Best of 2009 - Dirt 2

As one year transitions into the next, I find it a healthy and refreshing endeavor to look back upon the past year and reflect upon those experiences which touched me the most; to discover which games stood tall above the rest and, for one reason or another, made a lasting impression.

Over the next few days, I will be sharing my own personal list of the ten best games of 2009, followed by those that didn't quite make the top ten and even a few of my greatest disappointments of the year. These are in no particular order, but they are the games I found most worthy of praise. Reflecting upon them makes one thing clear: it was a great year for gaming.

The racing game market is a remarkably tough one. There aren’t many obvious gaps left to be filled, not many cracks remaining for innovation to squeeze from. Most categories of racing have a clear king and a lot of competition looking to dethrone the current leader, so it’s quite hard for a newcomer to make itself known.

Mario Kart leads the wacky antics category. Forza and Gran Turismo are in a battle to the death over the simulation category. Burnout has people covered that would rather crash than race. And so on.

But as much as I love racing games, it somehow never occurred to me that there was no clear leader for dirt racing. Sure there were off-road racing games, but none of them had the mass appeal, the polish, the depth, and the overall quality to truly take the crown and run with it, to declare boldly that the category of dirt racing belonged to this franchise and anyone who argues is going to damn well have to knock it off of the hill first.

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Best of 2009 - Brütal Legend

As one year transitions into the next, I find it a healthy and refreshing endeavor to look back upon the past year and reflect upon those experiences which touched me the most; to discover which games stood tall above the rest and, for one reason or another, made a lasting impression.

Over the next few days, I will be sharing my own personal list of the ten best games of 2009, followed by those that didn't quite make the top ten and even a few of my greatest disappointments of the year. These are in no particular order, but they are the games I found most worthy of praise. Reflecting upon them makes one thing clear: it was a great year for gaming.

Many games can rather easily be described by the sum of their parts. If you don’t mind shortcoming A, if you like gameplay mechanic B, and if you’re willing to accept flaw C then you should buy the game.

But sometimes you come across an enigma. Sometimes, despite your best efforts, a game just doesn’t quite manage to fit your analytical template so easily. 

Games like these transcend any of their individual parts to create a whole experience that, if it manages to capture you with its magic, will amaze and enthrall despite a potential laundry list of problems that should, by all rights, be driving you nuts.

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Best of 2009 - The Beatles: Rock Band

As one year transitions into the next, I find it a healthy and refreshing endeavor to look back upon the past year and reflect upon those experiences which touched me the most; to discover which games stood tall above the rest and, for one reason or another, made a lasting impression.

Over the next few days, I will be sharing my own personal list of the ten best games of 2009, followed by those that didn't quite make the top ten and even a few of my greatest disappointments of the year. These are in no particular order, but they are the games I found most worthy of praise. Reflecting upon them makes one thing clear: it was a great year for gaming.

One simple fact is all it takes to explain why The Beatles: Rock Band is such an amazing game.

No it doesn’t radically alter the music gaming landscape. No it doesn’t introduce buckets full of innovation to the stagnating genre.

What it did do was teach me to appreciate The Beatles when I had never been able to do so before.

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Dethklok's Dethalbum II is More Metal, Less Dethklok

Dethalbum II is undoubtedly a great metal album.  

The riffs are both heavy and catchy.  The solos are intense.  The churning beats will have you unable to stop bobbing your head.  

What the album is not is a great Dethklok album.

Dethalbum II sounds to me like what might happen in Dethklok’s fictional universe if lead singer Nathan Explosion were to do a solo album.  The product wouldn’t fall too from from the Dethklok tree, but it would have its own spin to the sound and be, despite the similarities, distinctly un-Dethklok.

Not too unlike the solo album from Serj Tankien of System of a Down, as it happens.

The feeling I get upon listening to Dethalbum II is a little hard to explain.

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Wtichbreed's Heretic Rapture Different, Yet Still the Same

Heretic Rapture by Witchbreed is a fairly impressive debut disk on one hand and yet somehow unremarkable on another.

The fusion of metal with a female singer to add melody is hardly anything new in the music scene.  Nightwish, Within Temptation, Krypteria, and countless others have adopted this tactic and tried to put their own spin on it to stand out from the crowd.

Even though this is perhaps an overused trend and there is a veritable boatload of mediocre music released in this category, this is a trend I’m all for on the whole.  When done correctly, this fusion of melody and aggression can be simply captivating.  

Witchbreed doesn’t sound terribly original in concept, but in execution they actually manage to stand out from the crowd nicely.

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