Best of 2009

Looking back, it's slowly dawning on me that I've probably played more 2008 games than 2009 ones this year. Due to the recession and not having an income in the first place I was stuck with buying cheap games once the price dropped on them for most of the year. Though, with a bit of luck I've got the key ones down.
 
You may notice that Dragon Age, Modern Warfare 2 and Batman aren't on here. That is because I still haven't completed Dragon Age yet, and I fail to see why people collectively freaked-out over Batman's story mode and gameplay. Plus I like to pick fights. Ah well, here goes:

List items

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  1. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4

  You may be asking 'Wait, didn't this come out last year?' But you'd be wrong! Persona 4's European release was early this year.

  I imagine this game was a big part of a lot of the GB userbase's daily routine for a long time. Between the Endurance Run, the awesome spinoff threads in the forums where people designed t-shirts and drew fanart, as well as the game itself I spent a lot of time thinking about and enjoying this game than any other. This game I'd previously never heard of came from completely out of left field and made me realise 'hey, not all JRPG's suck'. Persona 4 was a joy to play.

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  2. Torchlight

  Not only is this game something you can just drop in an out of when you feel like it and keep your progress, the game's developers have already done a ton of post-release support. Just recently there was a patch to add Steam acheivements and Steam cloud support so you can play your saves on other computers. Add to that the already impressive mod community and tools, and you've got a lot of bang for your buck.

  Oh, the game itself's pretty good too.

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  3. Forza Motorsport 3

  This game is huge. Oh God, I don't think I'll ever get around to S-ranking it.

  The single player AI leaves much to be desired, but there's a lot of fun to be had in the multiplayer with friends and you'll probably be going through the career for months.

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  4. The Sims 3

  For some reason, I can't help but spend hours watching my sims play computer games and enjoy doing so. The town adds a ton to the experience in this sequel and makes for more interaction with other sims, though the lack of mods so far is a little dissappointing.

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  5. Assassin's Creed II

  Much, much more fun that it's predescessor in every way, Assassin's Creed II takes the best parts of the last game and gives you two of them. The game's a lot easier to play through and not get bored with, the financial metagame alone had me running around and saving up money for paintings for hours, just so I could get more money to spend on paintings. Money, money, money!

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  6. Halo 3: ODST

  This game was a surprise to me. I'd really disliked Halo 3, especially the multiplayer, and put that down after a few days. The guns felt weak, and if you don't enjoy the shooting aspect of a FPS you've got problems, right?

  In this game, the character himself is weak. It encourages you to think a little more before you act, especially on the harder difficulties. The hub world between missions also has this increidibly muted charm to it, while the Master Chief is the last of the Spartans, you spend most of the game being a lost, confused little rookie soldier who actually is alone.

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  7. Shadow Complex

  It's surprising that such an impressive game was hyped-up so much and then suddenly forgotten about. In my opinion, this is one of those games that you should practically force someone to buy when they ask what XBLA games are worth getting.

  Sometimes it might seem to be trying too hard to call back to Super Metroid (seuqnce-breaking is not meant to be left in intentionally), but the game is hours of fun, and each one well-spent.

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  8. DiRT 2

  I spent a lot of time with the original DiRT. In fact, if you look at my acheivements you'll notice I actually S-ranked the original DiRT. I like DiRT. I played this game for a week when it launched, returned it, and then tried to go back to DiRT. DiRT 2 has made it's predescessor look and drive like crap, this is quite easily the prettiest game I've played this year. It's fun to drive too, it has a real sense of speed and the damage modelling makes for some insane crashes.

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  9. The Secret of Monkey Island

  I was a baby when the original Monkey Island came out. You can imagine how left-out I felt when people kept referencing this game whenever adventre games were brought-up and not getting the jokes, but also not wanting to play the original because of it's age and difficulty to find.

  Thankfully, someone seems to have heard my plea and remade the game. Aside from being full of silly humour and clever puzzles, the game has an impressive real-time feature where you can switch between the original and the remake at the touch of a button. Plus it's super-cheap to buy, what more do you want?

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  10. Red Faction: Guerrilla

  Wheeeeeeee- *explosion*

  Have you ever wanted to drive a jeep screaming through the wall of an office complex, sending the building crumbling down to the ground in the process? Well, now you can! Dumb fun that only gets crazier as you go along, with a sadly overlooked multiplayer element.