Since a number of gaming websites have published a list of what they think were the best games of 2006, I thought I would do the same. I only include games I purchased and played so excellent games like Dead Rising, Okami, or Final Fantasy III aren't on the list.

• Oblivion: My coworkers and I all purchased this game and played it for many, many hours. It was the focus of our conversations for months. I'm 56 hours into the game and have barely scratched the surface. The depth and immersiveness are unparalleled. Oblivion sets a new benchmark for what an RPG can be.
• Wii Sports: This game comes as a packin with the Wii. That said, it is worth of the price of a Wii in and of itself. Nearly every game is incredibly fun and bears some semblance to the sport it represents. Bowling in particular is well executed. The controller detects the motion very well and is incredibly similar to actual bowling. Tennis is also quite good in this respect. Personally, I really like the golf, but it is substantially more difficult than the other sports. The golf game could also screw up a person's golf swing because the controller doesn't like full follow-throughs and the putting motion has to be greatly exaggerated. The baseball game is fun, but the pitching is pretty simplistic, and the swinging of the bat doesn't feel quite right. The only sport that isn't that wonderful is boxing. It is incredibly easy for one. For another thing it detects left jabs and right body blows quite well, but that's it. Getting it to recognize any other punch is not fun.
• New Super Mario Bros.: First things first, I suck as side scrolling platformers. However, that doesn't mean I don't like them. I've played quite a bit of this game but I'm still only on the second world. In spite of my lack of ability it is still incredibly fun to play.
• Guitar Hero II: This game is just so cool. Not only do you get a really awesome peripheral in the guise of a guitar, it is full of really good music. The mechanics of the pattern matching are really well done, complete with the obligatory missed notes that make it really obvious when you screw up.

That's funny. There aren't all that many 2006 games that ended up being really notable in my mind. Other than the above games I spent a lot of time playing older games. I alternated between playing a decent amount of EverQuest and World of Warcraft throughout the year. I played a lot of Bust a Move DS and Mario Kart DS. I got Zelda: Twilight Princess for Christmas but I'm not far enough into it to have much of an opinion yet. I picked up Metal Slug Anthology recently but have yet to play it. There's a few other games on the shelf like Samurai Shodown V that I haven't yet gotten to.