Every year, publishers push to get their high-profile titles into gamers’ hands before Black Friday, leaving a quality-title dead zone until the beginning of Quarter 1. The end of release season also signals the official beginning of Game of the Year speculation. Every big-budget, large-scale, game is now available on store shelves which means players should have a pretty good idea about which 2009 title they enjoyed the most – unless you are holding your breath for James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game, which most of us aren’t.
Instead of relying on the outcome of the upcoming Spike VGAs, which in 2005 nominated 50 Cent: Bulletproof and Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game for awards, Game Rant has decided to put together a list of our nominations, along with a bit of commentary, for our Game of the Year choices. As usual, we’re interested to hear what our readers think, so make sure to vote in the poll on the home page, as well as sound off in the comments.
In the interest of avoiding favoritism, our nominees are listed in alphabetical order:
Assassin’s Creed II
Players have only been enjoying the sequel to Assassin’s Creed for a couple weeks now, but there’s no denying the strength of the title. Assassin’s Creed II improves on every single positive aspect of the first game – graphics, immersive environments, gameplay, as well as fixes a number of its predecessor’s problems – most notably in the diversity of missions and combat. The sequel allows players to customize their experience in countless ways: whether purchasing weapons that allow for a more aggressive combat experience, investing in properties that earn money in the long-term, or simply changing the color of Ezio’s clothing – no one can accuse the game of funneling players through a specific series of moments or force them to carry out the larger assassinations in one specific way. The story, while still convoluted, is better grounded in the mission structure this round and overall Ezio is a more interesting character than his distant great-great-grandfather Altair.
Batman: Arkham Asylum
What could have been an absolute franchise disaster turned out to be one of the best and most immersive titles of the year – due mainly to publisher Rocksteady’s uncompromising recreation of the Batman universe, not to mention an incredible initial concept. If Batman: Arkham Asylum only did one thing right, it’s grounding the player in Batman’s boots, forcing gamers to not only react to threats but think through various combat scenarios, all while utilizing a number of inventive and iconic bat-gadgets. The physical design of the characters and environments is immaculate – details a lot of gamers may have missed if they relied heavily on the cowl’s detective mode. The story, penned by Emmy Award winning Paul Dini who also wrote episodes of “Batman: The Animated Series” and later, “Batman Beyond,” fits the mythos of the franchise with a well-paced gameplay experience. Numerous voice actors with previous Batman experience, most notably Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy, came on board to ground the game even further. Not to mention, one might argue that winning a Guinness World Record for “Most Critically Acclaimed Superhero Game” might be a greater challenge than a Game of the Year award.
Borderlands
Despite a few hiccups at launch, one of which being not enough copies to go around, Borderlands has secured it’s place as the Sleeper Hit of the Year, if not Game of the Year. Gearbox managed to combine outrageous online multiplayer co-operative play with deep RPG customization, in a post-apocalyptic world filled with everything from midget bandits, insect-like monstrosities, and now, zombies. Borderlands knows its market, the plot is simple and humorous, and subsequently, somewhat gimped as a single-player experience, but the co-operative online play is unique, not to mention outrageous fun, offering hundreds of hours of distinctive play – a step up from the often copy and paste feel of many online shooter-style games in the market. The first round of DLC for the game entitled “The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned” continued building on an already massive universe, and with future DLC already in the works, fans of Borderlands have a lot of reasons to be championing the title for Game of the Year.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
The videogame equivalent of a Michael Bay film, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is heavy on explosive action and outrageous gameplay. Where non-stop action might wear viewers down after three hours of movie-watching, Modern Warfare 2 gives fans of the series exactly what they wanted – an intense multiplayer experience that improves on previous outings. The single player campaign is short and sweet but is also supplemented with the Special Ops section, allowing players to take control of a number of diverse combat scenarios. The title offers a great value: terrific graphics, cinematic and immersive gameplay, challenging difficulties, and boasts a number of improvements; but, is a solid package enough for a title to truly be game of the year? Is Modern Warfare 2 truly the best title of 2009 or is it, as many critics of the franchise have stated, more deserving of the Most Over-Hyped Game of the Year award? It’s difficult to argue with Modern Warfare 2’s numbers, recently surpassing $3 billion in sales, with numbers like that, Infinity Ward must be doing something right.
