Quake Wars, Mass Effect go gold

It's that time of year again - the one we gamers call the Gold Rush, where the announcements begin to flow in thick and fast about the years best games 'going gold'.

What does that mean? Well, the game is now out of internal development (Alpha stage), has hurdled through the public and private testing stages (Beta) and had reached the penultimate stage of development, dubbed Gold stage. The code is now being sent off to the game-making pixies who handcarve game CDs and DVDs out of a mineral known only as 'Awesomite'. When that's all done, the game will finally be available for sale.

Yesterday, Halo 3 pushed through to the gold stage, sending fanboys everywhere into a dizzying frenzy. Today, Quake Wars: Enemy Territory and Mass Effect join the crowd of Q4 games.

Quake Wars is scheduled to be hitting shelves across Europe and Australia on September 28th and, as you'll know if you read our hands-on preview and developer interview earlier this year, the game looks to be pretty damn good.

Not only does it have a strong focus on co-operation between the multiple classes, but the use of structures and super-weapons gives the game a real strategic feel.

Mass Effect meanwhile is the highly anticipated Xbox 360 RPG from BioWare, the makers of Knights of the Old Republic. An epic space saga set across an entire galaxy in the distant future, the game combines RPG and tactical elements in it's beautiful third-person perspective.

Which game do you favour, Halo 3, Mass Effect or Quake Wars? What other games are you looking forward too this year? Let us know in the forums.