Best and Worst of 2009: Honorable Mentions

Ah, the Honorable Mentions.  I wanted to limit myself to a top five list this year, so these are the games that I really enjoyed, but didn't quite make it on the list.  And to be fair, a lot of these are games that I just haven't gotten around to finishing or playing yet, so they could feasibly be on the top list.  But the top five are the games I couldn't stop playing, so that's why they stand out over the rest (well, with the exception of tomorrow's game, but I love it so much that I just couldn't exclude it from the top 5).  So while those are the best, these are all pretty darn good too.  So let's get down to honorably mentioning:


Best Professor Layton Game - Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box


I think the odds were stacked in the Diabolical Box's favor, as there was only one Professor Layton game this year (at least in America...).  Still, this is a Professor Layton game, and it's fantastic.  If you never played the first one, go get it!  What are you waiting for?!  Well, unless you don't own a DS.  Anyways, if you played the Curious Village, you know what to expect here.  There aren't any new tricks, but I wasn't expecting there to be.  I wanted more of the same, and this delivered.  There is a great sense of charm in these games, and some pretty mind bending puzzles as well.  If you have a DS, pick it up and help the Professor solve his puzzles and aid strangers by brewing them tea.  Yes, that happens.  Plus, and I don't want to spoil anything here, but you get to see the Professor flex his fencing skills.  And believe me, they are formidable.  If that doesn't sell you on it, then I don't want to know you.  Because you must be a bad person.

Best Downloadable Game - Shadow Complex 

I should really clear up that this is for games made specifically for download on the consoles, seeing as I bought almost every single PC game this year via Steam.  This was a great year for XBLA and PSN games, I have to say.  Splosion Man, Trials HD, and so on made for a really great selection.  But the stand out game of them all was Shadow Complex.  Shadow Complex raised the bar for what you expect from a XBLA game, providing an experience that outshone most of the big budget retail games.  This is a "Metrodvania" style game, where you wander a large 2D overworld and pick up new weapons and powerups that allow you to explore new areas of the map.  Yet I still felt like this was progressing the whole formula as well.  The story is pretty forgettable, but the gameplay is terrific.  And I have to mention that the end sequence ranks among my favorite final battles ever.  When you're fully upgraded, you can take on the world, and you practically do.  They throw everything at you, and yet you can destroy it all effortlessly.  It really feels rewarding after the time invested in the game.  It also has Nolan North voicing the lead, which will raise any game a notch in my book.

Best PS3 Exclusive Open World Super Power Game - Infamous

OK, so I really just wanted to talk about Infamous.  Infamous is a really fun game that kind of wears out its welcome near the end.  It gets really hard and chaotic at points, and the story doesn't ever really resolve anything.  It's one of those games that was built with a franchise in mind.  When did that mean you couldn't tell a complete story in your game?  Why do they all have to basically say "To Be Continued" at the end?  It totally feels like someone cheated you out of a portion of your $60 game!  Regardless, this game is a ton a fun anyways, as I lost a ton of hours running around the city and zapping dudes.  Sucker Punch continues to deliver the goods.  While I would have loved to see them continue with the Sly Cooper series, this is a great new world and idea that they've made.  The movement feels right, the powers are pretty cool, and the story is pretty interesting, even despite the aforementioned aggravations in the last third of the game.  But whatever.  I still had a blast with it.  Or I guess you could say I got a "charge" out of it!  Heh...heh...OK, I'm sorry.  I couldn't resist.

Best Use of Jack Black - Brutal Legend

Brutal Legend is a funny game with decent gameplay that I've played very little of.  With all the great games coming out, I've had very little incentive to go back to it.  Still, Tim Schafer is probably the funniest guy writing games these days, and he keeps it up with this one.  Jack Black actually enhances the experience, bringing just the right tone and attitude to the character of Eddie Riggs.  I could have seen them going over the top and insane when they locked down Jack Black, but they managed to hold off and create something pretty cool.  Maybe someday I'll actually go see the rest of his story.

