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

Not going to have the time to do good writeups on most of these, but just to get my votes in:

30 Points - Borderlands - The game doesn't excel in any one area, but the way of the disparate elements come together still works quite nicely. Still has some flaws and other issues that are frustrating, but I still kept coming back more and more even while complaining about it.

15 Points - Shadow Complex - Super Metroid for a new generation (although let's be clear, not as good as Super Metroid). Also really like that it's an Arcade/downloadable title, among other games this year it really raises the bar for that space.

10 Points - Modern Warfare 2 - Having never played MW1 online, this is a weird one for me. The fact that with all of it's XP and progression hooks you always feel like you're doing something seals it for me. Especially as opposed to games like say Halo, where all that matters is if you win or lose, in this it doesn't matter nearly as much. Also single-player is completely ridiculous and nonsensical, which I'm all for.

10 Points - Left 4 Dead 2 - Left 4 Spreadsheet 2.

10 Points - New Super Mario Bros. Wii - Holds up well as a single-player game, but playing this with 4 people people was honestly probably the most fun I had multiplayer this year; if it had good online support for that it'd probably be in my top 2 or 3 games.

5 Points - Halo 3: ODST - Campaign is pretty great, and I really enjoy the overworld area. Firefight is also fantastic, if it had freaking online matchmaking for Firefight this would have placed a hell of a lot higher.

5 Points - Resident Evil 5 - Ultimately despite it's flaws this was a pretty fun co-op game. As a single-player experience I would still give it to RE 4 over this, but co-op pushes it over that.

5 Points - Sacred 2 - A really good console hack/loot/Diablo game that seems to have sold pretty well, but was generally overlooked. There's really nothing else like it on the consoles that's not crap (Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom anyone?). The world is HUGE, and with 4 player drop in/out co-op and world consistency across 5 difficulties, you could spend a long ass time with this.

5 Points - Dragon Age: Origins - Truly, the Age of Dragons.

5 Points - Trials HD - Would have placed higher if the difficulty didn't scale so dramatically so quickly. Don't get me wrong, I beat it (FUCK YOU INFERNO 2), but on replaying it I would always go back to earlier levels. DLC didn't do a whole lot to address that either -_-.



Honorable Mentions:

Phantasy Star Portable - A very streamlined portable version of PSU that eliminates almost all of the bullshit it's console cousin has. Lack of a proper online mode kicks it out of the top ten for me.

Battlefield 1943 - A great multiplayer shooter to jump in and out of, but some technical issues (especially early one) and the lack of post-launch support drop it for me.

Excitebots - SUPER SANDWICH. This game is completely insane and I love it, it just has a hard time competing against top-tier games of this year. Also the fact that local 2-player is only the two of you and not AI as well is a major bummer, but they do get props for having proper online.

Street Fighter IV - I was really torn between this and Trials HD for my #10 slot. I think ultimately the fact that an improved version of this is coming in a few months dampens my enthusiasm for this one. Even though there are very few fighting games that I've ever gotten into, SF4 just felt really good and solid to play.

Miner Dig Deep - An awesome little Xbox Indie game. Almost kinda like Dig Dug with RPG elements? It's 2 or 3 bucks, everyone should go check it out.


Games that would probably be on this list if I had played them yet:
-Uncharted 2 - Probably the big one looking at basically everyone's list. Got it for Christmas, just haven't gotten to it yet.
-Assassin's Creed 2 - Same, got it for Christmas.
-Batman - Playing this right now actually.
-Torchlight - Picked it up on the $10 sale a few weeks ago and love it, but haven't had the time to really get into it yet.
-Bowser's Inside Story - Haven't gotten to it yet.
-Demon Souls - Haven't gotten to it yet.

Daravon's 2008 game of 2009: Tales of Vesperia
Yeah, love this game. Actually spent the time to 1000/1000 it. Arguably the best Tales game in my opinion.

Biggest Disappointment: Star Ocean The Last Hope

Seriously, fuck this game. Possibly the worst RPG I've played in 10 years, without exaggeration. I'm the only one of the group that bought it that beat it, and that was out of pure spite for paying $60 for it. The combat and graphics are passable, everything is total dog shit. Most of the cutscenes actually made me embarassed to be a gamer, and this is coming from someone who will gladly tell you that he beat and enjoyed games like FFX-2. The plot makes no fucking sense; hell, at one point YOU DESTROY A PLANET which winds up only to be a plot device to make a character emo for about 5 hours until they snap out of it, and then IT IS NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. If you're looking forward to the PS3 version, fuck you.

Jam it back in, in the dark.