Who else thinks 09 was a good year for gaming?

[lost_within]

New mario bros....that takes it all for me. Out of every new game, being a retro gamer and finally seeing a "mario brothers 4" just took me WAY the hell back. Love it.

[Gamerforlife]

Looking back on it, we had a huge surprise hit in Arkham Asylum. No one ever expected to see a good modern Batman game, much less a game of the year contender and certainly not from some nobody rookie developer

ugh. really? The batman game was good and entertaining but GOTY? It got really stale at the end. (spoilers now) Every boss but one in the whole game is a big guy who runs at you. They tease you with croc at the beginning and all he is is an instant death animation in the sewer. lame. As much as they got right in the batman universe they fucked up joker at the end, not to mention the overall design of the commissioner and harley. It was fun, but it came out at the right time. If it was released within the holiday season next to borderlands, COD, and assassin's creed 2 it would've been crushed.

We got Shafer back in gaming, and despite some mixed reactions, I think Brutal Legend was great.(and metal heads seem to love it which was its intended audience)

Yeah- this is a great great thing. I stopped playing brutal legend once the RTS stuff started to get difficult, but i loved everything i played. I just didn't have the patience or will to play that kind of game, and if i was going to it would be on the pc with better control. However, BL puts Wet to fucking shame when it comes to voice acting and likeable characters.

A new Bioware game and just a few months before Mass Effect 2 no less. Awesome

Dragon age is my sleeper hit this year. I bought it because i wanted the mass effect 2 armor, and was pleasantly surprised how wrapped up in the game i was and how i couldn't just sleepwalk through it like most RPGs. Really fantastic. The fucktarded marylin manson trailers don't do the game justice.

Some great stuff on the Sony front like Uncharted 2 and Demon Souls and a price cut.

yeah.... i hear it is good... but still not quite enough for me to get a ps3. Soon though.

Another surprise hit in Borderlands and even though I don't care for them, I'd be remiss in not mentioning Halo:ODST and the new Call of Duty game

Getting excited about a halo or COD game is like getting excited for candy in a candy store. For fucks sake- you know what the game is already going to be about and the mechanics of it. They do what they do well, but it is nothing revolutionary. Fun, but not goty by far.

Borderlands was something that could've been a real treat if it was more open ended and had a bigger world. It is a great idea and I'm sure the sequel will be fantastic but the game just isn't quite there yet.

Xbox Live Arcade really delivered with Shadow Complex and the Monkey Island remake

True. I bought more xbla games this year than any other.

And while they these last two game may not have stood amidst other big releases, I did have some fun with WET and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. That free fall from the plane level in WET was a really highlight of this year for me.

Wet was a disappointment for me. I liked the look, but the way she played was rough in points. Leaps of faith into god knows what because i don't know where I'm supposed to go next coupled with rewarding me for doing it quickly in a manic fashion doesn't make for a good game. Rage vision was stupid and i often didn't know where to go simply because i needed to get down a red hallway i couldn't see because everything else was red. The free fall from the plane was the only bright point of that game, and even that felt a little too much like i was just trial and erroring it.

Played a bit of MUA2, but it isn't my cup of tea. It is a good fun game, but i just wish there were more interesting ways to manage your team and it's powerups. Both it, and the original make team management so much of a chore that i set the computer to auto level up. Xmen legends/ legends 2 were vastly superior games IMHO.

All in all a pretty satisfying year I'd say, at least as far as console gaming goes, which is my primary focus as a gamer. 2010 is looking promising too with some big titles on the horizon(which was covered in another topic)

as much as i shat on a lot of your picks... i did enjoy a lot of games this year. Borderlands really surprised me, but it strikes me as an idea that is 80% realized. Dragon age is my pick for game of the year. If you like RPGs, you should do yourself a favor and get it.

That said, i caught up on some older games this year that i really loved. Burnout Paradise is my pick for best game i've played this year. I never ever play racers and picked it up on a whim. Got all the DLC after that and played the shit out of it. The game really engrossed me. Also picked up the fear games which were fun.

I'm surprised there is no love for resident evil 5, infamous, Rhythm Heaven, Dj hero, beatles rock band, call of juarez 2, Red Faction, or prototype.

I think this was a year for fighting game fans... which isn't really my bag. However, i did pick up a couple of these after getting caught up in the hype and enjoyed them. Street fighter, KOF, tekken, blazblue, virtua fighter, tatsunoko vs. Capcom all came out this year if memory serves. Plus some xbla ports and collections. Street fighter HD remix, Marvel vs capcom 2 port, KOF collection, and Samurai Showdown collection. Is it just me, or do we not normally get as many big title fighting games in one year?

I agree with a lot of your Batman points, though I thought the combat system was brilliant and the stealth system was the most accesible and enjoyable I've seen in a long time. Also, the Metroidvania design of the the game, awesome. As for the Joker, you can't get too mad about what they did with him at the end when he was portrayed so perfectly for about 90% of the game. Also, Harley's voice and personality were spot on even if her design was a bit ugly.

I think Brutal Legend's so-called RTS stages were easy, but a lot of players had trouble because they tried to make it more complicated than necessary. Keep army together, capture geisers, kill stuff with Eddie. That's really all there was to it.

