not sure you'll get many responses on here, but you'll get one from me at least:

- Metal Gear Solid 4: a highly emotional narrative and a fitting end to one of gaming's great sagas. one of the few games that actually met expectations.

- GTA 4: loved the new and more realistic direction. never has an open-world city felt more authentic and alive. the cover system and physics made for theatrical shoot-outs including the unforgettable Heat-like street firefight after the bank heist.

- Oblivion: never has an action-RPG drawn me into its world as Oblivion did. i played it not as an RPG but as a sort of medieval fantasy world simulator. i basically lived in Cyrodil for several weeks of my life.

- Battlefield 3: IMO the definitive multiplayer shooter of this generation. a game that met unbelievably high expectations and set new technical standards. a killer app for Windows 7.

- Red Dead Redemption: one of the rare occasions of a non-RPG managing to draw you into a completely believable game world, and not let you go for weeks. this is one of those games that future generations will see as one of this generation's greatest video gaming achievements.

- Uncharted: Drake's Fortune: a game that seems to have borrowed left and right: from Indiana Jones to Tomb Raider. yet the execution is beyond anything in the genre. one of those games that while completely linear i keep revisiting. the Uncharted series may not be terribly innovative but they represent the best that video games currently manage to be.

Oblivion.......My first western-RPG (excluding A-RPG like Diablo), and I love it. Don't know if Skyrim will be able to take its place. FO3 did not, although it was a closed one. I prefer open world exploration RPG over story-centric RPG, possible because my first ever RPG was a open world one (a Chinese RPG).

I remember I played it for several months without touching another game.
I collected goodies to decorate my houses and bases, each with a different theme.
I went through a lot of command lines and mods to just make the unicorn become my mounting horse and let shadownightmare follow as a carrier.
I entranted a black hood(very rare thing) with light spell, and reverse-pickpocketed it to the captain of my Battlehorn Castle (he's the only one without a helmet), made him look like a light bulb.
I assassinated people by reverse-pickpocketing a hood entranted with fire damage on self, then had a good laugh when the guard stand next to him puzzled.
I locked adoring fan at the door of one of my house, let him carry a torch and become a lantern, but he annoy me as hell every time I return home.
I collected all the shields of the dead warriors of my Battlehorn Castle, put them on the wall, and duplicate some flowers to put in front of them.
I collected all the body parts, blood bottle, goblin staff I can, and used them, along with the dog from Shivering Isle, to decorate my Deepscorn Hollow.
I use the Manniquins mod, put a lot of them in Battlehorn Castle. Each of them wore a different type of guard armor, and hailed me at the dining hall. Did similar thing for the Frostcrag Spire, but each wore a different robe.
Even without all those major overhaul mods, I have a whole lot of fun there, until I eventually broke my game by trying to install FCOM.

There're also a lot of new generation games I enjoyed, but there's just no one getting into that special places in my heart like Bethesda's games.

I agree completely, except for MGS4 and Uncharted. I've never played any of the MGS series, and I really disliked the third Uncharted, but that's just me. And I think Red Dead Redemption is probably the best console only game this decade.

I know exactly what you mean Panda. I played Oblivion for over 200 hours before I ran out of stuff I wanted to do. I think it was my first real rpg experience. There was just so much stuff to do, especially with mods like Deadly Reflexes and The Lost Spire. I may reinstall it on my new computer this summer.

Heavy Rain.

The amazing thing was.......I actually had not run out of stuff to do yet. I acutally had not finished the mage's guild and fighter's guild quest, and I had not explored even half of the whole map.
I just grab a steam version during the holiday sales, so now reinstall will be easier. I'm going to reinstall it once I fix my desktop. This time I decide to try more mods.

I can't say this generation has blown me away that much, but most notable are:

Heavy Rain - Not as much a game as an evolution of the infamous interactive movie. While poorly acted FMV games were the norm when CD-ROM came about, Heavy Rain addressed just about every complaint that was directed at them and turned an interactive movie into an incredible experience by adding variable camera angles, a thrilling story, great acting. And unlike many, I thought the Playstation Move really added to the experience.

Oblivion and Skyrim - Basically game changers for the open-world RPG, even if they were less of a revolution when compared to Morrowind. They changed the way we interact with NPCs and made RPGs less of a linear adventure and more of a life sim.

Vanquish - The pure shoot-em-up experience that CoD and Battlefield could only dream of being.

Minecraft - The game that turned survival, quite literally, into an art form and made playing with Lego as a grown-up cool again.

And...that's about it. I could name a good 40 or 50 games that blew my mind in the last gen, but this gen has just been so lame.

the only new game that really amazed me is: Bejeweled 3

Great new ideas and well done.

