After all was said and done, 2009 has turned out to be a pretty bloody good year for games. There has been a whole host of releases that have been marvellous, and to join in wuth the end of the year listomania, here’s my top three. And I think it’s important to note that this is my top three; so far this year I’ve skipped the likes of both Left 4 Dead and Modern Warfare 2 – mainly because of lack of interest and to an extent money. Later in the week the other regulars here should be following up with their very own GoTY posts which will – through a combination of rough maths and guesswork – generate the Official Gaming Daily GoTY 2009
3. Empire: Total War
Angry men doing what angry men do best – killing each other. As intimidating as loading up Empire might be, it really is glorious in what it achieves; epic wars spanning continents fought amidst gun smoke and explosions. In Empire, control of your nation was streamlined without being made simple, ships were made to blow the crap out of each other in super pretty 3D, and Native Americans could be oppressed and massacred you could fight for glorious freedom. Grand strategy with as much or as little micro-management as you fancied.
2. Batman: Arkham Asylum
Punching men in the face has never been so fluid, so stylish, so good. Arkham Asylum has become my benchmark for hand to hand combat – it was effectively perfect in it’s execution. Everything connected and with just a few mouse clicks you were the hardest and simultaneously coolest superhero in existence. The stealth was fantastic too, capturing exactly what it meant to be Bats; stalking from the shadows then striking silently while steadily putting thr fear of god into anyone left in the room. When it came down to it, it was how in-control Arkham made you feel in combat situations; you weren’t ever bashing the mouse, you were always collected, calmly cracking heads with cool precision.
Arkham Asylum got what it meant to be Batman and how to make a Batman game. It was gothic, dark, stylish – silhouettes and moonlight are the words I used I believe. Yes, it had those crappy bossfights, but they were more than forgiveable with the rest of the package. It was undoubtedly a Batman game – it had the feel of Gotham down and the fact that a sequel has already been announced makes me very happy indeed.
1. Dragon Age: Origins
No surprises here; I did slate it as The Best Game I Have Ever Played in my review after all – which incidentally goes into plenty more depth on why it’s so good than the scant words I’m going to throw around here. Dragon Age made me forge relationships that I cared about, it made me play as a good guy because I wanted to, it made me feel genuinely bitter towards Humans for being so cruel. The narrative of Dragon Age was unashamedly High Fantasy, and the setting was nothing new; but the themes it tackled, the personal story it wove, and the characters it created – they were the finest examples in all of gaming.
Then it had that amazing breed of combat which was bloody, and violent, and clever, and violent, and tactical, and violent. It was a combat system that I’ve always wanted in RPGs that have you control a multitude of characters (though I’m told FFXII implemented it first) – being able to give characters a detailed list of rules eases off the stress of fights, letting me concentrate on optimising damage output without having to constantly tell any support classes to attract attention and heal. Plus it was so physical – people being knocked back or totally sent flying, brutal finishing moves, and all under the constant sound of metal clashing on metal. Brilliant.
