Not all games have to involve huge weapons, heaps of platforms to jump and doors to unlock. Some of them are more simplistic, yet can captivate us for hours and hours - and probably result in countless hours of lost productivity in the workplace.

Some of you are probably playing one of them right now, as I write this very blog. I’m talking about the games already installed on your computer when you got it: Minesweeper, Solitaire, Free Cell, that one in Vista where you have to guide marbles around a maze and drop them into holes by drawing walls? You know the one.

How many times have you walked back to your desk and seen someone playing Solitaire on their computer when they were supposed to be working? I know I have, as I’ve waked back from getting my seventh cup of coffee for the day. Blatantly playing Free Cell for all the world to see.

For all you Wii fans, here are the top five Wii games for 2008 according to Wired magazine:

Super Smash Brothers Brawl: “The best part? Guest star Sonic the Hedgehog can finally show Mario who is the mightier mascot.”

Boom Blox: Steven Spielberg’s first crack at spearheading a puzzle game. It contains “innovative gameplay concepts that match up to Nintendo’s best”.

No More Heroes: “Swinging a knock-off light saber, assassinating a crew of wacky killers and schlepping coconuts around a park for spare change? This is … what Wii needs more of.”

Wii Fit: “This movement-tracking exercise game is a slam dunk.” Can get sedentary gamers off the couch.

De Blob: “A cute globule bounces around a sanitary white city, soaking it with colour.”

Thoughts please.

So here it is, Game Junkie readers, my list of the best games of the year. We’re running a two-page spread in The Box on Tuesday but here’s a sneak peek of what my best picks for the year are.

And for those Nintendo fans (I know we have some) we’re also running the top five Nintendo Wii games of the Year as picked by Wired magazine - but sorry, I can’t remember what they are (I’ll post them on Monday when I’m back at work).

As I mentioned earlier this week, I’ve decided to do a best games of the year, rather than a best game of the year - although The Press has decided they want a best gadgets/games piece for the New Year and I can only pick one game then: at the moment I’m tossing up between GTAIV and Fable 2.

So, without futher ado, here are my top games of the year:

Fifteen years ago yesterday, December 10, 1993, one of the most influential video games of all time was created: that game was Doom, a classic shooter that still stands today as a landmark gaming achievement. Even better, it was a shareware game and apparently it was downloaded by more than 10 million people in the first two years of its release.

Doom came from one of the best technical minds in the gaming business, John Carmack, and company id software, and I remember playing Doom, and its Wolfenstein 3D, on my father’s old 486 computer back in the day, and it was a game that pioneered network gaming and fantastic 3D graphics (for its time). It spawned numerous sequels on both PC and consoles - appearing earlier this year on Xbox Live Arcade no less - I even have a friend who still loves playing it on his ageing PlayStation 2 and you can play a Flash version on the internet.

It is a game that has stood the test of time - though the less said about Doom the movie, the better!

I reviewed Mirror’s Edge in this week’s The Box and while it is frustrated by some trial and error gameplay, it was a generally fun title and definitely a franchise to keep an eye on.

We’re also running a competition in which you can win a copy of Mirror’s Edge (winner’s choice of format) and a nifty courier-style bag (see the photo) to give to one reader, thanks to EA. Send your entry to: The Box, Mirror’s Edge competition, PO Box 1005, Christchurch 8140 or email your entry to box.giveaways@press.co.nz. Entries close December 15.

This week, I’ll also be posting my best games of the year so put your thinking caps on for what you rate as your best games of 2008 and we’ll compare them. Personally, with all the great games that have come out the past few months - Gears of War 2, GTAIV, Dead Space, Fallout 3, LittleBigPlanet - I’ve had an incredibly tough time narrowing it down to one game, so have decided to rate my best games rather than just one game.

Some of you posted about playing some classic games from the past and how good the game play is. Last night, I downloaded the original Banjo Kazooie from Xbox Live Arcade and despite games like Left4Dead, GTAIV (PC) and Singstar Abba sitting on my computer desk, waiting to be played before I head away on holiday later this month, I played the Arcade title for a few hours and had an excellent time. It was the strong game play that had me hooked.

I’d never played the original Banjo Bazooie until last night. Sure, I’ve played the Xbox 360 game, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, but had never seen the original Banjo in action. The graphics are outdated compared to the games of today, but the most important thing, game play, was there to keep me interested. It was great fun bounding from platform to platform, collecting jiggies and smashing foes and shows that solid game play always lasts the test of time.

Apologies, but I can’t think of a lot to post about today. Blame a busy week, blame the warm weather, blame it being Friday. Blame whatever you like, so, today I thought I’d ask you, the loyal readers of Game Junkie, what’s the hot gaming topic on your mind.

It could be what’s your favourite game at the moment, or what’s frustrating you on level 13 of that role-playing game you’ve been trying to complete for three months, or it could be just your take on the state of gaming at the moment. It could be what’s been the most satisfying gaming moment of the game your playing right now/last week/last month. Share with us.

At the moment I’m making my way through Resistance 2 and it’s a lot of fun, as well as trying to tackle Tom Clancy’s Endwar, using its voice commands to move troops about the place, and take on the infected in Left4Dead. I’m also working on my top games of the past year for an upcoming issue of The Box. Phew.

Have a good weekend.

A copy of GTAIV on PC arrived on my desk this morning and it’s one of the latest PC games to use Digital Rights Management software - and Rockstar says it’s in response to the rise in game piracy.

Spore was another high-profile game this year that used DRM, and that case left a sour taste in some gamers’ mouths because it restricted the number of times they could install the game. Rockstar says there is no limit on the number of times you can install GTAIV, with a spokesman telling gaming website IGN: “We have worked very hard to ensure that our solutions do not persecute the legitimate players of our games.”

Rockstar also told IGN that, implemented correctly, SecuROM was the most effective form of disc-based copy protection around and the game installs a number of applications, including Games for Windows, Adobe Flash, Internet Explorer, SecuROM and the Rockstar Games Social Club software. GTAIV on PC also requires authentication using an internet-enabled PC.

I’m doing a story for The Press at the moment on what modern games consoles offer parents in the way of protecting their children from inappropriate content.

All three - Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii - offer parental controls using four-digit pin codes that let parents set the rules over what content young gamers can and cannot access, i.e. stopping the ability to send voice or text messages online or locking out an R-rated game. The PS3 and Nintendo Wii will also let parents disable the internet functions of the respective consoles, and a Microsoft executive I was talking to for the story told me that while it wasn’t the company’s place to tell parents what their children could and couldn’t watch, he personally felt it was the company’s responsibility to provide tools so parents could make the decision more easily.

Xbox NZ hasn’t said anything official yet, but I spotted a news item on TeamXbox the other day that Microsoft’s Community Games program, where you can use the company’s free XNA Game Studio tool set to make games, will be available to gamers in New Zealand, Australia and Singapore on December 15.

Effectively, this will give budding game designers in our part of the world a chance to join our Northern Hemisphere cousins in creating a game then upload it to Microsoft for peer review, then, if good enough, the game will be published on Xbox Live Marketplace where gamers can buy it, giving the game’s creator potential to earn some royalties from it.

It’s not all drag-and-drop game making, though: it seems you need to have some basic understanding of C++ or some other programming language.