Game of the Month: January 2006

With all the videogames that are released each and every month, it can be quite a difficult task to decide which title to spend your hard-earned money on. Granted you could go by our review scores alone and weed through the long list of names to find something that scored high or low, but what if you had somewhere else to turn?

Rather than wait until the end of the year like for our big award blowout, your incredibly masculine friends at IGN.com have decided to employ a monthly tribute to the weeks that were. We're resolved to illustrate to our readers what we thought was the very best game for each system over the past month, and tell you the reason why.

While some of us often chime in with our comments at the end of reviews, for the most part, the reviews on IGN are primarily written by one editor; in this feature we get all of the editors on a particular channel to vote for our Game of the Month. What better way to represent your channel than to speak your mind all at once?

How does it work? Simple. Any game released in the past month is eligible for the award and is taken through a battery of tests by every editor on that particular channel. After we've finished evaluating each game that comes down the pipeline, we put our heads together and decide on a single "best of" winner that's worthy of the title "IGN Game of the Month". Pretty straightforward, don't you think?

Now that we have the guidelines out of the way, let's move on and congratulate this month's winner...

Why We Picked It::

Not only was Mega Man X Collection the best game of January: It was the only one. For that reason, the blue bomber himself was an easy pick. However, aside from being your only option for Cube this month, it is also one hell of a compilation. Offering six solid conversions of the X series, Mega Man X Collection has taken what was great about the original series, and kept the magic intact. Those who enjoyed the first Mega Man Anniversary Collection will be happy to note that the control reversal has been fixed, moving jump over to the A button, and pushing the shot button back to B. While the compilation itself is shy on extra features, it remains to be a great compilation for fans of the series. The end result, a strong package of 2D shooters that feel right at home on the Nintendo GameCube.

Runner-up: None.

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