Game Of the Year
Bishop: This is a tough one.
I loved Evolve early in the year, but the amount of people playing that game died off very, very quickly.
It's just not the same game now that it was.
Batman Arkham Knight was pretty good, if only they'd not insisted on using the Batmobile so often.
I think I'm going to go with Until Dawn, a horror game that is genuinely scary, genuinely brutal and unforgiving, and a whole lot of fun to both play and watch alike.
In saying that, two heavyweight titles did impress me greatly.
Fallout 4 was familiar and had some familiar frustrations but it was still incredible.
And The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was a phenomenal game.
I look forward to pouring more hours into both in the holidays.
Let's call this a tie.
Bishop: Tales from the Borderlands is my pleasant surprise of the year.
After the somewhat middling Walking Dead Season 2, I felt like Telltale's bubble had burst.
Tales from the Borderlands, however, was a spectacular return to form.
Almost a must-play experience in my opinion.
Meikle: Dying Light crept on to the scene as slowly as one of the zombies in the game.
It was a really nice mix of stealth, action and problem-solving, and there is plenty of life left in it yet.
Bishop: Call of Duty Black Ops III is my disappointment of the year.
Last year's Advanced Warfare really surprised me with just how brilliant it was.
Unfortunately, Treyarch's effort fell well short of even matching it this year.
Guitar Hero Live springs to mind too.
I had hopes it'd be a return to form for the series, but it just further sank into its grave.
Meikle: Quite a few this year, really.
I do feel a bit guilty lumping The Order: 1886 into this category as it was kind of fun and looked really nice - just a shame it was so predictable and short.
Bloodborne got heaps of warm advance press but I just hated it, and it was ridiculously hard.
And Project CARS was strangely awful.
Best sports
Bishop: Project CARS is my sports game of the year, the best racing game of the recent past (at least on PS4 and PC).
Other than that, I barely played any sports games this year!
Meikle: The usual suspects rolled out - MLB The Show 15 and NBA 2K16 were both excellent, and Madden 16 and Fifa 16 were good without setting the world on fire.
But the whole sports-gaming landscape changed when Rocket League came to town.
Strictly a sports game?
Maybe not.
But the futuristic, fantastic ‘‘car football'' game was so much fun, offline or on.
Best shooter
Bishop: In contrast to the sports games, I played a tonne of shooters.
Best online multiplayer was Evolve - in my opinion, a new idea that was executed well, but unfortunately didn't have the legs.
That doesn't take anything away from how brilliant it was in the first month or two however.
Best single-player shooter for me this year was Battlefield Hardline.
Felt like a playable CSI episode, with great graphics and great locales.
Meikle: I'm really kind of stuck here.
Didn't play Call of Duty: Black Ops III, didn't play Evolve, didn't play Halo 5.
So I will sort of go with Battlefield: Hardline by default.
No, it wasn't perfect.
But the single-player campaign was decent and the online action, while it could be awfully frustrating, was intense.
Best online
Bishop: Easy, Evolve.
The most fun I've had playing online against complete strangers in years.
Although if I was to recommend a game now I would lean towards Rainbow Six Siege's Terrorist Hunt mode.
Brilliant with friends.
Meikle: Ugh.
I'm a boring old offline campaign type of guy.
But let's go with Star Wars: Battlefront. Geek heaven.
Best remaster
Bishop: My year was an absolute deluge of remastered games.
There's one that stands above it all, and that is the Uncharted Nathan Drake Collection.
Three brilliant games, lovingly remastered, that look sensational and play even better.
Meikle will be grabbing this from my cold, dead hands.
Meikle: Ironically, given my advanced age, I literally did not play one remastered game this year.
Hey Bishop, how about a loan of Uncharted?
Crystal ball for 2016
Bishop: Uncharted 4, without a shadow of a doubt.
There's nothing else I can even think that comes close to the levels of anticipation I have for that one.
Meikle: I'm just a little bit excited about the sequel to Mirror's Edge, and we have been waiting for The Witness and The Last Guardian long enough.
But the biggest reason to get excited about 2016 in gaming is Uncharted 4: A Thief's End.
Swoon.
And hey, that PlayStation VR (virtual reality) looks interesting.
