Please note: Separate Readers' Choice award features for the UK and Australian territories will appear in January. While we invite our readers from those territories to participate in the voting in this feature, please be advised that separate voting specifically for those territories will also be made available at a later date.

Let's come right out and say it: 2007 was an incredible year for games, possibly rivaling the almighty 1998 (which was the year we saw Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid, Half-Life, and Starcraft hit the market). There have been more blockbuster games released in 2007 across all platforms than you can shake a stick at, and what's even more surprising, most of them turned out to be really good. But "really good" might not be good enough when it comes to making the cut in GameSpot's Best Games of 2007 awards. We'll be picking the top five games in each category for our Special Achievement, Dubious Honors, Genre, and Platform awards, then counting down the top 10 games of the year for our final Best Game of 2007 award. Join us as we unveil the awards here, and be sure to cast your vote for the upcoming Readers' Choice awards. Be sure to sound off in our awards forum as well. It all begins on Thursday, December 20, when our finalists are revealed and voting begins. Then, the winners of each category will be announced the following week:

GameSpot's awards contain traditional categories for game platforms and game genres, as well as "special achievement awards" for games that were exceptional in very unique and positive ways. There are also categories for games that were distinctive for more-dubious reasons. The awards were decided by the editors of GameSpot all across the globe, in the US office as well as the UK and Australian offices, in a series of deliberation meetings. GameSpot's award feature considers all games released in North America from December 20, 2006 to December 10, 2007.