Game of The Year 2009 – Ed

Fashionably late as ever, and following in lieu of the rest of the Gaming Daily crew here’s my top three games for last year. Mine’s up a little late as I’ve been in the yew ess of ay for the past three weeks, but lets pretend I used that time to properly reflect on this list (instead of just thinking on it for 5 minutes then trying to justify my choices). The reasoning behind this is not what I think was the best game to come out this year, but what I enjoyed the most. Or some crap.



3) Ben There, Dan That/Time Gentlemen, Please!

I’m utter rubbish at adventure games. Born perhaps 5 years too late for the craze, I developed no moon logic skills so invariably ended up getting frustrated at even the “simplest” of puzzles.

When you have a perfectly serviceable object in your inventory to do a task but get a no can do: lets for instance say you have a sword in there and you have to cut a rope, to be told you can’t do it makes me at least want to reach into my screen and strangle tiny pixelated necks. Especially when the actual solution turns out to be something “wacky” like having to capture a rat with a drugged peppermint and bell jar, to then use on the rope to gnaw through it. When to gather up said objects takes about 30 mins to an hour then it’s beyond “amusing obscure solution” and rather a “blatant waste of my time with bullshit”. I didn’t want to aimlessly click around backtracking, I wanted to cut a fucking rope and I wanted it done yesterday damnit.

With this in mind, Ben There, Dan That/Time Gentlemen, Please! is guilty of the same crime at points. So what makes it any different to justify including on my Goty list? Well, it barely isn’t mechanic wise, but the writing makes it superb. Even when I was incorrect 95% of the time in guessing what to do, the little quips and general humour really stood out to me. It meant that I didn’t mind as much that there was still only one solution per puzzle and some mind bastardingly crazy obscure challenges (If you’ve played the game, the need to repeatedly use the damn aging and de-aging machine really got to me). Trying everything on everything was so enjoyable and rewarding that this warmed me up to adventure games more than Machinarium did this year.



2) Wurm Online

If you expect to get anywhere fast in Wurm, you can just so long as you’re willing to put yourself on Ent time. Otherwise prepare for a long, long, loooonnng grind for making essential items and boosting skills or finding the right materials in the land. Wurm at its worst is when you’re needing one small item, but it requires epic amounts of effort and time with only a slight chance that you’ll be successful. Other times when it’s bad is when the maintenance aspect of it can feel like a second (or first) job, when you have a big project in mind but can’t find a way to sustain yourself.



An example of Wurm at its most grating is thusly:

You drop an iron lump into the stone forge.
You light the stone forge with some kindling.
*wait 20 minutes*
You burn some wood scrap on the stone forge.
*wait 10 minutes*
Iron Lump is glowing hot.
You pick up the Iron Lump.
You use the Iron Lump on the small anvil.
Create > Tools > Hammer Head.
*Wait 2 minutes*
You fail to make a Hammer Head.

/repeat



I wrote about this game a little while ago here and was overly harsh with it then, but that was only as I didn’t want to mislead people. Too often I’ll be amazed at the stories that come out of Eve Online, only to find that getting in and playing it bores you to tears and that to build up such levels of intrigue can takes months. Wurm is either a Love-it or Bored-of-it game depending on your experiences.



There’s two ways to exist Wurm really -



1) Go and be an intrepid frontiersman, taming bears and braving the elements on your own. It keeps you on your toes and is undoubtably interesting, but for me is a little too intense for what I’m expecting to put in.



2) Band together as a community. This is the reason for me that this game gets to be on my Goty list (even though it didn’t come out this year, but shh). Having a great friend like Jaz in the PCG village, plus getting to know its inhabitants has been thoroughly charming, hilarious, stressful but an overall great experience. Bantering along, trading and embarking on epic projects with others is something that should be encouraged among more games really (if more people were friendly and literate on the internet mind). It’s also a great background game, as when I’m wanting to relax but not devote myself to a game I can just easily open it in windowed mode and log in, pitch in a little bit and leave it fishing or so while I catch up on my reading and then log out whenever I feel like it with minimal maintenance and fuss.



1) Dragon Ag…Actually, I want to go for Killing Floor

I know Tom, Craig and Tom have all put Dragon Age as their Game of the Year. But even though I found it pretty amazing in terms of modern RPG story telling and visuals, the combat just put me right off. I sank in 10 hours but just couldn’t get around it, as (even after I respeced to actually be able to survive a fight) there were just too many encounters per dungeon to enjoy it, especially when the combat to me felt like a micromanaging clusterfuck reliant on one party member just healing everyone.



Now that I’ve just slated three of the GD writers favourite game this year and Craig’s all time I feel I’ve got to defend why I put Killing Floor; a buggy game in need of polish, instead of DA:O (apart from the fact I’m a different person with my own tastes). At the end of the day, no matter how good DA is and how much Craig tells me it should be everyone’s Goty, KF has been the one with the most positive experiences and memories for me, so much so that by comparison even my top played steam game TF2 seems dull despite all its resplendor.



KF just simply attaches itself to my pleasure core¹ and provides a great back to basics gaming experience, and one that’s only gotten better with recent improvements. The mix of RPG style classes and a shop with simple co-op survival fun is just amazing. Feeling let down by the weapons of l4d and l4d2, here all styles of play are suited for with from pistols and rifles to grenade launchers and katanas.



When I’ve managed to get friends to play this with me, the sheer excitment of survival and not knowing who’s going to cave and when is brilliant. At the start of the session, the easy “shooting gallery” waves make for some fun target practice. As the waves start getting progressively difficult and the amount of differing opponents increased it becomes a more hard bitten affair, everyone pitching in their best as if just one person falls the wave smashes in and throws the group into panic.



This is the epicentre of the game, with that sure bastion shattered and survival looking bleak. It creates so many of those truly special gaming highs and little bragging moments. Telling one friend about the game, he liked the sound of it so much he went out and bought it on the sheer testimony of just one story, about the desperate last stand that saw me and 2 injured people with 17 bullets between us pitched against 300 on a castle rampart. Soon enough after buying it he was coming back with his own stories and I raptly listened in turn. If this little addicting gaming slice hasn’t entered your collection yet I urge you to add it soon, as it only keeps getting better.



¹ – Everyone has a Pleasure Core. As proven by Top Scientists².
² – Me.