Year in review: The best games of 2009

Above: I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Ain't no rest for the wicked awesome.

We're wrapping up our recap of the year that was. Today: the best games of 2009.

At last we come to it. You can click through to the feature on thephoenix.com to read the blurbs for each game, but for easy reference, and with all the usual caveats, here's my top 10 of 2009:

1. Borderlands
2. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
3. Batman: Arkham Asylum
4. Shadow Complex
5. Flower
6. Left 4 Dead 2
7. Red Faction: Guerrilla
8. Dead Space: Extraction
9. Street Fighter IV
10. Prototype

That concludes our coverage of 2009. We're not turning the lights out for the holidays here at Insult Swordfighting, but posting is likely to be light until the new year. As always, thank you for reading. Merry Christmas, and a happy New Year!

Grateful dead

Above: Malls of fury.

My review of Left 4 Dead 2 is up now at thephoenix.com. This is a terrific game, although it's not all on an even keel like the first one was. There are things that are absolutely brilliant, and some things that are kind of frustrating. What was great about the original was how simple it was, almost arcade-like: run from here to here, and shoot this, this, and this along the way. Left 4 Dead 2 adds a lot of wrinkles, many of which are spectacular, but which also take away from the elegance that made the first one so great.

For example, it's pretty cool that now you can choose different types of health items. A medpack lets you heal yourself or an ailing teammate, as before, but you can also choose to carry a defibrillator instead, which will revive a fallen teammate. That adds a layer of strategy that was missing before, but it also means that there will be plenty of times when you're carrying one thing and really need the other. The same goes for the temporary-boost items, adrenaline and pills. Adrenaline can be insanely useful in the right situation, such as when you need to retrieve an item, although the right situation rarely occurs.

And, as I say in the review, the more robust mission objectives are a double-edged sword (or a cricket bat, if you like). As soon as you're doing something besides running, you start wondering why you're doing these things, and most often the answer is nothing more than Valve saying, like an exasperated parent, "Because!" The Dead Center finale is the most egregious example, but even most of the Dark Carnival gives me this impression. On the other hand, Hard Rain is such a great idea that is so well executed, it's worth playing the game for that campaign alone.

Although the voice cast is just fine here, especially Cutty from The Wire,* I really miss Louis. We found ourselves saying things like "Pills here!" in Louis's voice, just so he would know he was loved. Honestly, I also miss the easier difficulty of the first game. Maybe our group is just terrible (okay, I know we are), but it feels to me like easy in the sequel is about equal to normal difficulty in the original, which was plenty hard for me. And this time they've stacked even more levels of difficulty, culminating in realism mode, which I will admit right now I did not attempt.

The Joystiq crew has caught some flak for their review of the game, which focused on nothing but the difficulty, but it's a perfectly valid point. I can't take more than about three resets per chapter before I'm done with the campaign, let alone five or more. The AI director this time is vicious about throwing the special infected at you, and never seems to adjust even if you're struggling. That's not the worst thing in the world, since the actual intelligence director can just switch things down to easy if you have no shame, which I don't. So while I'd take the first game over this one if forced to choose, it wasn't hard to make Left 4 Dead 2 more like the game I wanted it to be, and that game was pretty awesome.

*Be honest here: You would play a Left 4 Dead mod set in Baltimore, with the voice talents of Michael K. Williams, Wendell Pierce, Dominic West, and Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, wouldn't you?

Friday afternoon tidbits-

Nobody's asked how NaNoWriMo is going, but I'll tell you anyway: I expect to cross the 50,000 word mark tonight or tomorrow, although the story itself will go on for a bit longer. It's been a rewarding, if taxing, experience, and I'd recommend anybody who's ever thought about writing a book give it a go next year. Or, hell, just try it in December! Writing is sweet.

-Kyle Orland has the definitive look at the Left 4 Dead 2 boycott. Not having paid attention to any of it while it was happening, I didn't realize there was a story with so many twists and turns. This just proves, once again, that Valve is one of the smartest companies around. But the boycotters made their point too, and overall the whole thing seems much more successful than the MW2 boycott.

-Speaking of MW2, I don't see a need to weigh in on the "No Russian" scene because so many others have already said basically what I would have, only better -- Kieron Gillen and Tom Chick chief among them. Nick Dinicola has a more sanguine take, arguing that Modern Warfare 2 accurately reflects the senseless state of warfare in the 21st century. He may not be totally wrong about that, but it's important to remember the extent to which we've sanitized World War II in our collective memory. Maybe there was a good reason for fighting it, but you can't tell that to the 50 million people who died, the majority of them civilians.

-Also at PopMatters, L.B. Jeffries stands up for the merits of linear narrative. He's right to frame it the way he does -- there's always a lot of excitement about emergent narratives and player-as-author design philosophies, but there's room for more than one approach. Well-scripted, linear games may not be sexy, but they'll never go out of style.

-Steve Gaynor puts together his picks for the definitive games of the decade, which he says "defined the state of the art in game design in the 00's." Good list with lots to think about. Like one of the commenters, I too think that Guitar Hero and Rock Band should be on that list in some form. They are simply too big a cultural and commercial phenomenon to ignore, and although music and rhythm games had existed in some form before, the original Guitar Hero is clearly the demarcation point between the genre as a niche and as a powerhouse.

