The Top Games of 2009 According to this Site
Controller1.com’s top games of this past year.
Sleeper of the Year (aka The game that came out of nowhere, the one you expected to ignore but couldn’t because of the great word of mouth)
RED FACTION: GUERRILLA. Volition and THQ’s third RF game came out of nowhere to be one hell of a blast of supercharged entertainment. Sure, Volition misunderstood the difference between easy and insane. But the core mechanics of the game and the freedom you had to progress meant few stumbling blocks to gaming nirvana. I have no idea what the story was about so let’s assume it’s rather ordinary and skip to the good bits: blowing things up. I can’t name a game where destruction has been done better.
Runner Up: Borderlands
Overhyped Game of the Year (AKA The game that was expected to make coffee, bend time and rule all but in the end was a bit meh)
KILLZONE 2. Sony and Guerrilla Game’s follow up to the justifiably ignored Killzone was meant to be many things. Here’s what it was and wasn’t.
IT WAS: A decent FPS, put together well and looked beautiful.
IT WASN’T: a system seller, or a particularly great game.
Year of PS3 got off to a false start and was almost disqualified from the race with KZ2.
Runner up: Scribblenaughts
Most Disappointing Game (AKA Games with buzz and hope that just didn’t deliver)
Wolfenstein Coulda, should but didna. Wolfenstein squandered the hope that long term fans had for a worthwhile follow up to Return to Castle Wolfenstein. What they got was a good single player that seemed to need a teeny bit more polish and content and a terrrrrrrrrible multiplayer. Do you get this game? Do you like MP more than SP? Flip a coin.
Runner Up: Modern Warfare 2
MOST IMPROVED (AKA They fixed the shit in the first one that was busted)
Assassin’s Creed II. Oh Lord is it ever so much better than the first game. In every single way, this game is more fun than the original. The content is better organised so that the game is not “here are 10 things you can do, go do each of them 500 times.” The whole concept is still a bit silly and Kristen Bell’s character looks like she had a lip transplant from the original Kryten but overall any game that has Uncharted Guy doing voices is good.
Runner Up: Uncharted 2
BEST DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT: SHADOW COMPLEX
BF1943, GTA episodes and Trials were there but Shadow Complex was by far the best DL only game released in 2009. A Metroidvania that’s probably more palatable to a modern audience (since it has Uncharted Guy doing voices, of course), the game managed to astound, entertain, stir up controversy and offer a good few hours of gameplay.
Runner Up: Halo 3 ODST (no, not really, but it should have been)
Best Game Only on Wii: NEW SUPER MARIO BROTHERS WII
OK, so it was really only one of two Wii games I bought this year. But it was the one I didn’t sell (HotD: Overkill). It’s frustrating as all fuck, has a save system that’s as pointless as the one in Dead Rising and I’m not playing it right now. Why am I not playing this right now? I don’t know.
Best Game Only on PS3: UNCHARTED 2
Sony had two really good games this year. Uncharted 2 and Infamous. Infamous is blown out of the water by Uncharted 2. Uncharted 2 is the quintessential adventure game. Whereas the first game promised platforming but delivered a gears of War Clone, the sequel mixes things up so successfully that you never realise when the game is going to go from one style to another. yes, you know at least once per chapter there will be something you’re standing in collapsing around you leaving you hanging from one arm but that’s beside the point.
Best Game Only on Xbox 360: SHADOW COMPLEX The 360 almost had a gap year with the only big exclusives being Forza 3 (which a LOT of people love and recognise as the driving game of 2009 to play), Halo 3: ODST which really was just a bit too much recycling with such a short single player campaign.
Best Game Only on PC- this is the year 2009.
Best Game on Everything: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. IW may have pissed off as many people as they please with MW2. There’s the story that eschews any semblance of realism for moments of turkey-slapping-a-sleeping-lion thrills, OTT Multiplayer perks and combos, poor matchmaking and the various PC issues that made the game into a must play for many into a meh for some.
Best Pissing Away Goodwill. TIE: Infinity Ward and Activision.
Infinity Ward for doing the dirty on PC gamers and Activision for driving Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero into the ground. Oh, and splitting Starcraft II into three different games.