WET had a lot of issues, but I like the style of the game, I love Eliza Dushku, I love anything Grindhouse or Max Payne-ish. So there's a lot of bias I have with that game. I also loved the Freeway chase levels.

MUA 2 dumbed things down a bit, but it was a very epic game. It also brought back things I missed from the first X-Men Legends like focusing on team work(through fusions)and making certain powerful characters from XL who had been toned down or removed from previous rosters playable and powerful again, like Jean Grey, Psylocke and Storm. I also liked having two different paths through the game. I didn't really have any issues with team management in this one or the last one personally.

I don't really like Halo(except for the first one) or Call of Duty. I just mentioned them because they were big releases.

You mentioned RE 5. I put quite a lot of time into it. It was fun, but I was dissapointed by it. I HATED the new focus on co-op, as well as the pointless multi-player mode. I also did not like how they removed some things I liked about RE 4. It felt like a step backwards in every way, except for co-op, which as I said I didn't like anyway. RE games are not about co-op

I agree with you on one thing though, Dragon Age is awesome. I have the 360 version too and have been playing it for the past two days. I'm currently agonizing over which of two of my female party members I want to try and romance

[J T]

This was a phenomenal year for me personally. I picked up the inexpensive remains of the PS2 library as it has continued to fade further and further into the backgrounds. The trash of current gen gamers has been my treasure.

This is also the first year I entered the world of the current generation of games. I've never had a PS3, Wii, or X-Box 360. I've never even had much of a chance to play them before. This year I got my laptop and went berzerker with Steam, D2D, and GOG to get caught up on years of missed gaming opportunities. I finally have seen what all the fuss is about with games like Portal, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Oblivion, Street Fighter IV, and so on.

As for actual 2009 releases, I've mostly enjoyed the indie scene. Braid, Metal Drift, Trine, Plants VS Zombies, Time Genlemen, Please!, and Crayon Physics all made their way onto my hard drive.

Great year!

[BoringSupreez]

This was a phenomenal year for me personally. I picked up the inexpensive remains of the PS2 library as it has continued to fade further and further into the backgrounds. The trash of current gen gamers has been my treasure.

I wish more current gen gamers would include the box and manuals when they sell their trash [insert rant about Gamestop's lack of boxed and manualed games here]. I have enjoyed how cheap some PS2 stuff has become. Ace Combat 4, for $7.99, I'm lovin' it!

[Pulsar_t]

Just another conventional year. Scribblenauts turned out disappointing.. Indie games did prove entertaining however, with AaAaAaaaaAaa (or however it's spelt ), Trine and Plants vs Zombies being prime examples. Otherwise most major releases were rehashed sequels with huge production values.

Been a lacklustre year for RTS fans though.

[Weekend_Warrior]

Yes, it was a VERY good year in gaming!

New Forza
New Tekken
New Batman
New Uncharted
New Call of Duty
New Motorstorm
New Street Fighter
New Super Mario Bros.
New Resident Evil (x2)
New Assassin's Creed (x2)
New Left 4 Dead
New Dirt
New Contra
New Halo (x2)
New Guitar Hero (x4)
New Grand Theft Auto (x4)
New House of the Dead
New Final Fantasy (x4)
New Need For Speed (x2)
New Dead Space
New A Boy and his Blob
New Ninja Gaiden
New Rock Band (x2)
New Bionic Commando
New Excitebike
New Gran Turismo
New Killzone
New King of Fighters
New Punch Out!
New Ratchet and Clank
New Ready 2 Rumble
New Red Faction
New Resistance
New Ghostbusters
New Silent Hill
New Sims
New Sin and Punishment
New Skate
New Soul Calibur
New Tony Hawk
New Virtua Tennis
New Wii Sports
New Wolfenstein
New X-Men

..and then when you add in the $100 price cuts for the PS3 and 360, $50 price cut on the Wii, and the surprisingly quick release of the PS3 Slim. You've got one of the best year's in video gaming history that I can remember.

[Luke]

I'd say it is was an average year.

Some cool games, no doubt, but nothing ground breaking.

[Ninja]

I think almost every year in gaming has been a "good year" for me because there is always 1 or 2 games that come out where I can pour lots of my time. It was definitley an incredible year for Shmups (Import or not!). At least in revitalizing the genre a bit. Now I can actually mention Shooters and people don't say, "Yeah I like Call of Duty too!" PSP had a lot of sweet additions to their library. I'd say, if anything, outside of the big titles everyone is mentioning there were HUNDREDS of mediocre to good games that got released; all worth playing at some point. Where has our time gone?

Not to derail this thread but I can't believe how much stuff is coming out in the first 3 months of next year that I've already got on my play list: Mass Effect 2, Sakura Wars, Silent Hill (PS2/PSP vers), Heavy Rain, Yakuza 3, Alan Wake, Final Fantasy XIII... and those are just some of the larger titles! Ugh...

[J T]

Holy sequels, batman!

[nickfil]

I'd say it is was an average year.

Some cool games, no doubt, but nothing ground breaking.

I agree. "game of the year" is a weird term. You kind of feel like you have to give it out to one game at least you know, for the year. I kinda don't want to give it to any of them. We didn't have our 'orange box' of 09 imho.