
Primary platform: PSP
Eminently cute and weird as a $3 bill, LocoRoco had players controlling a world and tilting it in order for a smiling blobbish thing to collect goodies, get fatter, and eventually roll or drop past a finishing point. It was as if someone’s strange drug-induced hallucination had come to life on the PSP, complete with a dandy soundtrack and a punishing difficulty factor.

22. Burnout Revenge

Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Criterion
Released: September
Primary platform: Xbox 360
Revenge is best served at roughly 130 mph. Burnout’s vengeance was powered by an incredible sense of speed, as well as a simple mechanic that had players coming back endlessly for more: do unto others with your car before they can do unto you. Whether players were racing to a finish line or simply sprinting to a busy intersection in order to wreck cars and create a massive pileup, Burnout delivered. And fiercely, to boot.

21. DEFCON: Everybody Dies

Publisher: Steam / Introversion Software
Developer: Introversion Software
Released: September
Primary platform: PC
Who wins when everybody dies? The answer is no one, because everybody’s dead. Think about that the next time you unleash a nuclear barrage in this, the most well-done and creepy independent-made game in a long while. Paying homage to the computer simulation in the Matthew Broderick film Wargames, the real-time strategy DEFCON is equal parts stark, tense, disturbing, and paranoia inducing. Best of all, it has guts enough not to sugarcoat things by making it seem like this kind of conflict is anything but a dead-end.