Game of the Year Awards 2009
Check out our Editor's picks for the past year! See our Best and Worst Games of 2009!
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Introduction | Gameplay Awards | Special Awards | Genre Awards | GOTY
Intro
The year 2009 brought us many big game releases most coming during the later part of the year. Although quite a few games got pushed into 2010 the year still held up with some surprises. The fastest selling game of all time, Modern Warfare 2, made its debut in November. The year also brought some new games in Flower, Trine and Dragon Age: Origins that proved to be quality titles. There were a few surprises this year and a fair share of disappointments with some bad ports and ordinary games. Some sequels proved more worthy than the originals with DiRT 2, Uncharted 2 and Killzone 2 making marked improvements over their prequels.
We take a brief look back at 2009 and hand out some awards for the major categories and talk about our decisions. Mentions have been given to all those we felt were viable contenders to the winners in each category. On the final page we give out our Game of the Year 2009. Fallout 3 was our winner last year, what game will receive the precious prize this year?
Introduction | Gameplay Awards | Special Awards | Genre Awards | GOTY
Gameplay Awards
Best Story:
Told in a non-linear fashion, Cryostasis slowly reveals the past events on a nuclear icebreaker stranded in the North Pole. The player comes across victims of circumstance or foul play and can relive memories and visualize their demise in effort to set things right and find out what has really happened aboard the derelict ship.
Honorable Mentions:
Best Graphics (Art):
Simply put, Flower is one of the most beautiful games to ever grace any platform. From the breathtaking visuals to the amazing landscapes, this game will let your imagination fly free.
Honorable Mentions:
Best Graphics (Tech):
The overall presentation of DiRT 2 is hard to match, the tracks are wonderfully designed, the cars look fantastic. The smoke, dust and collision effects bring the extra level of polish with the slick 3D menus.
Honorable Mentions:
Best Music:
Along with the great visuals, the atmosphere of Flower is further supplemented by the great original musical score. It is completely relaxing and very fitting to the experience, making it a great joy to listen to.
Honorable Mentions:
Best Sound:
It may simply be the crushing of skeleton bones under a summoned platform from the Mage or even the chink of an arrow on a stone wall. Without question the sound design of Trine is first rate and consistent.
Honorable Mentions:
Best Character:
Nathan Drake (Uncharted 2)
Nathan Drake is an everyday hero, one who is at home when making jokes in dangerous situations. He is a genuine character and attempts to do the right thing even if it gets him in trouble and it’s hard to not like him.
Honorable Mentions:
Joker (Batman: Arkham Asylum)
Allistair (Dragon Age: Origins)
Sean (The Saboteur)
Ezio (Assassin’s Creed 2)
Best Voice Acting:
Not just Nolan North, but Claudia Black, Steven Valentine, Emily Rose and Graham McTavish produce solid performances to go along with the superb dialogue. Given a little bit of lenience during voice recording the natural flow really shines through. Unsurprisingly the runner-up, Dragon Age: Origins, features a few of these characters.
Honorable Mentions:
Best Atmosphere:
What game creates such an atmosphere where you’re so invested in the characters and world events that you forget what sunlight is? Dragon Age sets up a system where you’ll care about the opinions of your companions and even want to help them during their troubles.
Honorable Mentions:
Best Multiplayer:
It has a competitive multiplayer component that flows quite well with good duels and balanced map layouts. Then you have a friendly set of co-operative modes which give you a very solid multiplayer effort.
Honorable Mentions:
Best Singleplayer:
Dragon Age features dozens of hours of gameplay, numerous detailed side quests, choices that effect outcomes and relationships and a deep set of backstories for many characters. The single player component of Dragon Age engrosses you in a world.
Honorable Mentions:
Most Original gameplay:
There are many titles that still attempt to use motion controls as a gimmick. Flower, on the other hand, takes full advantage of PS3’s SIXAXIS motion control to bring you a unique gaming experience that works great with the motion controls.
Honorable Mentions:
Introduction | Gameplay Awards | Special Awards | Genre Awards | GOTY
Special Awards
Best News of 2009:
PS3 Slim, PS3 Price drop
PS3 Slim, PS3 Price drop
Sony knocked many people off their feet when announcing a new PS3 model with an aggressive price drop. Microsoft in turn responded and dropped the price of their Elite model bringing very cheap consoles to all. Perfect timing and the PS3 continues to do well in the sales numbers.
Honorable Mentions:
Project Natal
Deus Ex 3 may be PC exclusive
Worst News of 2009:
Although no dedicated servers brings Modern Warfare 2 on par with its console brethrens it’s a step backwards on the PC platform and a step back from COD 4. The peer2peer system offers inconsistent performance, server migration and a lack of simple features. Not to mention that PC gamers didn’t know about it until it was on a podcast only 3 weeks before official release.
Honorable Mentions:
Worst Game Everyone Played:
Modern Warfare 2 may have been good fun online and even had some decent parts in the tightly controlled single player campaign. But we don’t really feel that the overall game justifies 4.7 million copies being sold the day of release when there are many other superior games that miss out on such absurd sales numbers.
