That might just explain why UK game sales are at a record high, up twenty-three per cent since last year. As you may be able to guess, we’ve done just that, but aside from losing our grip with reality just a little bit more it means we can also now bring you our very own highlights (and lowlights) of 2008, as well as a glimpse of what’s to come.

Here’s the schedule:

Best offline multiplayer (5 nominations)
Best online co-operative multiplayer (5 nominations)
Best online competitive multiplayer (5 nominations)
Best atmosphere/immersion (5 nominations)
Best story/writing (5 nominations)
Best audiovisual experience (5 nominations)
Best open world experience (5 nominations)
Best value for money (5 nominations)
Best single format game (6 nominations)
Best downloadable game (5 nominations)
Game of the Year 2008 (5 nominations)
Biggest disappointment of 2008 (5 nominations)
Most anticipated game of 2009 (10 nominations)

...bwahaha.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

As with World Tour, the new game will support vocals and drums as well as lead and bass guitar, making it a much more viable sounding product than GH Aerosmith was. But why are we telling you this? To pique your interest in the new reveal trailer, of course!

The former has a possibly-too-late-to-be-really-useful festive pack titled Rockin’ the Holidays, which has The Pretenders’ Blue Christmas, Billy Squier’s Christmas Is The Time To Say I Love You and Barenaked Ladies’ Hanukkah Blessings. If you’re a bit more humbug, you can always get your hands on the new Foo Fighters pack instead, containing DOA, Times Like These and This Is A Call.

For Guitar Hero players, you can choose between a ‘Hard Rock’ pack, containing Light It Up by Rev Theory, Because Of You by Nickelback and Use Me by Hinder, and an intriguing selection of Reggae Rock, featuring Your Face by Pepper, Jimi by Slightly Stoopid and Sacrifice by The Expendables.

Eidos’s Puzzle Arcade is a first for the service in that it’s a game all about jigsaws. It allows you to generate and complete jigsaw puzzles, both of the developer’s inclusion and using your own images if you have an Xbox Live Vision Camera. There is a social element promised thanks to some multiplayer modes, and, of course, you can always count on there being a raft of downloadable additions to come.