2008 for me, personally, has sort of been the year of the puzzler. I’m definitely not much of a puzzle gamer; sure I’ve played Tetris on the Gameboy - who hasn’t? - but that’s about as far as my reach goes.

Then came a slew of great PSN titles. I’ve always liked the Xbox Live Arcade, but my hard drive is always on the brink of overloading so I’ve always held off buying anything from the marketplace. Luckily I also have a PlayStation 3 complete with a hard drive that is twice the size of the one on my 360, so I figured it’d be the perfect time to adopt in some downloadable games - especially when the content is as good as it is. The Last Guy and PixelJunk Eden are my two favourites and the ones I have played the most. Both excellent titles that are addictive and a lot of fun at the same time.

However, it wasn’t until recently that my love for puzzlers really came to light. I’d heard a lot of good things about Peggle so I figured I’d give it a try; oh my God this game is awesome! It’s such a simple concept that’s based more on luck than anything else, but it’s so addictive and has this certain charm to it. I’ve got everyone I know to try it out and the reaction has been as positive as mine - sometimes even more so.

I’m supposed to be a hardcore gamer that bashes and moans about casual games, but Peggle is just sheer brilliance. You’ll tell yourself that you’re only going to give it a quick go, and next thing you know it’s five o’clock in the morning and you’ve soiled yourself twice over. The hours just fly-by and it never gets stale.

Although, while that may be the case, I figured I’d explore my horizons and try to find something else to feed my addictiveness. Along comes World of Goo. Like Peggle, I’d heard a lot of positive things about World of Goo, but sadly my Wii is too busy gathering dust to bother running anything, so imagine my joy when I found out it also runs on PC!

Now, my PC is good - for Word and Excel - but it fails at running games. Everyone knows that Half-Life 2 can run on pretty much anything, but on my PC it chugs along, and for me is unplayable. You may think I’m an idiot and this is some eight year old piece of junk, but my PC is actually only a year old; that’s just how bad it is. But of course I’ve already experienced success running Peggle, and luckily for me World of Goo is also a puzzle game and follows in Peggle’s footsteps, being able to perform on basically anything thanks to their simplicity.

So away I was, ready to submerge myself in a world of goo. And submerged I was, all the way up to my eyeballs. World of Goo is another sublime title, it has the addictive gameplay, endless fun, quirky visuals and wacky presentation. It’s everything I want from a puzzle game, and I love it.

2008 may be full of big, brass shooters and massive open-world RPGs, but take a break from these blockbuster titles and sit yourself in front of a puzzle game. I did, and it surprised the hell out of me. I’ve basically played all the games there are to play, so for me, Christmas this year will be spent addicted to puzzlers. It isn’t my favourite genre by a long shot, but 2008 has opened my eyes to what puzzlers have to offer; I always thought it was just hitting different coloured blocks and solving problems but it’s so much more than that, and small development teams are innovating and providing us with some brilliant titles that cost far less than anything else.

Puzzles rule!