Well the year isn't far from over, I've finished my Best of 2009 list for the gb awards and am almost done voting on the gamespot 2009 awards.
 
Overall both these tasks have made me realize how few games came out this year I would actually put on a top 10 list for 09. Honestly their were only four really for me. Batman, Dawn of War 2, Dragon Age and Uncharted 2 all for pretty much the same reason; because they were awesome.
 
Sure their were plenty of others I had fun with, had alot of enjoyment with, whatever you want to call it.  I just tend to only want to list games on these kinds of things that I not only had immense amounts of entertainment with but also thought they did something or alot of somethings especially well that no other game has done prior.
 
Batman Arkham Asylum 
 
It wasn't just one of the most well designed highly polished titles ever made but it did two things no other game of its type has done before:
 
1. It showed that a game based on a well known license can be incredible.
2. It showed that a game based on a super hero license can be incredible.
 
It not only proved that every other game up till now that fits under either of those categories (basically every comic or film based game ever made) has been a lazily made worthless piece of shit but also that with the right time, right people and right design decisions this kind of game can even make regular titles look inferior.  It was a near flawless combination of metroid-esc exploration and item acquisition, innovative brawler combat and several other cool things that would take too much text to continue describing.  Batman is a bad-ass and has always been one of the more bad-ass super heroes so its not really a huge surprise his game was the first to truly shine. My hope is that it inspires other people to make games of well established things just as high quality as this game was.  Personally I'd like to see a really good Spawn game.
 
Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War 2
 
I'm a long time fan of the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop game license but that doesn't automatically equal an awesome game. Relic proved yet again that they are the kings of this property when it comes to games set in its universe.  Dawn of War 2, at least in single player and co-op was infinitely superior to the previous DoW games, its a shame they messed up the multiplayer so much. My best friend and I are still playing it in co-op.
 
Dragon Age: Origins
 
For a very long time I had almost zero interest in this game then one thing lead to another and before I knew it I had bought two copies of it, one for me one for my friend and boy am I glad I did.  On my third playthrough now and still loving it.  Best fantasy RPG made to date. The characters, the story, the writing, all top notch Bioware level quality no other rpg developer ever seems to manage to pull off.   Its hard to describe those things in detail, you have to play the game to really understand why its so good.  I will say that Morrigan is one of the most interesting and complex female characters to ever exist in a video game.   She is a sociopath, an evil bitch, a funny cynic and a hot yet disturbing person all in one.
 
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
 
It wasn't my game of the year but it was my ps3 game of the year.  I still consider U2 overall a masterpiece but I'm not one of those people who think its 'omg like the best game evar'.   Nathan Drake is still a sociopath and the sequel still suffers from something the first had. I cant really describe or understand what it is but its there and it still bugs me.  I wish I knew why the Uncharted games still aren't clicking for me on the same level a game I truly enjoy does but I almost get the feeling its got more to do with Naughtydog's past games than anything else.
 
See I liked Uncharted 1 alot and I like its sequel even more but I still don't like either anywhere near as much as I did the Jak series ND made in the ps2 era.  Maybe its the art style, the tone, who knows. I prefer abstract games set outside of reality or at least with a very skewed view on reality.  U2 isn't 'realistic' but its real enough that it doesn't grab my attention by the throat and yell in its face like the Jak games did.
 
I like Uncharted 2 but I would LOVE Jak 4.
 
Oh right and as for the reasons I liked U2 pretty much just go read / hear what everyone else said, cinematic gameplay, pretty textures etc. Train level ftw.
 
Well that's it for me and 2009, bring on 2010 and all the kick ass games I'm looking forward to.

 Dragon Age: Origins, Tekken 6 and Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time all release next week.

I'm still enjoying Uncharted 2 alot but I think its magic will be lost on me after my second play through is done. Don't get me wrong, its an incredible game but for some reason its just not fun enough to make me want to replay it many times over like I usually do with games I really like. That's probably got more to do with me still not really liking the third person shooter genre than the game itself. I think its the lack of precise aiming and the fact I cant just run out in to the open guns blazing like I can in an fps.

Its why I love games like God of War and Ratchet and Clank and arcade racers like Pacific Rift, its just mindless balls to the wall insane fun. Realism in gaming has never appealed to me in any capacity other than 'ooh that's pretty'.

Brutal Legend was kinda meh and Wipeout HD seems to have turned in to my ' play only when I'm bored ' game so I look forward to Dragon Age alot, that game boasts over a 100 hours of gameplay, the more videos I watch of it the more I want it. Its like world of warcaft, but slightly desaturated, filled with blood and lacking the idiots/assholes you always run in to in mmos.

For almost two weeks now giantbombs videos have either not been loading for me or have begun streaming only to cease streaming at some point before finishing.  The thing is I haven't the foggiest idea why this is happening.  Every other website I visit is not having this problem, my video drivers, windows drivers, flash player and firefox are all updated to their most recent versions and my internet connection is as perfect as its ever been.

What makes it even weirder is it seems to be totally random, its not a specific resolution of each video that is doing this.  In the space of 5 minutes I can attempt to watch the low, medium or high versions of any of the videos and they will either load or not load.

Since clearly this has nothing to do with me or my pc as like I already stated every other website I visit is not giving me this problem their has to be something going on with giantbombs servers.  Maybe the traffic spiked to an unimaginable level in recent weeks and thus any video being viewed by too many people at any given time isn't working for me.  I dunno, thats the only theory I can come up with.

But surely I am not alone in this, their must be other people out there having this problem and if so is anything being done about it?  God damn is it frustrating.
 

I cant really think of anything I out right dislike about E3, this years was the best its ever been in my opinion, the coverage was incredible, the podcasts hilarious and interesting and the game demos jaw dropping.

Its every thing it needs to be and more now, the only thing that would make it better is if I got to go see it all in person.