According to Time’s tech writer, GTAIV got the top honors because “it’s a grade-A shoot-’em-up that doubles as an interactive novel and triples as a sly critique of American consumer culture.”

Last year, Halo 3 got the top honors from the magazine.

I have my own personal doubts about the choice though. GTAIV is without a doubt one of the best games last year but with the debacle it suffered with the PC version, this choice should have been rethought a number of times. And the defense that it’s a multi-platform game is not valid enough given that Halo 3 wasn’t multi-platform either.

Below is the top ten list of best games for the year. One would wonder why Metal Gear Solid 4 isn’t even on the list, while the Star Wars The Force Unleashed is in there.

1. Grand Theft Auto IV
2. Braid
3. Little Big Planet
4. Rock Band 2
5. Gears of War 2
6. Dead Space
7. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
8. Hunted Forever
9. Fieldrunners
10. Spore

Which was a good thing in a way because Rockstar Games has announced that it will be patching GTAIV to include trophies. The new patch will include 51 trophies, which is one more than the Xbox 360 gamer achievements for the same game.

Bad news for people who’ve played the game before though. The trophies are not retroactive so if you want to get the trophies you’ll have to play the game all over again.