Most Improved: Sony. They cut the PS3 price from hysterical to merely funny (after three years it’s finally at the PS2 launch price), released the Slim and released Uncharted and Infamous. It still takes way too long to download and install a patch and most people still spend more on Blu Ray than they do on PS3 games, and PS3 ports are still often slightly lagging behind 360 in terms of graphics but it’s basically where it should have been three years ago. Just in time for God of War III
Most Potential for 2010: Microsoft. Really, they sold the 360 well but didn’t release that many 1st party games so you’d think game over, but then you see they have Crackdown 2, Halo Reach and Alan Wake. And then there’s Natal.
Least Potential for 2010: Wii
So we have a vitality sensor as the big piece of hardware? Really? Few games still support Motion Plus. Few gamers care and the signs are than grandma doesn’t either.
Game of the Year: Uncharted 2. Are you at all surprised? Naughty Dog redeem themselves after the disasters that were the Jak and Daxter sequels. This is the only game this year that a non-gamer will sit and watch as if it were a movie and enjoy it.
Runner Up: Modern Warfare 2.
It was a pretty good year overall. The only disappointing part of the year was the end. While we had some cracking titles such as Uncharted 2, ODST, Left 3 Dead 2, Assassin’s Creed II, MW2 and Super Mario Wii it still felt like something was missing.Oh that’s right about 2 or 3 more must-haves in the lead up to Christmas that we wouldn’t get to play till 2010 anyway. Having them all come out in the first quarter of 2010 seems to have upset the natural balance.
December 29th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
I’m a wii only gamer,(I can’t afford anything else although I have friends with 360′s and PS3′s so have played this years releases) and it’s really suffered this year from having good games ignored. There have been some great games released but they seemed to have gone under the radar of most people.
Wii Sports Resort is a typical fun with a party wii game, with more depth than Wii Sports.
Tiger Woods 10 is the best golf game yet, the motion plus thing adds so much to the game. It’s not as pretty as the other versions, but once you’ve tried it out you won’t want to go back to any other golf game. The disc golf is a nice addition that could have been a separate game. It is very, very hard on the hardest settings however.
Dead Space Extraction is a great game that uses the wiimote well and is definitely a good follow up to the first game.
Little Kings story, weird, funny, cute and hard. It looks like a sweet little game but will kick your arse. My game of the year so far if you only play one of these games this is the one.
Metroid trilogy, a remake but as with the RE4 remake on the wii it is the definite version of the games, well worth replaying through them with the new controls and other improvements.
Muramasa The Demon Blade, a beautiful and fun action game.
Tatsunoko Vs Capcom, old fashioned fighter my fighter mad friend rates higher than SFIV.
I’ve heard really good things about Excite bots, but it still hasn’t been released here.
Not a huge list I know, but all of those games are worth a rent at least to try out.
Next year I’m looking forward to Sin And Punishment 2, Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid Other M
December 30th, 2009 at 2:32 am
The other Wii game I played (that i didn’t have a hand in making) was House of the Dead Overkill- It would have been great if the cursor was anywhere near where I was pointing at on the screen.
Anyone play the second Boom Blox game that came out? Mad world? A Boy and his Blob?
December 30th, 2009 at 11:31 am
I had a problem like that but IIRC the settings page had a really good erm “cursor fiddling” option that made it much easier to play.
I got my daughter a copy of the second boom blox game about 2 weeks ago. It’s pretty much the same as the first with some very minor improvements, why they didn’t wait and use the motionplus for the throwing action I have no idea.
I’ve rented Madworld,it’s alright, very short and somewhat repetitive. I would definitely say rent it don’t buy it. The idea behind it is ok,(the story just rips off most of Escape From New York,) it just needed more polish and variety.
A boy and his blob I haven’t played,(it is on my rental list) but my brother and I played the original and he says he enjoyed the new version.
I am wondering if I have played the wii game you had a hand in making now,ha! as long as it wasn’t the new nights game, OH GOD PLEASE TELL ME IT WASN’T THE NIGHTS GAME!! (readies shotgun, nails and a large wooden cross).