2009 is a surprisingly consequential year considering how infrequently it's discussed as a good year for video games. Street Fighter IV revitalized fighting games nearly single-handedly, Batman: Arkham Asylum shifted the expectations for super hero games, Dragon Age re-introduced CRPGs, and Uncharted 2 kickstarted the trend towards prestige, 3rd person cinematic set piece-athons that would define Sony's output for over a decade. That's a lot of video game stuff to chew on!
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There are so few pure works of art in this world, untainted by cynicism, or industry, or the internet, or the culture writ large. Rhythm Heaven is one such pure work of art. It is perfect, and we should all cherish it. We should cherish the screaming choir boys.
Sick of these re-releases and their Indestructible censure. This is the ONLY version of the game with Indestructible, therefore it is the ONLY version of the game PERIOD. Street Fighter 4 has more singular responsibility for today's fighting game scene than any other title. While plenty of balance changes were added to the SF4 formula in various re-releases, I maintain that the simpler, less technical nature of the original release is superior. Also, did I mention it's the only version of the game with Indestructible in it?
Finally, an entertainment property that gives Octopus' Garden it's due. The Beatles: Rock Band is more than a warm blanket of nostalgia for a decade of Beatlemania. It tries to actually capture the spirit of the band, and does an admirable job. Ignoring Rock Band as a 'games as service' series or the constant re-visitation of the track-by-track plate-spinning of Frequency, Amplitude, Phase or Rock Band: Blitz - in other words, measuring the experience of each individual game as one singular experience - I think The Beatles would stand tall as Harmonix's greatest major project.
As a long time Batman-liker, I'm going to be honest and say that the Arkham series reveals some of the uglier features of the Batman franchise writ-large, seemingly by accident. You know any game with the premise "check out this spooky INSANE asylum!" is going to be bad news, but...I mean, you could write a full novel on Arkham Asylum's portrayal of mental illness. Arkham's inmates are always either screaming, giggling, or murdering. Their caretakers treat them like animals, and the game just about encourages us to do the same. It's full on 1950s pulp schlock. This game makes the Outlast series look like The Titicut Follies. And then there's the bizarre disparity in harsh language between Harley Quinn and every other character in the game. I punched a man into a bursting electric panel, a man whose scalp was literally stapled onto his head, and the best insult he could croak out at me was, like, "You're a Bat-Idiot," but Commissioner Jim Gordon's over here pulling out "crazy bitch" at the only female character of consequence in the entire game. In fact, so does Quincy Sharp, the asylum warden? And some of the other inmates? Everyone is constantly screaming at Harley Quinn. My point is, Arkham Asylum is, unfortunately, one more Problematic-in-retrospect title from the late-aughts. If you can find the patience to overlook its obviously juvenile perspective, it's still an elegant mixture of loose yet hyper-satisfying stealth mechanics, the best beat 'em up combat in the business and some terrific Batman window dressing. Maybe just, uh, skip a cutscene here and there. I think my favorite thing about Arkham Asylum in relation to its sequels is the fact that it lets you comprehensively understand a single space. Something was lost in the transition from Asylum to the bloat of Arkham City. I like the idea of watching a setting crumble and shatter along with its bruising protagonist. It gives you an escalated sense of consequence in a story that would otherwise be fairly trite.
Honestly would be #1 if you played as Elena. Can you imagine? Rolling with Jeff the cameraman in Nepal, doing war journalism, getting dragged into Nathan Drake's adventure, saving the world? Can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me that wouldn't be the better game?
The western-developed Silent Hill games largely missed the point, but Climax's Shattered Memories is inarguably the high point for the series post-Team Silent. While this game completely lacks the unique monster design that made the series so special in the first place, Climax made some really bold choices in its story and game design that make up for it. Their take on measuring players' "psychology" - the game tracks how often you look at, say, a family photo on a desk vs. the pin up calendar hung on the wall, and tailors the rest of the level to your attitude - is campy, but effective. The very good Until Dawn would later borrow this game's first person therapy sequences almost outright. Shattered Memories has one of my all-time favorite twist endings, too. It's a good 'un.
Demon's Souls is to Dark Souls what, say, Final Fantasy was to Final Fantasy IV or Metal Gear was to Metal Gear Solid - it establishes all of the base systemic parts of the Souls series beautifully, but it doesn't *quite* put its pieces together to cohere into a landmark title the way its sequel does. That said, Demon's Souls gets *a lot* closer to what Dark Souls, Bloodborne or Elden Ring would do than Final Fantasy or Metal Gear did. This is an extremely strong debut by any metric, and its more experimental elements (the concept of a community-wide 'morality' world state, a hubworld with NPCs who affect other NPCs depending on player choice) actually make it a more interesting version of the Souls formula than some of the later games.
Whatever dude, I saw like three dragons or something, TOPS. If I had a more favorable view of western RPGs in general I feel like I would love this game, but the combat was a struggle for me to wrap my mind around.
The Ballad of Gay Tony jumped the shark with its caricature-y performances and San Andreas-esque chaos, but never has Rockstar been as HBO Drama mopey as they are in The Lost and Damned. What a phenomenal game. One of your safehouses consists of a decade-old desktop PC and a soiled mattress in Jersey somewhere. You don't even lay in the mattress when you use it, you just sit on top of it and stare ahead into the middle distance. Plus, this game had the first fully rendered penis in a AAA game. And you gotta give it points for that.
Secretly one of the best games in Bungie's catalog. I loved all the city exploration stuff in ODST. Like any modern sci-fi game, it's pulling heavily from Blade Runner, but at the time it felt so moody and different from anything in the series up to that point.