Honorable Mentions:
The Godfather 2
Best game No-one played:
Flower is one of the best games of 2009, but unfortunately it does not have a mass appeal of something like Modern Warfare 2. Also, being avaliable only online (via PSN) and only on one platform, severely limited the sales numbers for this great title.
Honorable Mentions:
Most Over-hyped game:
Countless news articles, hoards of screenshots and videos make this a fairly clear winner in 2009. Of course full credit to the PR crew in charge of controlling, or setting free, this runaway monster train for maximum sales across 3 platforms.
Honorable Mentions:
Best port (PC):
DiRT 2 was delayed because ATI were investing some big bucks to get some DirectX 11 support and to bundle it with their 5800 series graphics cards. Delayed a few months to give PC gamers the superior version with crystal clear graphics it was money well spent.
Honorable Mentions:
Worst port (PC):
Originally Force Unleashed wasn’t released on PC because at the time (May 2008) it would require “$4,000 high-end system”. It was released over a year later and the recommended specification was a 9800GT. When the game was released the only graphical options gamers could change was the resolution. No wonder it required such a beefy machine, it was never designed for PCs and the port shows.
(Dis)Honorable Mentions:
Saint’s Row 2
Most Improved Sequel:
The original Red Faction wasn’t bad, it brought geomod tech. Red Faction 2 however wasn’t that great. Guerrilla changes direction for the franchise but still keeps it well within the universe producing a solid sequel.
Honorable Mentions:
Worst Sequel:
America’s Army 3
America’s Army really established itself as a great free shooter with AA2. So understandably, after many years of development, players were expecting to have a great time with part three. However, tons of technical issues and a rocky launch prevented the game from ever taking off, making it this year’s worst sequel.
(Dis)Honorable Mentions:
The Godfather 2
Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor
Best New IP:
Dragon Age creates another fantasy universe but with its own lore and religions. Each piece of story seems intricately crafted with seemingly unlimited potential in terms of stories and more games in the universe.
Honorable Mentions:
Worst Game Overall:
What started out to be an ambitious time-travelling epic turned into a poorly presented demo for a new engine. The game isn’t downright awful, but with so much wasted potential, it is the worst game we’ve played all year.(Dis)Honorable Mentions:
The Godfather 2
Chicken Shoot
Introduction | Gameplay Awards | Special Awards | Genre Awards | GOTY
Genre Awards
Best Driving Game:
Great gameplay mechanics combined with excellent visuals and presentation helped Dirt 2 edge out the competition at the finish line and become the best driving game of 2009.
Honorable Mentions:
Best Platformer:
There were not many games this year in this category, but Mirror’s Edge takes his award for trying something completely new. While the trial and error gameplay wasn’t very polished, it was still the most innovative and best platformer this year.
Honorable Mentions:
New Super Mario Bros Wii
Best Shooter:
Successfully combining shooting with RPG mechanics, with the addition of very fun Co-op and tons of randomly generated loot, Borderlands was a standout shooter and the best for the year.
Honorable Mentions:
Best Action Game:
The action is smooth in Uncharted 2, big moments like riding aboad a moving train or shooting inside a falling building breathe pure class.
Honorable Mentions:
Best Strategy Game:
Not only did Dawn of War II have the best visual presentation and the most polished, well balanced gameplay of any strategy game this year, it also featured an innovative, unique single player campaign that successfully blended RTS gameplay with action RPG elements, making it the best of the year.
Honorable Mentions:
Best Adventure Game:
Nathan Drake is an everyday hero, one who is at home when making jokes in dangerous situations. He is a genuine character and attempts to do the right thing even if it gets him in trouble and it’s hard to not like him.
Honorable Mentions:
Best RPG:
The competition wasn’t exactly tough this year, but Dragon Age stood out of the crowd like a shining star, some heavy moral choices and some wonderful characters who are easy to get attached too.
Honorable Mentions:
Best Sports Game:
By brining the best of the previous years and making some core changes to the gameplay, NHL 10 wins the close-fought battle for our sports game of the year.
Honorable Mentions:
Best Simulation:
Simply put, the most realistic military tactical shooter to be released this year. ArmA 2 had a few issues at launch, but it was still a very hardcore and true-to-life experience that many military fans appreciated.
Honorable Mentions:
America’s Army 3
Best Puzzle Game:
Though it has a standard tower defense formula, mixing it with a wonderfully weird and creative premise truly enhances the experience and makes it one of the best and most memorable puzzle games of the year.
Honorable Mentions:
Introduction | Gameplay Awards | Special Awards | Genre Awards | GOTY
Outstanding voice work, superb dialogue, fantastic shooting, brilliant platforming and a good dose of hilarity are just some of the great things about Uncharted 2. It’s not often such a well paced experience is offered on any platform and therefore it becomes a very worthy winner of our Game of the Year award.
Honorable Mentions: