It's Game Over for 2008, a year full of fun, excitement and more than a bit of controversy for the video game community.

A couple of weeks back we looked at the Top 15 Stories of 2008. Today GamePolitics presents the most politically fascinating people of the year:

15. Politicians Who Play - The mayor of Muskogee, Oklahoma is a gamer. So is the mayor of the Anzin Saint-Aubin in France. Both were elected in 2008, a year which saw more gamers hold political office than ever before. Hard to believe? Check out our coverage of gamer-politicos.

14. Sarah Palin - While she's not a politican who plays video games, game designers can't seem to resist the controversial Governor of Alaska. During her failed vice-presidential bid Palin was the subject of so many online games that we actually lost count. Big-time game publishers cashed in on Palin-mania as well. A Palin character was featured (along with Barack Obama) as DLC for Mercenaries 2. Maxis created a Palin creature for Spore and featured the world's best-known hockey mom dancing in a bikini in a trailer for The Sims 3. And, even with the election in the rear-view mirror, Palin's hunting habit was lampooned this week by PETA. Personally, I even got into bit of a tiff with David Jaffe over Palin. In retrospect, I think I was too rough on the God of War designer.

13. Brad Wardell - While the big-time publishers continue to alienate their loyal PC customers with intrusive DRM schemes, delayed release dates and silly threats to abandon the platform altogether, Brad Wardell, CEO of boutique publisher Stardock (Sins of a Solar Empire) is one guy who is actually thinking about ways to provide PC gamers with a better experience. The Gamer's Bill of Rights that he and Gas Powered Games CEO Chris Taylor released at PAX 08 was a bold, if preliminary, step in the right direction. We also love what Randy Stude and the members of the PC Gaming Alliance are doing to keep computer gaming alive.

12. Wafaa Bilal - In an effort to show his belief that American foreign policy actually encourages terrorist recruitment, Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal's controversial Virtual Jihadi game puts the player in control of a reluctant suicide bomber who must target President Bush. The game was at the center of a free speech controversy when Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute in upstate New York invited him to display Virtual Jihadi but abruptly un-invited him when campus Republicans protested. Bilal (left), a naturalized American citizen, then set up shop in a small, off-campus art gallery, but Republican city officials closed the place down, dubiously citing building code violations. The New York Civil Liberties Union is suing the city.

11. Hal Halpin - Yes, some will criticize Hal's selection since the Entertainment Consumers Association, which he heads, is the parent company of GamePolitics. But the ECA represents the first organized movement to protect and nurture the interests of the gaming public, so it's impossible to ignore. What Hal started in late 2006 really gained momentum in 2008. This year the ECA lobbied on behalf of game consumers and took positions on important issues like Net Neutrality, EULAs, Universal Broadband and game censorship.

10. Cooper Lawrence - The author of fluffy books about dating and celebrities clearly had no idea what she was stepping into when she smeared RPG hit Mass Effect during a Fox News-orchestrated video game beatdown in January. Thankfully, Spike TV's Geoff Keighley was on hand to provide some rational counterpoint. Lawrence's ridiculous comments about the best-selling Xbox 360 title were widely reported in the gaming press. Outraged gamers took guerilla revenge by flocking to Amazon.com where they trashed listings for Lawrence's books with one-star reviews. In the end it turned out that Lawrence was completely unacquainted with Mass Effect and relied instead on a lurid Fox News briefing, a fact which she later admitted to the New York Times. Whether or not one approves of the tactics employed against Lawrence, the episode provided an object lesson for the mainstream media: Gamers will not sit idly by while they and their hobby are slandered. (more after the jump)

9.) Gamers have grown accustomed to hearing gloomy news about video games from academic types. But Drs. Cheryl Olson & Lawrence Kutner, a pair of Harvard researchers, gave cheer to the gaming community with the April release of Grand Theft Childhood. Their well-received book wasn't all good news to be sure, but the primary message was reassuring for parents: Although adolescents will often manage to get their hands on violent games like GTA, they are able to distinguish between the game world and real life.

8.) Hypocritical Politicians - When it came to video games, 2008 was a peak year for political hypocrisy. New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer railed about the virtual hookers in GTA and tried to pass a game content law, but in the end was himself busted for dallying with flesh-and-blood call girls... Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius tried to pass a game law in 2006 but she stood behind her son this year when the art student was found to be making and marketing a board game knockoff of GTA - from the Governor's Mansion... California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (seen in-game at left) made a fortune from appearing in violent movies as well as games based on those films. But he threw good tax dollars after bad, appealing a federal court ruling which held that the state's video game law is unconstitutional... Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was so incensed about the virtual crime in GTA that he got a video game law passed in 2005, only to see it, too fail in court. The Guv, of course, is now under federal indictment for some very ugly real-world crimes. During his abortive presidential bid, Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said he would address the cartoon violence of video games but couldn't bring himself to condemn the real-world practice of torturing prisoners.

