Game of the Month: February 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::

What… are you kidding? The idea of the game is that you're a tiny little robot, and you run around helping toys with their problems, cleaning up after piggish grown-ups, and fulfilling your destiny to become a Super Chibi Robo! How can you pass that up? The game can only be described as a mix of Animal Crossing and Katamari Damacy mixed with a little pinch of crack. Nothing beats running around the gigantic world on a quest of social acceptance. Our own Matt Casamassina had the following to say about this quirky gem of a title:

If you've been reading our site for any amount of time and have come to trust my reviews at all, do me a favor and give Chibi-Robo a chance. I expect that too many people will glance at this game and conclude that it's not for them, simply because it's either too weird or too cute. Truthfully, it's both, but it's also a very enjoyable, fun, and rewarding puzzle-platformer. Skip has successfully created a very charming title complete with an off-the-wall hero and an abnormally dysfunctional family whose needs he must contend with on a daily basis. Chibi cleans and spreads happiness, but he also solves environmental puzzles and explores a house that seems bigger than some competing games' universes. And whether he's scrubbing out stains or bringing the family together, you're going to be entertained.

Bringing players into a new world is never an easy task, but Chibi Robo manages to do so with ease, taking time to poke fun at society in the process. It is hands down the best game of February and without a doubt our Game of the Month.

Runner-up: None.

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