[General Discussion] The Gamingforce Game of the Year 2009: Use Your Vote Time

I'll be fair; 2009 was not a banner year in gaming for numerous reasons:

• Was on disability for six months and didn't have money for shit
• Three consoles/portable systems took shits on me, not entirely of my own doing either.
• Access to other consoles was severely limited by having to share the television with a father who insisted that every fucking afternoon be spent watching recorded episodes of, like, fifteen identical cop drama shows featuring a gruff but fair sergeant with a heart of gold who bends the rules to get the job done and protect the innocent while coping with his messy alcohol/cocaine/divorce/post war trauma syndrome/progressive incurable illness issues. Not that I think he should branch out and watch something cheerful or anything.

So this list represents not the games I played and enjoyed, but the games I most wanted to play and thought I might enjoy. A couple, I did get to try but not even close to the amount that would've satisfied me, mostly because the fucking nine year-old brat with the My Chemical Romance t-shirt behind me in the Game Crazy wouldn't stop whining that I'd been there almost five minutes already, when am I going to let him play for an hour, sheesh!

10 Points: Street Fighter IV - I loved the look and feel of this game, and have always been a Street Fighter fan. Online play was a nice plus, and the series was long overdue for a true sequel. I actually own this game, since I found a used copy for good price. But three days after I bought it, Merv hid his 360 and connected it to his PC with a screen saver password. In before owned.

10 Points: Punch Out Wii - This was the game I looked forward to most, being a longtime fan of the first two. I managed to purchase and play this for a little while, so I can vouch for the fun and quality. It is seriously a wonderful, if mildly frustrating experience, and the little touches they put into the game - like each fighter having his own variation of the in-ring theme -made me feel like a kid again. Unfortunately, my dad interfered with the cop drama offensive described above, then further complicated matters by connecting the Wii to a complex system involving a channel selector, three different output channels, a television PC, three remote controls and the new digital cable box. Since I am not a fucking computer engineer, I never got to lose to Mr. Sandman again. But trust me, this game is totally worth the time, if only to hear Bear Hugger's thick Canadian accent shout "Timber!" when he falls.

10 Points: Scribblenauts - Yeah, there were flaws but this game gets points for ambition. A shame I never beat it because some fatass custodial bitch backed her enormous ass into my bedside hospital tray, causing my DS to fall off and into her bucket of ... whatever the fuck vomit-smelling cleanser they put in there. She didn't even speak English (conveniently) so I was unable to explain that she had to buy me a new one. And the administration claimed no responsibility for lost items, even ones destroyed by their own employees. Lost the Scribblenauts game too. Fucking banana-boat whore.

10 Points: Sims 3 - Another game that looked great. Pang's pre-meet Journal entries pretty much cemented my interest, even though I already had no doubts about the quality. My shit-tastic computer stood no chance of running it, since it could barely watch ten minutes of anything on Hulu without spontaneously giving up and shutting down, but Sims 3 is the #1 game on my list once my new computer arrives in a couple weeks.

10 Points: Torchlight - I am giving this points mostly because people say it's a lot like Diablo, and Diablo was a pretty awesome game. Fuck you. Nothing in the rules said my reasoning had to be rock solid. Not to worry, though, I'll have a Steam account shortly enough and will definitely be giving Torchlight a go. Consider this an award of good faith!

10 Points: Orbital - I am pretty sure 98% of you have no clue what this is. It's a game for the iphone and it's motherfucking addictive. You shoot balls that ricochet around. When they stop, they expand into spheres which must then be destroyed by subsequent balls you shoot. Each sphere must be contacted three times before it is destroyed. If you're sloppy, your screen will fill up with enormous spheres and nowhere to shoot without ricocheting the ball below the safety line. It's deceptively tricky. So yeah, I'm certain I'm the only person who loves this little game but whatever. It earned its points.

10 Points: Ghostbusters (PS3/360 - fuck the animated Wii crap) - Sooooooooo wanted to play this, if only for the fact that they got the fab four to do the voice acting. The cake was the fact that it turned out to be a truly great game. Well, the first level is, I know that much. I thoroughly enjoyed running around the hotel, blasting walls and chandeliers, until that little fuckwad kept kicking my calves because his drunk mama never taught him how to wait his goddamned turn. Damn kids. Get off my lawn!!

10 Points: A Boy and His Blob - This gets points merely because someone had the brass coconuts to propose remaking this game, and someone else had even bigger coconuts to say "Sure, why the fuck not make nine people happy? Let's do this thing!" But yeah, surprise remake of the year and a game I'd love to play if I ever figure out how to work the technological maze of channel selectors and remote controls.

10 Points: Borderlands - I honestly don't know a ton about this game since it seems to be one of a number of "world is fucked so let's run around, kill scavengers and mutants, collect some leftover shit just to survive, and also stumble across an inscrutably high volume of usable weapons and ammunition" type of games. But after having watched Merv shoot countless scavengers and mutants, and scour what must've been the lost continent of Howitzer, Borderlands appears to be a rather good iteration in the genre and something I'd like to try for myself.

10 Points: Machinarium - Soooooo fucking gorgeous. I long for more developers to place such an emphasis upon the unity of story, presentation and the sheer magic of imagination. Few games achieve this for me - Braid, Aquaria and Ico are great examples. I was absolutely heartbroken when I first saw this game and knew my computer could never handle it. But soon, soon I shall experience its wonder and it's something I eagerly look forward to.

There ya go. I think that's 100.

Jam it back in, in the dark.