Best Racing Game - Dirt 2

So apparently I like Rally racing now?  I guess.  I don't want to watch it, but I've sure enjoyed playing it.  I'm not that big into racing games anymore, but Dirt 2 brings some interesting gameplay and combines it with a fantastic presentation.  This game looks beautiful, and it makes me wish I was actually good at driving from the cockpit view.  You also have to think when you turn, and compensate for the dirt roads.  But if you screw up and total your car, you can just hit rewind and go back to a point before you made the turn.  This is perfect for a guy like me.  The rewinds are limited, though, so you have to decide when it's worth using them.  And even if you don't come in first, you still gain experience for racing the track, so you're always progressing and unlocking new things, which makes for a great incentive to keep playing and cuts down on frustration.  I need to go log in some hours behind the wheel with this one, but I've loved what I've played so far.

Most Original Game - flower


How do you describe a game like Flower?  It's a very, very simple game.  You control...the wind?  A petal?  I don't know what it is, but you push any button to fly, and you steer by tilting the Sixaxis controller.  Don't worry, it actually works in this game.  You fly into flowers to make them bloom and it gives you more petals.  And that's pretty much it.  But the game feels like it's more than that.  It looks beautiful, and each stage is unique.  It's really a game you have to see in action to understand it.  So why don't you just go do that here?  In this case, a Quick Look is worth a thousand words.

Best Adventure Game - Tales of Monkey Island

 This has the been a great year in terms of adventure games.  And almost all the credit goes to the fine folks at Telltale Games.  They have been making quality games with some truly great humor for a while now.  And Tales of Monkey Island is no exception.  Each episode follows the now standard Telltale formula, where you have to solve an initial problem, then solve three different problems, then move on to three more, until you come across the final conflict of the episode.  And for Monkey Island, they end it on a cliffhanger that makes you want to leap into the next episode right away.  Considering they only released one episode a month, though, that was pretty hard to do.  But they're all out now, so you can now play the whole season at once if that's your thing.  What makes Tales of Monkey Island so great is the trademark humor.  It's kind of required to already be familiar with Guybrush Threepwood and his supporting cast to really understand what's going on, but they've recently released the original game so you should go play that if you've never had a Monkey Island experience.  The humor is very self aware and spot on, and the characters all stand out pretty well.  They also throw in some great twists to most of the returning characters that play out well over the course of the season, which keeps it from seeming like the same old story again.  I've really enjoyed getting back into another Monkey Island game this year, something I was worried I would never be able to say again.  Welcome back, Guybrush Threepwood, mighty pirate.

Best Game From Last Year That I'm STILL Playing - Rock Band 2

Do I really need to talk about this one?  It's Rock Band 2.  It's awesome.  And I'm still playing it.  Oh, and it has "Don't Stop Believing" available for purchase in it.  That should be enough to explain this one.

 








Best Games That I Really Want to Get Back to Playing at Some Point

This is my list of shame for the year.  Borderlands, Halo 3 ODST, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Dragon Age, and others stand among the games I've started and need to finish.  Add that to the games that are out or coming out soon that I want to play, like DJ Hero, God of War III, and The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.  And then there are the countless games from prior years that I've never finished.  Final Fantasy XII, Okami, Banjo & Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, and Xenogears are amongst the pile.  Heck, I'm still meaning to leap back into Fallout 3 to play the DLC packs.  I'm terrible at finishing what I've started most of the time, and the shiny new games are often irresistible to me. 

Take Borderlands, one of the major releases this winter.  It's an awesome game that combines the mechanics of an FPS with the addiction of loot gathering.  Tons of people have played through it.  Me?  I just beat Sledge.  How about Dragon Age?  I'm doing even worse with that one, when I should be glued to the screen.  I love the characters and the story progression, but I'm scared to death of the choices and the knowledge that I will die often and die brutally.

Then there are the games I've just started recently.  Silent Hill Shattered Memories probably deserves its own recognition section, as it has some really simple mechanics yet leaves a deep impression on you while you're playing it.  Also, New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a classic style Mario game, which automatically makes it fantastic.  Needless to say, there are a lot of great games out there that I will never have time to finish.  Wait, should this really be under the "Best Of" section?