TIME magazine has named Alan Wake as the best video game of 2010.
The declaration was a part of TIME’s "The Top Ten Everything of 2010"; a comprehensive, enormous collection of "Top 10" lists ranging from the "Top 10 Numbers" to the "Top 10 Facebook Stories".
For video games, though, Alan Wake has beat out the competition.
"Lots of video game covers have a bold M on their lower left corner, but none have felt as mature as Alan Wake does," TIME reporter Evan Narcisse wrote, "Its unsettled titular character carries adult concerns – a stalled career, a troubled marriage – into a psychological thriller set in a town taken over by a shadowy occult force."
Narcisse pointed out that the games most definitive feature is its necessity to expose enemies to light before offing them in the "typical" manner: guns.
"Its mix of meta-awareness and Hitchcockian suspense make Alan Wake a unique and fun experiment and one of the best games of the year," he writes.
Coming along in the number two spot is Angry Birds. Narcisse notes the game’s "addictive" style and the accomplished feeling one recieves from playing it for hours on end as the main reasons it was chosen.
"It’s all worth it just to know that you bested those pesky pigs who keep stealing what’s rightfully yours," he wrote.
Here’s the complete list:
1. Alan Wake
2. Angry Birds
3. Red Dead Redemption
4. Halo: Reach
5. Super Mario Galaxy 2
6. Limbo
7. Super Meat Boy
8. Super Street Fighter IV
9. Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
10. Mass Effect 2
[TIME]