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All of these nominees make sense to me and are all deserving in their own regard. Batman AA was the best…THE BEST, hands down comic book video game of all time, and I cannot wait for the sequel. Looking at the list I think Assassins Creed II is great in its own way, but I dont know about Game of the Year. The lack of re-playability, and no multi-player makes it hard to go up against COD MW2. Resident Evil 5 definitely deserves the nomination for bringing Resident Evil fans what they’ve always wanted, CO-OP, lets face it the game is a lot less scary when you have a friend with you. Uncharted 2? I don’t even have to go there, the game talks for itself. I never played Borderlands or the Mario Bros game. Infamous was good but not as good as some other titles listed here.
My vote will have to go to Batman: Arkham Asylum. The only thing it is missing is a multiplayer mode… Oh well.
Out of all of the games, I felt that this game received the most attention to detail. I intentionally only used detective mode to check my surroundings, then I switched back to regular because I didn’t want to miss anything. I’m what you call an “explorer” when it comes to games, I like to look at every nook and cranny. And there is detail EVERYWHERE in this game… The story is great, and there were so many great Joker moments. Moments that show just how sadistic and evil her really is. Like when he’s holding that guard in “Botanical Gardens” and Batman says “Put him down!” Joker is like “If you insist!” and kicks an electrical circuit breaker box or something into the water, then drops the guard into the water, killing him. Then he turns and walks away laughing…
This is the Joker I’ve always imagined in my head, one that will crack a joke while killing someone, someone that if you didn’t know him, wouldn’t know if you should find him funny or be scared of him. And to help this, the excellent voice acting of Mark Hamill, straight out of The Animated Series. Can’t beat that. Kevin Conroy and Arleen Sorkin returning from the Animated Series to play Batman and Harley Quinn, oh what a freakin blast it was to play this game…
I’m surprised Left 4 Dead 2 isn’t in the list. Well, actually not that surprised, it’s not too different from the first one, but it does have all of the improvements that I wished would have been there in the first place. Left 4 Dead 2 is basically what I wished Left 4 Dead was in the first place. But still, L4D was a blast anyway, and now we finally have the ultimate game in the zombie killing genre. Better late than never I suppose.
Maybe we’ll get that in the sequel, Ken J.
I’ll be Batman, you can be Robin
And these are all great choices – it was a great year for the industry with quite a few awesome titles to play.
Let’s hope 2010 continues this trend (Mass Effect 2!)
No Left 4 Dead 2? *cries*
Batman gets my vote too. Don’t call blasphemy on me for not playing Uncharted. Santa is coming with my PS3 soon I hope.
Psh, obviously I’m the bigger Batman The Animated Series fan here, so I get to be Batman.
@Alex
Left 4 Dead 2 is freakin awesome!
equivalent of a michael bay film?
I don’t know wich to pick between Batman and Infamous, can we vote for our top 3 instead ?
I’m gonna have to go with Resident Evil myself. There hasn’t been any other game this year that I’ve played through 10 times with a friend. I do want to give a nod at Arkham Asylum though for being the best superhero game I’ve ever played.
I am trying to decide between Mario, Modern Warfare and Assassins Creed 2. Batman was amazing, but Assassin’s Creed does the same and tons more. If you could climb around gotham city like Ezio and replace the horse with the batmobile then Batman would be Game of the Year.
For me its between Batman Arkham asylum and Uncharted 2…theres 2 games that not only deserve game of year award but theres 2 games that are masterpieces. Batman and Uncharted are quiet simply almost perfect games. The heck with call of duty a game selling tonloads doesnt mean that its a great game. Modern warfare 2 will be forgotten about when the sequel comes out years from now but batman and uncharted will be getting played on by gamers for the next decade easily. My vote has to be uncharted for the quite simple reason the characters and some of the action set pieces nathan drake is like indianna jones and John mclane rolled into one
cant wait for uncharted 3..anyone disagree ?
Byeman
if you think anyone will be playing those games ten years from now then you’re lost in space.
And this is about game of the year not game of the decade.
I would love to get a working NES so I can play the original Mario. I still play BF2 and that’s like over 4 years old. I still consider the original Operation Flashpoint my favorite game and that’s about 10 years old… Some games are simply more memorable than others. I agree that games like Modern Warfare would be nothing but a memory in less than 3 years at most. Heck, COD4:MW became nothing but a memory to me after only a few months, lol. Same thing over and over and over and over… *yawn*
The game I’m looking forward to the most is Battlefield: Bad Company 2.
M-cat I know it wasnt game of the decade but both them games are masterpieces. Hell final fantasy 7 AND 8 ETC still get played to this day so theres no reason why either batman or uncharted wont be the same. It won game of the year at the vga’s and rightly so.
Mass effect 2 and splinter cell conviction are now on the wish list