The winner of this category didn't have to be a great game to win; it just had to sound great if you described it to someone in a couple of sentences. We figure the initial pitch meetings for these five games were all pretty energizing.

Even amongst the others, Spore seemed like a shoe-in for this category on principle alone. It would be hard to devise a more grandiose premise than charting the entire four-billion-year lifespan of a species, from single-celled organism to spacefaring masters of technology. That kind of high-concept epic isn't attempted often in game design; leave it to Will Wright to be the first.

Luckily, Spore did turn out to be pretty special. The creature-editing tools and content-sharing interface anchored the game's community aspect in an unexpected way. And even if its five component games are a bit thin individually, they combine into a cohesive whole that certainly captures enough of that original idea to make the game memorable and influential for a long time to come.

Set in between Star Wars Episodes III and IV, Force Unleashed casts the player as Darth Vader's secret apprentice tasked with hunting down the last of the Jedi Order.

An action-adventure hack-n-slash title for the Nintendo Wii, players take the role of Travis Touchdown, a man who challenges an organization of assassins to become the most feared hitman in the world.

In Mega Man 9, Dr. Wily turns the tables and plants all of the blame on Dr. Light, causing public outcry and letting Wily set up even more devious plans.

Nearing the verge of defeat at the hands of the Allies, the Soviet leadership goes back in time yet again, this time to erase Albert Einstein before he can usher in the nuclear age.