Choosing a winner for this year’s action-adventure category turned out to be an action-adventure game in itself; and a pretty tough one at that. Imagine going up to a deadly assassin or the Dark Knight himself and telling them that their respective entries, while being awesome beyond words, didn’t quite make the cut. Apart from the imminent health hazard that such a (thankfully) hypothetical situation presents, picking out a winner for this category in 2009 truly felt like a grave injustice to the other nominees.
But the fat lady has to sing, and so we must choose a winner. This year’s nominees included Rocksteady’s brilliantly crafted debut in the Batman universe. The game is not only an excellent superhero game, but would have easily topped this category had it been released in another year. In the same space, we also had inFamous, the open-world superhero (or villain) saga whose gameplay was arguably the most accessible and addictive this year. Assassin’s Creed 2 capped off the year by making an already tough choice infinitely tougher by weeding out all the issues that the original had, and brought all its elements at par or exceed what they were supposed to be - Legendary.
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Usually in a game when you come across water hazards or pools of bubbling lava, the only way forward is to swing across, climb around or jump over them. Avoidance is the only plausible solution. In PixelJunk Shooter, however, the way forward is often through molten lava and water bodies. The contrasting hot and cold characteristics of the game world form the basis of the PixelJunk Shooter formula. The word ‘Shooter’ is a little misleading because, although shooting is involved, this is very much a puzzle game.
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Deep within the office of Sony Computer Entertainment, there were pitches for the latest PSN project.
Interviewer: So how should we go about this one?
Iffy Bee: It should be bigger, better, and more bad a*s!
Interviewer: Oh…sorry.
*presses a button under the desk. A trap door beneath Iffy Bee opens, sending him down a lava pit *
Iffy Bee: Arrgghhh!
Interviewer: Next!
Krazy Cazz: RIIIIDDDGGGEEE RAAAACCCERRRR!
Interviewer: *facepalm* This will hurt.
*presses another button, an anvil falls on Cazz*
Krazy Cazz: Giant enemy anvil…for maximum damage. *groans*
Interviewer: Next!
Jenova Chen: It should be about Flowers. And stuff. Yo.
Interviewer: Hmm…go on.
Jenova Chen: Human emotion through nature. And stuff. Yo.
Interviewer: Perfect. You guys, from thatgamecompany, are hired!
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Staff casts nomination on Dragon Age: Origins!
Staff spots wild PS3 fanboys!
PS3 fanbots cast nomination on Demon’s Souls!
PS3 fanbots level up!
PS3 fanbots spot overclocked PC fanboys!
PC fanboys cast nomination on Dragon Age: Origins!
PS3 fanbots and PC fanboys caught in Flame War!
PS3 fanbots and PC fanboys in deadlock!
Staff sits on the sidelines, eat popcorn, drink coke. Watch the forums burn!
Forums burn! +5 flame damage with every post!
New challenger enters!
Community casts nomination!
Community votes for Dragon Age: Origins.
Community levels up!
Fanbots and fanboys level up!
Staff…eats popcorn and drinks coke (except for the poor SOB writing this)
Everybody +5 win*!
GAME OVER!
Community Pick: Dragon Age: Origins
IVG Staff Pick: Dragon Age: Origins
*HPS: Except for the idiot writing this, he just gets the chain-mail of fail
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Platformers have seen a bit of a resurgence over the last few years. 2008 was a fantastic year for the genre and 2009 was no different. And it’s the traditional side-scrolling platformers that dominated our nominees for Best Platfromer. In fact, only one of the five nominees this year is a 3D platformer.
First up is a classic that keeps reinventing itself. After a 3D outing as Super Mario Galaxy, the second Mario platformer for the Wii – New Super Mario Bros Wii (how do they come up with these?), goes back to the side-on perspective. NSMB is no cakewalk. In fact, the difficulty is punishing, but thanks to ingenious level design, frustration is kept to a minimum, and enjoyment to the max. 2008’s big PS3 exclusive – LittleBigPlanet, made the move to the PSP in 2009, and the result couldn’t be more satisfying. Nearly everything we loved about the PS3 version has remarkably been carried forward to the handheld intact, including the level editor, and the ability to download user-created levels.
