[I made it a game for you these past three week. And some of you figured it out. Every day at 3pm ET for the past three weeks I've published a section of what was to become a year-end wrap-up of the 2008 Year in Games. If at any moment you clicked on any of the posts' category links, you got to see that one big story was being published  one post at a time -- in reverse order, thank you very much! -- before your eyes. Check it out now and you'll find one big article meant to be read through from headline to post to headline to post, etc.]

What a gaming year 2008 was.

It started calmly enough, with the release of a suba diving simulator for the Wii, a racing game that would find no equal for at least 12 months and the assumption that this wasn't simply going to be another year of dominance for Nintendo.

By year's end Electronic Arts would appear both mighty enough to almost devour Take-Two and tamed enough to face severe cutbacks. Just by June alone, two games -- "Grand Theft Auto IV" and "Metal Gear Solid 4" would be considered loudly by critics and gamers as the best games ever made.

It was a year like no other. A year during which you had to burn the rope.

A year when Activision became what we used to think EA was.

A year of "Mass Effect" sex scandals. "Metal Gear" review fiascoes. "Resident Evil" racial controversy. Motion controller sketches.

It was, of course, a big year.

A year when all of this happened...

[READ OUR YEAR IN REVIEW IN FULL]

While millions of people in the world joyfully purchased a Nintendo Wii, there was much disdain for Nintendo's console among those hardcore gamers who weren't satisfied with another "Mario Kart," another "Smash Bros.," another "Animal Crossing" and not much else geared toward them.

The 2008 breakthroughs for the Wii were the brilliance of "Wii Fit" (Marketing brilliance? Development brilliance? Both?) and a WiiWare program that issued more original downloadable games for the console than many gamers expected.

And the PlayStation 3? Well. Who ever thought they could feel sympathy for a Sony system? When did a Sony system ever seem like it even needed sympathy?

What some expected to be a breakout year for the PS3 turned out to be another year of treading water. For those who paid close enough attention, though, the PS3 -- be it through downloadable "Burnout: Paradise," interactive art "Linger in Shadows" or even "Home" -- was inarguably the most experimental video game platform. As always, it seems, struggle lead to risk-taking.

Yes, both major handheld systems had major games. The PSP had "God of War: Chains of Olympus" and critical favorite "Patapon." The DS had a celebrated new "Castlevania" and even a role-playing-game-of-the-year contender "The World Ends With You."

But neither system seemed to get major attention from its makers this year.

Sony and third party publishers neglected to add many games to the PSP's software library in the second half of 2008. Nintendo calmed its usually aggressive handheld release schedule this year as well, allowing, atypically, third party publisher to shine with content as diverse as "Lock's Quest," "Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword," lots of Square-Enix role-playing games and Activision's unstoppable line of "Guitar Hero: On Tour" games.

Even Nintendo's release of an upgraded camera-enabled DS, the DSi felt anticlimactic, as Nintendo itself released no flagship game to accompany the launch.

Maybe handhelds would again feel more important in 2009?

Microsoft's home console maintained a significant sales lead over the PlayStation 3 and even showed some signs of life in Japan, a territory it had failed to perform well in for years. Its New Xbox Experience brought new excitement to the console and its internal publishing arm continued to produce some of the best games of the year, as it has for quite some time. But it couldn't catch the Wii.

The PC gained a gaming alliance and hosted the biggest launch of the year, for "World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King." What became increasingly clear is that high-spec games just aren't performing on the platform. But casual games and mid-spec games succeed. Those who saw EA's decision not to make sports games for the PC this year as yet another sign of the platform's allegedly looming demise can now look to that publisher's expected 2009 return of its sports games to the platform -- possibly using a new micro-transaction-enabled economic model -- as a potential turning point in how big publishers support the most widely owned gaming platform on Earth.

Usually these things get announced months or years advance. They tell you that a Wii or PSP is looming. But apparently they don't tell you, until it happens practically overnight, that the iPhone and iPod Touch platforms are now gaming hardware contenders. Popular hardware contenders, at that.

How's that for one of the biggest gaming surprise of 2008?

This was the year when the game design icons Shigeru Miyamoto and Will Wright found themselves hounded by skeptics who thought that those great developer's latest creations, "Wii Music" and "Spore," were catastrophes.

Neither game was uniformly panned. And there are many people who ended 2008 certain that either those games -- or at least these two top creators behind them -- would prove to be winners in the end.

But who would have expected that the two most heralded game designers, perhaps of all time, to each be accused of losing touch in the same year?

The folks at Insomniac had made many quality games. The "Ratchet & Clank" games were uniformly well-crafted. "Resistance" was a strong first-person shooter effort. But few would say Insomniac had ever made a Game of the Year. And yet here they were in 2008 trying to do so with "Resistance 2."

The Media Molecule team making "LittleBigPlanet" was even more unlikely a contender for making the top game of the year. And yet so many people expected them to pull it off. The developers were, after all, creating the most charming and innovative PlayStation 3 game ever put on a Blu-Ray.

There was a lot expected from both teams in 2008. But did they at least signal that a Game of the Year still be in their future?

The makers of "Left 4 Dead" and "Metal Gear Solid 4" proved that some creator labels still guarantee indisputably crowd-pleasing releases. Neither Valve nor Kojima Productions seemed to miss a step in 2008.

The most noticeable howls about this year's "Grand Theft Auto" weren't, after all, coming from those outside of gaming who saw the game as a poison to society. No, the howls were from gamers who proved to be conflicted about what they want their "GTA"s to be.

Did they want realism? A gritty crime drama with morally ugly characters, a handful of ethical choices and the potential for broken relationships?

Or did they want a metropolitan playpen that would allow them to drive a tank down a street, over a hotdog stand and its vendor? That tank driven by a man wearing a rainbow afro and wielding a purple sex toy, of course.

And were the two mutually exclusive?

Rockstar let those questions lie open.

Really, of all the developers to deliver on their hype in 2008, who would have expected it to be virtual-acorn-grower himself?

He promised a smart dog. He promised emotional attachment. He promised to fix the problems of the first "Fable." He promised one-button combat (really, three-button combat) that wouldn't insult the sensibilities of serious gamers.

And out all of all the game makers to take a stage in 2008 and promise great things, he most delivered? Peter Molyneux?

Lionhead's "Fable II" turned out not to be an over-reach. It merited the hype.

Microsoft proved to be wise in bringing Molyneux and team on board.