I was surprised that, despite having a baby at Christmas last year, I was still able to play games in 2009. It seems babies sleep! Not that I’d have imagined that in our first few days with her at home.
More surprising, is that I’ve somehow managed to complete a total of 43 games in the last 12 months. In 2008, I “only” completed 33.
But the best games of 2009? That’s an ask, isn’t it? Mainly because I’m pretty sure a lot of the games I played in 2009 were actually out in 2008. Or earlier. Much earlier in the case of some of the Megadrive titles I blitzed in the middle of the year! Apologies, then, if some of these are of an older vintage, but I’ll try to stay on-target with the year.
5. Words With Friends (iPhone)
Because it’s one of the games I’ve played the most. It’s just Scrabble, only legally not (so different letter scores and board layout), but the fact you can play others online and have a billion games on the go at once, makes it somewhat addictive.
4. Lit (Wii)
I seem to be the only person in the world who actually bought this, which is a shame. It’s a puzzle game, played out like a sort of reverse stealth game -you have to stay out of the dark or evil beasties eat you. Unusual and challenging.
3. New Super Mario Bros Wii (Wii)
This would be one notch higher if it wasn’t for just one thing – I’ve not played it enough yet, having only got it for Christmas. Perfectly built, inventive and clever. Nobody makes games like this any more – only Nintendo.
2. Little King’s Story (Wii)
Pikmin was an amazing game, and Little King’s Story owes much to it. You control a (growing) army of followers, of different types with different skills, and roam the world defeating bizarre bosses and collecting strange objects in order to “unite” the world essentially through ethnic cleansing. It’s cute, it has a few huge difficulty spikes, and it’s story can only be attributed to a loon. And it’s great.
1. Shadow Complex (360)
I love Metroid games. And I love Castlevania games. And Shadow Complex is the same sort of game – lots of exploring, and picking up new powers and items that open up more of the map. There’s nothing really new in it, and it’s got terrible, grating, voice acting. But! It’s the gameplay, the spot-on controls, and the amazingness of going from feeble weakling with a water pistol to an indestructible killing half-man, half-machine. So great is it, that the doable-in-5-hours story was done so many times, on every difficulty (bar Easy), that I’ve racked up over 60 hours on the game. And the OCD sufferer in me loves the item collection. 100% complete or nothing! It’s also a staggeringly good bargain at 1200 MS Points (it’s an Xbox Live Arcade title). My Game of the Year, for certain.
And the rest:
Other games of note from last year include the GTA IV add-on The Ballad of Gay Tony, which is another excellently written, funny, and fun to play GTA romp, Fallout 3 and it’s extra DLC (yeah, Fallout 3 was 2008 – but not all the DLC was) because it eats time itself, and GTA Chinatown Wars for the DS, which somehow managed to be a proper GTA without much compromise.
And hurrah for point-and-clicks! They made a return for me last year, with the last few Strong Bad episodes, Sam & Max, and Monkey Island. Thank $deity for Telltale Games!
