Best of 2009
Jamakan_Inc: Best of 2009
List items
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As a huge fan of the caped crusader, I feel as if I have waited my entire life for a game to finally do the Dark Knight justice, I suffered through years of half arsed abominations such as "Batman and Robin" and "Batman: Dark Tommorow" .
Then it arrives, the game of my dreams. Every single god damn aspect of this game is so good it gives me chills. The combat system is possibly the best I've ever come across, you effortlessly and leap from enemy to enemy with almost surreal fluidity, mixing in blocks, counters, disarms, throws and dodges, Batman will disarm an oponent, throttle him with his own weapon, flip across the room to wrench another enemy's leg the wrong way with an insidious snapping noise, to say nothing of the tons of gadgets you can bring to a fight if you so choose.
When you arent beating the absolute hell out of groups of 30 enemies or more, (The way the god damn Batman would) you are employing the Dark Knight's sharp detective skills and gadgets to track your prey. Sometimes you are presented with a room of several armed convicts, this is where you get to perform some of Batman's most iconic moves, such as the inverted takedown (you hang upside down from the ceiling, snatch an usespecting foe amidst his cries of terror, and leave him hanging upside down by his legs. Much to the horror of his allies. You can sit atop a high perch, and watch as your foes go from clam, to stressed, to terrorfied.
I still have not even mentioned the game's story, which is in itself, the ultimate Batman fantasy, locked in Arkham Asylum with his worst enemies and hundreds of other convicts loose, and out for his blood. The game's characters are brought to life by the iconic vocals of Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamil.
It is a game possitively dripping with sheer quality, but most importantly, it actually makes you FEEL like Batman. The joy you derive from playing as the Dark Knight himself cannot be overstated.
There is still sooo much more to this game than I am letting on, it needs to be played, YOU have to play it. It is my hands down game of the year.
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Borderlands is a stylised, post apocalipic role playing/shooter game with four player co-op and a massive weapon creation engine. Despite it's modern trappings, it owes alot to the hack and slash days of Diablo 2. It's a massive open world with lots of interesting enemies, tons of quests, and litereally thousands of weapons. It's a game that is simply begging to be played co-operatively, as it increases the amount of enemies you fight, makes them stronger and gives you better loot drops. It's a game that is difficult to sum up in a short blurb, I reccomend checking out one of the several quick looks provided on this site.
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I was a huge fan of the first Assasin's Creed, despite it's numerous flaws. The primary complaint leveled against the original was that it became very repetitive, very fast. It's hard to stress enough how much better Assasin's Creed II is than it's predececor. It feels like Ubisoft have taken everything that made the first game good, removed almost every little complaint you might have had about it, and added an arseton of new features and gameplay. Every aspect from the combat system, the speed at which you are able to scale walls, to the way the story is presented to you and how you interact with it, is an improvement on what the first game established. Extreamly fun.
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A no brainer really, anyone that has played almost too intense single player campaign, or experienced the finely crafted, expertly tuned multiplayer knows this deserves a spot on any GOTY list.
Intense, is the word I would use to sum this one up.
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To be completely honest, I didn't have high hopes for this one. ODST and Reach were announced within months of each other, and it was starting to feel like the Halo franchise was just getting milked for all it was worth. But then I actually played it, and I was hooked all over again. Bungie managed to create an entirely new feel for playing as the ODSTs, it had a more focused story, an fairly huge open city to explore, great co-operative gameplay and a new horde style co-op mode called 'firefight'.
Only held back by it's lack of matchmaking, requring you to track down allies from your own friends list, ODST is a great game, and even greater when you consider that it was mearly a side project between Halo 3 and Reach.
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Absolutely stunning visuals, pulse pounding atmosphere, great (though I'llbeit, featuring Resident Evil's trademark bananas nature) plot. A great selection of weapons, tons of unlocks. Oh and what was that other thing? Oh yes. CO-OP GAMEPLAY.
Awesome, just awesome.
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Serverely underated, easily the best console RTS I've ever played. They were somehow able to map every possible command onto a controller, and streamline it for quick and reliable use. The campaign consisted of the 'so bad it's good' cheesyness we have come to know and love from the Red Alert series, only now featuring the likes of Tim Curry, Jonathan Price, George Takei, J.K Simmons, and Jenny Mcarthy as Tanya.
Red Alert 3 is vastly enjoyable, and quite a decent co-op game to boot!
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A throwback to the Metroid Prime games of old, one hell of an addictive game, tons of collectables, tons of replay value. Easily the best XBLA game to come out this year.
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I didn't play it personally, so really, I should not be able to include it on my list, but as someone who works in a game store, and had almost the entire staff regail me with tails of it's awesomeness, it deserves a vote. Besides, I'll play it eventually. :P
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