I tend to play the games from the 80th and 90th, as those have mostly better stories and are more fun to play. And you get much more value for your money (even back in the 80th/90th)

Heavy Rain. Just wow on so many levels. It's one of those games I'll put on for my parents friends just to show them the visuals. Grand Torrismo does that but the game is meh.

Mario Galaxy (1+2). Every system has that mario game (SMB3, World, 64) and Galaxy keeps that tradition up.

Nothing really blew me away for the 360 exclusives. Halo pales compared to Goldeneye for the 64 in terms of fun.

Skyrim is def. a game changer but Legos were always cool.

The second one was my favourite of the two as well. I didn't even complete the first (started to drag on), but I played through the second without really getting bored.

The three big ones for me are: Super Mario Galaxy, Uncharted 2 and Skyrim.

The only three games that I was utterly absorbed by to the point that all other games did not matter.

Next in line are Mass Effect 2, SMG 2 and Demon's Souls. Not quite up there, but pretty close.

Bayonetta- Complex, beautiful, randy and well executed.

Vanquish- Old school fun brought up to date.

Rayman Origins- Another old school genre that proves it's not dead yet.

Tales of Vesperia- This generation has been lacking in really good rpgs... took a while to get into this one as it doesn't reveal it's full complexity for a few hours but after that I was hooked!

Grand Theft Auto IV- Ok the new realism was a bit of a put off but the detail that went into the faux New York was astounding... I wandered about just appreciating it.

Borderlands- Average on it's own but get 4 friends and a hard difficulty and you have a real hot co-op game on your hands. The only way this could be better is if it was Phantasy Star Online (but not the newer sucky ones)

Skate 2- The first game brought a nice new control system and offered something fresh to the tired old Tony Hawks dominated genre... the 2nd improved on it.

Metal Gear Solid 4- OMG this thing is pure unadulterated crack for true MGS fans... if you're someone who complained about the long cutscenes you're clearly not that much of a fan, they were great and just about every loose end from the franchise was tied up.

Mirrors Edge- This one's a bit marmite but it gets a place solely for being unique and because my fear of heights made it more intense than any horror game for me.

Portal 2- The puzzles weren't particularly taxing but the comedy and uniqueness was a breathe of fresh air... co-op too.

Mass Effect 1 & 2- Finally a western RPG that isn't a generic D&D rip off ! Mass Effect gets kudos from me solely for being set in space... not only that but it was a fairly well fleshed out universe with some good storylines.

Skyrim- Gorgeous and a hell of a lot of fun. Gets my vote over Oblivion but only by a narrow margin. Don't think I need to say anything to justify that one.

Warhammer 40k Dawn of War 2- Not what I was expecting at all, a good squad based strategy game that's been a vastly under-utilized genre in recent years. It was a bit too short for my liking but oozed quality like most of Relic's games.

Enslaved- This one had a reasonably good story and likeable characters but it gets on my list just for being a post apocalyptic game that actually has colour in it !

Bulletstorm- Crass, Childish, Fun. This game felt like it had something that other modern shooters lack... sadly it didn't sell well. I'd love to see a lot of it's game mechanics used in a new Unreal Tournament game.

Uncharted 2- Fixed every issue I had with the first game and made a game that stands out, not on the strength of it's story but on the strength of it's movie quality. This game is probably the best overall game I have ever played.... and I have played a lot.

Heavy Rain- It was emotional and the story was mostly stunning. They missed a trick though with the protagonist always being the same, which limits replayability.

Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core- The gameplay wasn't the greatest but for me this was Final Fantasy VII with all the useless junk thrown out and condensed into a shorter, more enjoyable game. It falls down a bit on it's linearity but, at the same time, it means you don't have a lot of pointless walking around an empty world like FF7 did.

Halo ODST- This gets in purely out of Atmosphere... nevermind the usual racey Halo music, some mellow jazz, coupled with the rainfall, really brought the invaded city of New Mombasa to life. If Halo 3 and Reach had incorporated the magic this one has, maybe they wouldn't have been such hollow games for me.

Left 4 Dead- Another stunner of a co-op game and brilliant fun. The 2nd one added too many special infected and ruined the tempo for me, as they ceased being a rare but deadly threat. Own it on console and pc.... console gamers still don't have a clue about team play.

Assassin's Creed 1 & 2- The first game wins on it's setting... the 2nd on everything else. These 2 games were brilliantly done and the use of parkour brought a new way of navigating the lively cities. Shame Brotherhood was a let down from being too samey and adding precious little to the actual story... not tried revelations yet as it feels like they're being greedy now and just using the same old game assets. Hope this series recovers.