Game Of The Year Picks: Slingo's Mike Sweeney

As part of Gamasutra's end of year round-up, we've asked our readers to submit their choices for top three games of 2005, which we will publish over the next few days alongside picks from the Gamasutra staff. Today's first picks come from Slingo Inc's Mike Sweeney, whose top titles are as follows: "Forza Motorsport (Xbox) - In a genre that is very stale, the features breathed new life into the genre. The racing line innovation was able to level the playing field between the experienced racing game players and the novices. This was also the first time that a damage factor came into play in a high-end racing game, a feature that has been notably absent from the Gran Turismo series. It quite possibly made for the best racing package to date. Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2 (PS2) and Ultramix 3 (Xbox) - While in essence the same game that has been around for closing in on a decade, credit needs to go to the music licensing department for the track lists that were added to these games. Songs that have been staples of the series appearing from the Asian versions are finally making their first appearances in North America. Serious Sam II (Xbox and PC)- Kudos must go to Croteam for bringing a true sequel to the Serious Sam series. While the game solely rests on the all-out action in gameplay, the comedic value of the cut scenes and in-game dialog seems to get overlooked. This sets the new benchmark for action-comedy games, it does both, and does them well." Anyone else interested in answering this question should use the official Question Of The Week page until January 2, 2006. Respondents should ideally keep their answers under 500 words.