Determining GameSpot's best and worst awards for 1998 was a difficult task, for one simple reason: When it came to games, 1998 was a very good year. It's remarkable just how many great games were released in the past 12 months. As a point of comparison, at this time last year, the GameSpot editors spent most of their time grumbling about how many clones had been released, sorting through piles of mediocre games to find the few diamonds in the rough. That isn't the case this year. In fact, it may be safe to say that 1998 was one of the best gaming years in recent memory.

While 1997 was marked by some four dozen real-time strategy games, 1998 was a year marked by its diversity. Almost every genre saw its fair share of games, and more than one game gracefully balanced between genres. With World War II simulations, role-playing games, tank sims, third-person shooters, and action/strategy hybrids, it seemed every time a new game was released, some long-ignored area of gaming was being heralded anew, and brand new genres were being decreed as the Next Big Thing.

But what really stands out about 1998 is the sheer amount of quality. The obsession with "prettier" and "faster" subsided a bit, and a new obsession with "better" rose to take its place. The best games of 1998 concerned themselves with content, not packaging. And while the glut of good games makes the job of choosing the best from the rest all that more difficult, it only makes us more excited about the future. Let's hope the process is even harder next year.

Next: Special Achievement Awards