Well it has come to that glorious time of the year. The almost drug like high of the great Fall release of games has come and gone and now I must dig through the pile and come up with what was good, great and "the best". Usually (whether on this site or some other random blog) I like to include a few... unique awards. This year is no different. So, with that, lets get to it.
 
Unreal Engine game with the LEAST amount of fuzzy ass texture loading...
 There is a whole lot of games that use this engine but only one stands out and making sure to not start out every level with a screen full of blur that slowly gains its sharp nice textures. That game is Batman: Arkham Asylum, While this game did not necessarily have "levels" or specific loading screens, whenever it did I never (or atleast it was in such a small amount it didn't matter) saw the staple texture loading of the UE. That went a long way, for me, to keeping up the pace of the game and keeping the great atmosphere consistent. 
 
Just one more feather man... just one more!
Obviously stolen from Vinny's obsession with AC2's feathers, however this is for any game with the collectible aspect to it. I really enjoy games that have collectibles, especially when they work within the story and are not too tedious to get. There are a lot of games this year that had this going for them but the one that stands out for me would have to be Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack In Time. Whether it was Zoni's, Gold Bolts or the plans to the most entertaining gun I have used in a game for quite sometime, this game really kept me searching for these items. The ones through out the main story were placed just within reach of the path I needed to take, so I didn't feel like I was getting too side tracked. The ones on the little moons were just plain fun. The platforming puzzles ranged from super easy to rather time consuming, some of them required weapons and items I didn't have forcing me to go back to them. This really upped the games already excellent replay value and really satisfied my "gotta collect them all" need. (although I think I need a few more, as I had to take a break from that game to work on a few others, tis the season...)
 
Easiest Platinum
Ok so this might sound biased and truth be told I do not play the 360 much. So, sorry for that I guess. I don't really play games for the trophies, but I do like to collect them, causing that little experience bar to go up (RPG gamer at heart of course). That being said I don't purposefully go for games with easy trophies, in this case though this game was fairly easy to Platinum. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was pretty simple to get Platinum. Only 2 multiplayer trophies (which one can naturally get just by playing online once or twice) and a built in "cheat" system made this a quick one. The "kill so many guys with x gun" trophies were cake as you could simply purchase that gun from the in game store, through on infinite ammo and 1 shot kills and go to work. Of course the big one, beating it on crushing, required me to replay the game, which was not a problem as I was so enthralled by my first play through I couldn't wait to get back into it. While some of the trophies felt weak, and attaining them through my methods (albeit built into the game) made them feel cheap, this was still fun to do and well worth the time spent.
 
But it's my turn to play!...
My Wife has never been a huge gamer. She rocked out Golden Eye on the 64 though, so she has it in her. I managed to talk her into WoW once, which worked fine as we have two PCs. Where I made my mistake was introducing her to the winner of this award, Dragon Age: Origins. "It plays like Wow" I told her. Indeed it does and she caught on quick and loved the game. I only could afford the one copy (and had to buy it on PS3 because my PC has recently died) so we had to share. This game has way too good of a story for one person to play while the other watches so at times I had to leave the room, just so I wasn't spoiled of some twist or of some nasty choice I would have to make. It is not all bad however, as I now have a slight amount of justification for buying a PS3 Slim...
 
Ok, so now that we got all that fun and nonsense out of the way, let's get to the real meat of the issue. Game of the year. There were a lot of really... really good games that came out this year and I feel they all need a mention. Here is a list (in not particular order, other than maybe by release date) of the games I considered for GOTY.
 
Infamous
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Uncharted 2 : Among Thieves
Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack In Time 
Dragon Age: Origins
Borderlands
Assassin's Creed 2 
 
As I said there was just so many good games that came out, I really had to narrow it down to these though. These are the games that I see as MUST play this year. All of them have great story telling along with excellent gameplay and replayability. (Note: I do understand that 3 of them are PS3 exclusives... your point?) Only one can truly be labeled, for me, Game of the year. That game is......
 
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Above all I enjoy platforming, explosive and intense gun battles, great story telling and huge set pieces. This game provides on all fronts.  this game has a fantastic story. The gameplay, every function of it serves to further this story and keep the player engaged. The visuals, enough has been said by now (dare I say the greatest looking game I have ever played), only add to the greatness of the action and story of this game. Uncharted 2, for me, is the reason I play video games. The bar was truly raised with this one and I am excited to see who will top it next.