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PC gaming is dead. Or so they’ve said since the inception of the PSOne. And while two indie titles, two RTSs, the usual Sims release, and a top-notch RPG don’t exactly represent the most robust of health for the platform, it’s a far cry from being even close to life-support, let alone death.
Having said that, Dragon Age: Origins was the community’s pick for PC Game of the Year from reasons ranging from “It’s the only game I’ve played on the PC” to “I’ve played the PS3 version so the PC version is winrarz!”. But beneath the thin veneer of apparent superficial thinking lies a hoard of intelligent voters who’ve enjoyed the relatively relaxing minimum and recommended specifications of this PC title, the superlative zoom that allows an isometric perspective that the console versions lack, and of course, the stellar interface that is worlds, nay, universes apart from it’s console brethren.
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The legendary Tekken franchise makes its latest home console appearance as Tekken 6, a port of the updated arcade machine variant - Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion. A solid four years after its last iteration Tekken 5 was released on the PlayStation 2 system (not counting the HD PSN remake for PS3), Tekken 6 unbelievably contains an even bigger roster. But with this year already playing host to Street Fighter IV and the new contender BlazBlue, does it match up to the heavyweights?
The Tekken storyline gets more and more complex as the series progresses, with each evil Mishima family offspring (Jin, Kazuya and Heihachi) and his plans of world domination causing somewhat catastrophic wide spread damage and then, overconfidently, yet foolishly, the diabolical dictator providing an opening, to be overthrown by the others, in the form of a King of Iron Fist Tournament. Tekken 6 has Jin going psychotic and hosting the tournament, but his intentions somehow involve the greater demonic powers of the newly discovered ancient deity Azazel. At least the story writers can’t be blamed for slacking off, but as with most fighting games, the story hardly matters.
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It was great to have sequels to popular franchises such as Call of Duty, Halo, Uncharted, Killzone, Resident Evil and Assassin’s Creed, all in one year. But an unfortunate side effect to such a glut of big budget sequels was that some great games that lacked the hype or rich pedigree went by largely unnoticed. We give these quality titles their due in our Best Game No One Played category.
Plants vs Zombies was 2009’s World of Goo; a little indie PC game that no one saw coming, but one that demanded everyone’s attention once it was here. Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is a brilliant sequel to a good, if somewhat unpolished, game. It looks good, it plays well, it tells an engaging story, and it’s one of the best Wild West games to come along in a while. Red Faction: Guerrilla is a drastic change in direction for the series. What used to be a linear first-person shooter, is now an open-world third-person action game. The highlight was the game’s Geomod 2.0 engine, which helped deliver environmental destruction unlike anything we’ve seen before.
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Telling a tale - whether it be about a tail or not - is easy. Getting others to sit through it is not easy. When it’s a video game it gets substantially harder because the player has a say in where the story goes. This year we’ve introduced a new category to honour those games which took up the challenge of presenting an engaging, thought provoking, entertaining story.
Brutal Legend is a rollicking love story set in the world of metal splattered, rather than polished, with Tim Schafer’s legendary craft. The twists in this composition more than make up for the disappointing gameplay, and the age old story of the hero discovering and coming to terms with his past is presented on a platter made up of guitar and drums for our aural pleasure. The Wild West has always been the setting for epic twisted storylines, and Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood delivers one of the best adventures in recent times in the midst of sand, bullets and horses. This story of two brothers takes everything we love out of Westerns and presents a tale which will be impossible to disregard - there’s honour, betrayal, tragedy, politics, alliances and heartbreak. Giddy up and enjoy!
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A great character can carry a mediocre game on his/her shoulders. Some of them catapult an already great game into legendary status. And a few stay with us much after we’ve forgotten the game. This is one of the new categories we’ve introduced this year because we wanted to recognise the efforts to bring a few polygons to life using outstanding dialogue and voice acting.
Alistair from Dragon Age: Origins has so many layers to him, but what oozes most from him is his charm, and once that sheds away, his vulnerability about his circumstances. He is a pawn in the great game of politics in Ferelden, yet he never loses heart or his sense of humour. Cigar chomping, handlebar moustachioed Captain Price returns in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as Makarov’s nemesis. There is a moment when his actions are a bit loopy, but we will put it down to the years spent in the Gulag. He saves the day once again with the faithful Soap MacTavish. It must be the moustache.
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