-Sarah Palin may think she's going rogue, but it turns out to be a pretty weak build.

Fall games preview

Above: A game whose promotion you are already sick of.

It's September, so it must be time for my fall video games preview in the Phoenix. Given that you use the Internet, I imagine there is not much news in this piece for you. It's a snapshot of the biggest games coming out this fall, at least as I interpret them from looking at Gamespot's "new releases" section. That means it's tilted more toward big-budgeted titles whose art will look good in the paper. I'm not passing any kind of value judgment here; I'm just telling you what it is.

The fun for me is finding out which game gets delayed immediately after the preview goes to press. One year it was Bully, and one year it was Super Paper Mario. It's also enjoyable to see what game I overlook that ends up knocking my socks off. In 2007, I failed to mention Call of Duty 4; last year, I couldn't spare the column inches for Far Cry 2.

There's no doubt that this year is lighter on big names than some past years, but I've been doing these previews since... 2005, I think, and only in 2007 was I genuinely enthused about the selections. (With good cause, as it turned out.) I still think it's a blessing in disguise that so many games have been delayed, giving us more time with the games that do come out this fall. There's plenty to be excited about, too. I'm always up for first-party Sony titles, Valve has never stepped wrong, and it's an Infinity Ward Call of Duty. I mean, come on.

Still, I look forward to the real work, which will be playing and reviewing these games. That'll be much more fun.

Friday afternoon tidbits

Not sure how much time I'll have for games this weekend, but I plan to head back into the Shadow Complex and try to pad my completion stats a bit. I need infinite foam, damn it!

-Christian Nutt wrote a lengthy editorial about Shadow Complex and the Orson Scott Card question for Gamasutra, which is well worth your time to read, even though it doesn't have as many jokes as mine did. Take note of the comment by Peter David, the game's writer, who, understandably, is against a boycott:

I believe the answer to free speech is always more free speech. If you believe that Orson Scott Card is saying things that are wrong at the top of his lungs, then you say so at the top of yours. If he's donating money to organizations dedicated to infringing gay rights, you donate money to organizations that support them.

A society that embraces free expression depends on an unimpeded exchange of ideas.

The disconnect comes from those people who believe that boycotts are likewise a form of free expression. They're not. Boycotts are the opposite: They are designed to be punitive. To hurt someone financially.

I agree with the first part, but not so much with the second. I did not have a problem paying for this game. But choosing which companies you want to give your money to is a valuable tool in a citizen's arsenal, considering the structure of the society we live in. This almost gets close to suggesting that people should have to buy the game in order to express an opinion on Card's politics.

In fact, I do think that the conversation that has come up thanks to Shadow Complex has been a productive one, and that nobody at Chair or Epic is going be smarting financially, either.

-At Offworld, Jim Rossignol conducted a long interview with Valve's Chet Faliszek, mostly about Left 4 Dead 2, but also about the company, DLC, Steam, and much more. I appreciated how straightforward Faliszek was in responding to questions about topics like the fan boycott. He also sums up why Valve's games are always so good with this statment:

I've said this before, but when you first get people in to play your game you think: "Who are these morons? Can't they just see that's how it is supposed to work?" But you quickly learn: ten people in a row didn't figure that out, so the problem lies with us.

Creators of all types of content, not just video games, should consider the wisdom of that statement.

-While not a Madden guy myself, I really appreciate that the current generation of games includes free roster updates for things that happen after the game ships. For instance, you can download Brett Favre for the Vikings, and Michael Vick for the Eagles. The sports blog Deadspin has a little fun talking about Favre's player ratings.

-Speaking of Madden, Bill Harris's description of adjusting the game's sliders for maximum realism is essential reading. This is what engaging with a video game looks like.

-I was a bit surprised to read Matt Sakey call Far Cry 2 "a crime against gaming" in his monthly "Culture Clash" column. Sakey is a good writer who makes some excellent points here. Even in his original trashing of FC2, I can't argue with the factual accuracy of his observations. Yet his description of the game doesn't comport with my own experience at all.

When I think about Far Cry 2, I remember how dynamic and unpredictable every encounter was. I remember roaring across the savannah in a Jeep, taking my eyes off the road to consult the map on my knees as I bounced over hills and scraped against rocks. I remember scouting an outpost for five minutes, planning my assault with precision and care, only to have my weapon misfire and drop a hissing, smoking grenade at my feet. I remember these as things that I actually did, not as something that happened in a game. That's all I can ever ask.

-Lots of people, myself included, often complain about how game writing is missing its Lester Bangs. And while it's true that no game critic I'm aware of has achieved any mainstream recognition, this complaint does a disservice to the many writers who routinely produce excellent work. One of these is Jeremy Parish, whose Shadow Complex review is just fantastic: funny, insightful, surprising. If he's not getting the attention he deserves, it's not the mainstream's fault. It's ours, for not showing them what they're missing.