Well butter my power armour if it hasn’t been one hell of an exciting year for video games.

2015 has seen some of the greatest games of the current console (and PC) generation release within just a few short months of each other, causing gamers across the globe to take out another loan/ sell extra body parts/ ask Grandma to double-check her will.

Usually the game of the year is a pretty stale affair with one or two clear title competitors duking it out, but this year was a veritable battle royale where anybody stood a chance.

With the actual proper Gaming Awards already held, we’re going to celebrate the year in gaming with our own categories. Well done 2015, you magnificent bastard.

Best Batshit Insane Game

Winner: Rocket League

If you suck at FIFA and couldn’t navigate a car out of a wet paper bag, then you’ve probably spent a good portion of your life being taunted by your friends for your gaming inadequacy. But all that changed when Rocket League appeared. Being one part driving game, one part football game and eight parts ‘what the fuck is going on?’, the game rocketed (sorry) to success this year for its manic and addictive gameplay. Also, there’s no greater feeling than scoring a backflip volley from the half-way line in the dying seconds completely by accident. You can spam the controller and still look like a legend on the pitch. Nobody can tell the difference.

Best Curl-Into-The-Foetal-Position-And-Weep-Uncontrollably Game

Winner: Life Is Strange

Square Enix’s episodic Life Is Strange is as likely to give you an aneurysm trying to figure out its complex, time-hopping story as it is to make you cry like a toddler. There’s no arguing that after playing through five episodes as teenage time-traveller Max, the game’s finale – however it plays out for you – is fucking heart-wrenching. It’s difficult to explain the finer points of why without spoiling the entire game, but if you like a gripping story and don’t mind crying your bodyweight in tears, it’s well worth checking out.

Best Uncomfortably Gratuitous Sex Scenes

Winner: The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt

A few years back we’d all sit round and joke about how cool it’d be when the ‘Hot Coffee’ mod for GTA San Andreas became the norm. Well, in Witcher 3 it is the norm, and now we all feel dirty for ever wanting it. While the sex scenes are far from necessary to enjoying this powerhouse of a game, if you show me a man who says he hasn’t indulged in the pixelated rumpy pumpy, I’ll show you a liar. The only problem is, it only takes a couple of seconds before you’re drowning in a tsunami of your own guilt and regret. What’s done is done, and your parents are ashamed of you.

Best Firey Death Of A Beloved Franchise

Winner: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5

Hold on to this one Tony, because god knows it’s the only award this faceplant of a game is taking home this year. All Activision and Robomodo had to do, was remake Tony Hawk’s Underground 2, and people would have bought the shit out of it. Instead, they decided drop trou and take a steaming hot dump on our childhood memories. I don’t even want to acknowledge that this game happened, but unfortunately the only way to ever be at peace with it would be to have a frontal lobotomy. Just awful.

Best Tethering Shit To Explosives Simulator

Winner: Just Cause 3

Just Cause 3 may have arrived to the party late, but that didn’t stop it from becoming the best tether-this-shit-to-that-shit-and-see-what-happens experience of the year, bar none. There was also something that resembled a story behind the orgasmic cluster-fuck of explosions and bullets, but nobody gave much of a shit about it. Just Cause 3 also wins the Wingsuiting Directly Into The Fucking Ground Award and Throwing Literally Anything You Can Find Out Of A Cargo Plane Award.

Best Kept You Waiting, Huh?

Winner: Fallout 4

Although it was only announced at this year’s E3 in June, Fallout 4‘s marketing campaign whipped people into a feverish, delirious excitement for pretty much every day until release thanks to a sustained marketing bombardment. Bethesda may have dropped the game with more bugs than the Amazon rainforest, but good lord did they market the shit out of it. Now that the dust has settled, we can look forward to a similar campaign for The Elder Scrolls VI, and then Fallout 5 and then The Elder Scrolls VII etc etc…

Best Wasteland

Winner: Metal Gear Online

Remember when Metal Gear Online launched and people spent countless hours playing it, praising Konami for the in-depth gaming experience? Yeah. Me either.

Best Fuck That Noise, I Ain’t Going In There

Winner: Bloodborne

Bloodborne – or Victorian Dark Souls if you will – was responsible for many a sodden pair of breeches this year, as thousands of players collectively decided to nope the fuck outta the game after seeing some of the horrifying enemies on display. Although faster and more accessible than its darker, soulier cousin, Bloodborne still threw up more bloodshed than Genghis Khan, leading to mass paranoia among the gaming community. Vicar Amelia. Enough said.