I was sitting at my desk working on a paper for class the other day and decided it was far to quiet in my house. I wanted to play some music but came to a problem. My laptop's speakers are terrible and I did not have my Ipod on me (and also didn't want to use headphones). At this point I would consider hooking my Ipod up to my sound system and stream something from either the ipod or pandora.com. If it is not clear right now, I am lazy. I also did not want to put such a pause on my writing (this was a 5 page paper and I was really on a roll). Looking around my immediate area I saw my PS3 controller and instantly felt like an idiot. Turning on my PS3 I quickly got onto pandora.com (via the web browser, although an app would be nice *hint hint sony*). and was blasting music in no time. I did not interrupt my work for more than a few seconds and finish the paper with ease.
 
This got me thinking, I did several things with a gaming console I would not have been able to do in previous generations. (Don't even bring up the whole PC gaming could do this for years, I am explicitly talking about consoles here) What are these tiny (essentially non gaming) additions to this current generation of consoles? Which ones matter? To this effect I have created a list of my favorite little "conveniences" 
 
*Please note that I place no honor or praise to any company about these things. I don't care if it was Sony or Microsoft or whoever came up with the idea, I just like it*
 

1. Turning on the system with the controller. I know this may seem like a simple thing, you probably do it every day and if you are as lazy as me you turn your system on exclusively with this feature. Gone are the days of striding over to the old NES and switching on the power, then going back and sitting down. Of course you could not sit too far away, no you were tethered to that system in an almost umbilical sense. That of course leads me to the next feature...
2. Wireless controllers. Of course previous generations (generally 3rd party developers) attempted this and some of them worked (in my own experience would be the Gamecube, I believe Pelican brand, wireless controller). This generation however completely embraces this concept and vastly improved upon anything before it. The ability to no longer be stuck at a specific length from my gaming system was of huge importance to me as I enjoy having a neat looking setup. If I had to drag my PS3 out into the middle of the room in order to sit on my couch (I tend to be farther back from my TV than most, atleast I would assume) I would just be annoyed.
3. Operating Systems. Whether it is the 360 Dashboard (blades, avatars whatever) the XMB or the Nintendos... box thingy, operating systems on consoles just makes me smile. This opens up for so many options and thankfully developers are embracing these. One such feature is digital content, which of course brings me to my next point...
4. Digital content, and intrinsic to that in system storage. I love being able to play a game that is fully installed on my console. I can finally keep that movie in the disc tray (I swear I will watch it one of these days) and then load up a game. Of course this feature is not incredible exploited as there are only a handful of fully digital games, with the PSPgo release and all this talk about cloud processing I imagine this feature will see great growth. 

Uncharted 2 is the only one I feel is a "must-own". Assasins Creed 2 looks really good and the improvements from the first are promising. However I still feel it would be a rental. There are others I want, but none (other then UC2) that I feel are "must-own".

     ... and now you may be regretting it? Reading all the negative comments/blogs/posts about the systems lack of a UMD drive? Ignore them. Honestly. If you purchased the system for the express purpose of playing your back catalog of UMD games, that was a mistake. This system is designed for a specific audience in mind and with an understanding of the future of portable gaming.  For me, the PSPgo offers everything I want in a portable gaming system.   
     First off, the size. This thing is perfect in size. It is light weight and quite truthfully not much bigger then my Ipod Touch. This is a key factor for me as I plan on replacing my Ipod Touch with this (as far as an MP3 player goes). This allows me to drop the system in my pocket or a small pocket in my backpack. I can pop my psp out and play for a few minutes in between classes and work (being on campus at my college for about 10 hours a day between work and classes it is nice to take a breather every once in a while). Now of course I could do this with the old psp, as long as I had 5-10 minutes to waste getting ready to play a game. That is no exaggeration, I would have to shuffle through my library of UMDs until I find the one I want to play and then load it in the system and finally boot it up. Now while it can be argued that I would still have to look through a list of games on the XMB, it is much easier to scroll through them then dig around in some carrying case (which I would have to put the UMD in as I would not want to destroy my precise game).  
     As I said this system was designed for a specific group of people. This is not a replacement for the old PSP, this is just another option. This option is expensive though, I am fully understanding of that. However as Sony has said, you pay a premium for this system. The $250 tag comes with some great bullet points:

• Size, it is a great form factor, designed explicitly for my (and others) personal life style.
• No need for UMD. With the PSN being updated with PSP games all the time, why need it? Again, if you have a PSP currently... why did you buy a go?
• Pause. Yes, this is HUGE. The fact that I can play a game, then pause it, load up some music and walk across campus, then (upon getting to class far to early) resume the game is a huge bonus and just sings to the portability the system was made for.
• 16 gigs of internal memory. Yes this may sound like just a standard feature but honestly this is crucial. I can load up quite a few PSone games and PSP games on just the internal memory alone. The bonus is then expanding that via a card. Of course you can buy a card for your original PSP and enjoy some of the same benefits, however with the built in 16 I can buy another 16 and have 32gb, instead of being forced to buy a 32gb.