7.) Brandon Crisp - The tragic circumstances surrounding the disappearance and death of Canadian teen Brandon Crisp riveted the attention of the gaming community during October and November. Readers will recall that 15-year-old Brandon ran away from home following an argument in which his parents confiscated his Xbox 360. For weeks, much of the speculation surrounding Brandon's disappearance focused on the theory that the boy had been kidnapped by a predator he met during marathon online sessions of Call of Duty 4, a game to which his parents claimed he was addicted. In the end, Brandon's body was found in some woods not far from his home. A coroner ruled that he had died from injuries sustained in a fall from a tree, probably not long after leaving home. While the notion of Xbox Live as a haven for predators fell by the wayside, Brandon's case will likely be cited a video game addiction horror story for a long time to come. From here, however, the case seems more like a family argument that took a tragic turn.

6.) Jack Thompson - No list of this nature would be complete without mention of Jack Thompson. Through some highly unprofessional antics, Thompson pushed the self-destruct button on his legal career. In September the Florida Supreme Court upheld a referee's recommendation that Thompson be disbarred for life. We won't go into the particulars here since Thompson has been covered extensively by GamePolitics during the course of the year. If you want to see the details of what got his license yanked, read our exclusive transcripts of his Florida Bar trial. Suffice to say that, despite his disbarment, Thompson will continue to be a vocal critic of the game industry.

5.) Michael Gallagher - The CEO of game publishers trade group the Entertainment Software Association certainly had a tough act to follow. His predecessor, Doug Lowenstein, founded the ESA an led the industry with a deft touch for a dozen years. When Gallagher took over in 2007 he seemed a perfect fit: smart, politically savvy and a gamer to boot. But his reign has been a rocky one, most notable for 2008's horrendous E3 as well as a 25% drop in ESA membership. Can Gallagher get it together in 2009? That remains to be seen.

4.) Niko Bellic - There was only one monster gaming event in 2008, but what an event it was! The April 29th release of Grand Theft Auto IV captivated not only the gaming press, but the mainstream media's consciousness for weeks before and after launch. Every network talking head weighed in on GTA. Every late night comic had a GTA sketch. Every politician seemingly had a GTA whinge. Whether you loved the game or hated it, the GTA IV effect was unprecedented. So, we'll let protagonist Niko Bellic serve as the stand-in for Rockstar Games, for the Houser brothers, for Take-Two Interactive, and for Strauss Zelnick.

3.) Tanya Byron - The TV psychologist became a household name among gamers after the British government engaged her to conduct a study into the effects of video games and the Internet on children. Byron delivered her report in March. Chief among its recommendations were making enhancements to the game rating system and legally enforcing ratings at point-of-sale. Byron's recommendations triggered a bitter turf war between the PEGI rating system favored by the game industry and the British Board of Film Classification, which appears to enjoy political support. A decision on the rating issue is expected early in 2009.

2.) Judge Dava Tunis - When the Florida Bar needed a referee to oversee its prosecution of Jack Thompson, it turned to Dava Tunis. Although it was probably not an assignment that Tunis relished, the veteran criminal court jurist presided over what turned out to be a contentious, nine-day ethics trial in December, 2007 (read our exclusive transcripts). For months after the trial, Tunis became a lightning rod for Thompson's well-known vitriol. She was named by Thompson in a federal lawsuit, insulted, threatened with legal action, had her integrity questioned and was even accused of leaking case documents to GamePolitics. Despite it all, Tunis endured. It was her meticulous report to the Florida Supreme Court which directly led to Thompson's lifetime disbarment.

1.) Barack Obama - The President-Elect had a fascinating, rollercoaster sort of relationship with video games during 2008. Obama admitted that the last game he played was Pong and during speeches he frequently equated games (and watching TV) with academic underachievement. Nor was he especially complimentary about GTA IV when it launched. On the other hand, his campaign made that amazing ad buy (left) on Xbox Live and Obama seems to be supportive of creative industries in general. One thing is for certain: game industry types are fascinated with Obama. As GamePolitics reported, a number of prominent industry figures contributed to the Obama campaign, including Rockstar's Sam Houser and Take-Two's Strauss Zelnick. Obama was featured in a Saints Row 2 trailer, as a playable DLC character in Mercenaries 2 and in a trailer for The Sims 3. So, how will he approach video game issues once he moves into the Oval Office? That remains to be seen.