I was planning on doing this last year, but it fell through the cracks and by the time I was ready, it was April.
Best Action Game: No other game in 2009 was quite like [PROTOTYPE] I know that you'll say: what about inFAMOUS? well, it don't count for 2 reasons 1. inFAMOUS is PS3 exclusive, and 2. It's nowhere near as SATISFYING!!!! The game opened strongly, and kept it's appeal all throughout the 20+ hours I sunk into it, the combat was awesome, the stealth sysytem was fair, and DAMN! Alex Mercer has the skills! Sequel please? The winner is [PROTOTYPE] by a long shot.
WINNER: [PROTOTYPE]
Best Opening Cutscene: The biggest debate for this one was between Modern Warfare 2's awesome recap of CoD4, and [PROTOTYPE]'s gory, impacted, and ass-kickery of a cutscene. Ultimately, you decide.... because I can't. Extra note: Borderlands was a close 2nd (or 3rd, depending on how you view a tie)
Winner: TIE Modern Warfare 2 & [PROTOTYPE]
Best RPG: Not much here in this category. There's Borderlands, which just barely qualifies. All the Fallout 3 DLC, and Dragon Age.I thoughtI'd go with one of the best of the Fallout expansions, and although I loved Mothership Zeta for giving me the one thing I always wanted in Fallout- A scope-less Revolver. I have to give it to my favorite of the expansions for the overall content: Point Lookout. It's not my definitivepick for best RPG however. In the past few weeks I've come to love a new game. Dragon Age. The plot is excellent, the gameplay is tight and I love the world of Ferelden.
Winner: TIE Fallout 3: Point Lookout & Dragon Age: Origins
Best New Character: Do I even need to explain why I'm giving the award to Ghost from Modern Warfare 2? Didn't think so.
Winner: Ghost - Modern Warfare 2
Best Co-Op: I had a short run with co-op in Borderlands, but what a state of fun I had with it! The Gears 2 map packs added solid Horde maps all throughout the year, but they lacked a certain something that eventually made them inferior to the original 10 maps.
Winner: Borderlands
Best Shooter:I know alot of people could say that I'm taking the "easiest" and "safest" route by picking Modern warfare 2, but hear me out. I'm NOT giving it this award for the multiplayer. Instead I'm giving it to the Single Player Campaign, which was, and will always be 1000x better than any multiplayer. Each level was awesome in its own way, and the story that looped them all together was extremely well-crafted. I'd love to see a movie made about the Modern Warfare series, as long as a good director got their hands on it.
Winner: Modern Warfare 2: Single Player Campaign
Best DLC: I got to give Rockstar props here. It may have taken them 4 and 1/2 years to churn out GTA IV, but they delivered 2 excellent DLC Expansions in the course of 12 months. Between the 2, The Lost and Damned improved on several of GTA IV's problems, but it lacked extracurricular activities. The Ballad of Gay Tony had tons of stuff to do, as well as gave the overly-realistic game world the whimsical fun of the first few games. The Lost and Damned gave you a story of brotherhood, BoGT gave us a story of Corruption. In the end, who wins? The player thats who.
Winner: Grand Theft Auto IV: Episodes from Liberty City
Best XBL Arcade Game: Shadow Complex came out in the summer, after weeks of agonizingly amazing previews and videos. This game pushed the bar for Arcade games, and it has yet to be dethroned.
Winner: Shadow Complex
Best Music-Game DLC: I'm not giving an award to best music game, because there wasn't much of a choice. Guitar Hero's a joke now, it's not even a game, so where's the fun in giving an award to either The Beatles Rock Band or LEGO Rock Band? Instead I'm giving an award to best Rock Band DLC. No it's not Slitnuts (slipknot)
Winner: Foo Fighters Pack #3 (Wheels, The Pretender, Best of You, and Word Forward)
Best Map Pack DLC: Gears of War 2: All Front's Collection
Best Developer Support: Bethesda churned out 5 excellent expansions to Fallout 3, my GOTY for 2008, and even when there were serious glitches, they went right to work to fix them.
Winner: Bethesda
Best New IP: The future of [PROTOTYPE] is unsure. Ther have been no guarantees that it will become a franchise, no matter how much I hope. There is however, another game that came out in 2009, that is confirmed for a sequel. That game is the first of its kind. A good Batman game.
Winner: Batman: Arkham Asylum
Best Story: This one has me at a cossroads. On one hand, I loved learning about Ezio Auditore and uncovering the conspiracy behind his family's murder, but on the other hand, I can't put down Modern Warfare 2's excellent storyline. And on a third and fourth hand, I enjoyed the story of Alex Mercer in [PROTOTYPE] and the Rookie inODST.I can't give out any more ties, so, I will choose the one that got me emotionally involved. It is the genius tale of War and Betrayal known as....
Winner: Modern Warfare 2
Best Comedy: I was gonna give this to Halo 3: ODST, because it had some pretty funny moments, but then I played Lego Rock Band and now I'm pissed because they're both good. In the end though, I put my support behind the power of ROCK!
Winner: LEGO Rock Band
Retro-Throwback of the Year: To this day,I love 2D Metroid. Fusion most of all, because its the first I owned and its the only one I really got into.When Shadow Complex's developers at Chair Entertainment and Epic Games said that it was going to be like Metroid, I said to myself "Wow. I gotta buy that!" I do not regret it, nor will I ever.
Winner: Shadow Complex
Best Gameplay Moment (Story): I had my doubts when I played the demo of Arkham Asylum. I thought that it would keep us locked in a single building for the whole game, with brief stints outside, being confined to balconies and the like,I mean come on,even BioShock switched it up from level to level. My doubts were killed when I got the full game and I emerged from the cave onto the greater Arkham Island. That moment was on of the most memorable playable moments of the year. Long Live THe Dark Knight.
Winner: Batman: Arkham Asylum
Best Cutscene Moment: Dragon Age was an immersive experience from beginning to end. There was a slow spot in the middle that threatened it chances of being included in these awards, but the ending payed off. The moment I'm talking about is the final battle with the Archdemon. Holy ****! What a battle!
Winner: Dragon Age: Origins
Most Emotional Moment: Who knew that a guy could get all emotional over anything? Well there's gays, but I'm talking about a straight guy getting all emotional over a single moment. It happened to me in November, long before I played through the moment. And [MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT!!!] When that bastard Shepard put a bullet through my stomach, it felt real. The situation got worse milliseconds later as he turned the gun on the best new character since Mario. I came very close to losing my status as a man during the next minute. WHY DO THE GOOD DIE YOUNG???!!! R.I.P. Ghost.
Winner: Modern Warfare 2- Ghost's Death (End of 'Loose Ends')
GAME OF THE YEAR!
Here it is, the moment you've all been waiting for. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for reading this and to say that, even though Modern Warfare 2 was the big winner here. It did NOT win the biggest award. Instead another little game I began playing on Dec. 25th is taking those honors. A game about love and loss, fathers and sons, conspiracy and murder, carrying the fire, and sticking a blade up the arse of civilization.I am of course talking about Assassin's Creed II. Thank you UbiSoft Montreal for making Assassin's Creed II into the masterpiece that the original game should have been. And always remember "It's-a me! Uncle Mario!"
Game of the Year 2009: Assassin's Creed II
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