Oh, 2009. Somewhere on a brooding horizon, a sun sets slowly. A page turns and a chapter ends. The lights go down, the curtain tumbles to the stage, and the credits roll. Other vapid, contrived metaphors here. So what happened? Who won? Who’s rolling about in the muck? Here are my totally official GOTYs and unGOTYs for 2009, subject to an inevitable torrent of “YOUR OPINION IS DIFFERENT TO MINE SO I WILL RAGE AND DENOUNCE YOUR CREDIBILITY TO EVERYONE AND YOU’RE UGLY.”

In no special order then, the best of 2009:

Borderlands

After not existing at all because it originally looked a bit like everything else that nobody wanted to play, Borderlands suddenly bullied its way onto the scene with a hot new look, and big promises of being “Diablo with guns”. And it really is Diablo with guns. Lots of guns. And screeching midgets. Gearbox managed to mash RPG and FPS together in a way that doesn’t suck, didn’t bother with much of a story because nobody cares anyway, and gave us Claptraps to love forever. Next up: a sequel, please.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

It doesn’t matter if it’s rubbish on PC, because I play it on Xbox and it’s brilliant and this is my list so I make the rules. Besides, you haven’t really lived until you’ve loaded up Rust with just a riot shield, a throwing knife, and seven friends doing the same thing. Also, Soap MacTavish.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Honestly, who doesn’t secretly (not secretly) want to be Batman? Rocksteady turned up pretty much out of absolutely nowhere, and chucked out a game that was Batclawing the top of every ratings chart on the planet within ten minutes or so. And with good reason – this is the sort of game that defines “production value”, and it’s also got Scarecrow in it. Scarecrow’s awesome.

Shadow Complex

There’s no school like the old school. Well, there is, but its retro vogue notwithstanding, Shadow Complex does it with inimitable style and cool. It might be a Metroid / Castlevania clone, but it’s got a gun that shoots industrial foam. That frilly, effeminate part-time goth Alucard wishes he had a gun that shoots industrial foam. The best he could do was a stupid sword and turning into a key-framed werewolf.

Assassin’s Creed II

The occasionally unpredictable controls are about the only thing that annoyed me. Everything else in this game is simply sublime, and it features one of the finest narratives around. If Umberto Eco were to write a game script, it would likely be something like this.

Planescape: Torment got itself reissued

Maybe (definitely) the best RPG ever made (besides Fallout 2, obviously), Black Isle’s bizarro AD&D trip is still spoken of in tones of hushed, reverential awe. Mostly because it’s been completely unobtainable for the last  5 or 6 years, and anyone who actually owned a boxed copy was pretty much god. Now, however, it’s been reissued on PC DVD and everybody can makes friends with Morte the floating skull.

Should’ve been the best of 2009, but wasn’t:

Brütal Legend

Most of the game rocks. The RTS parts don’t. If the rest of the game was, say, a triple headlining bill of Iron Maiden, In Flames, and Lamb of God, then the RTS stuff would be a Dragonforce reunion tour. In 2030. You know, the kind of thing that makes you want to die instantly.

Special mention:

Prototype

Objectively, of course, it’s an abominably bad game. But I got to eat people and pretend I had a good reason for doing it, and yank helicopters out the sky with my grotesquely mutated arm… things. FUN.

The worst of 2009:

Ninja Blade

Absolutely everything about this game sucks. The story’s absurd, the gameplay is substituted almost entirely by quick time events, and every single boss in the game is more or less exactly the same. Oh yeah, and checkpoints are only temporary, so quitting the game erases them, forcing players to restart the entire chapter. Some chapters run over 70 minutes or so. That’s over 70 minutes, I’ll remind you, of an absurd story, gameplay substituted by quick time events, and the same boss over and over. Do the sums.

Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust

I didn’t actually play this, mind you, but then why would I? The franchise rolled over and died when Al Lowe dropped it in 1996, and both games since then have been repulsive, pointless attempts to cash in one what used to be a reputable name in adventure gaming. Shame on you, Team 17.

Morons

You know, the guy who writes stuff like this:

“Ag ********. If i say it’s ********, then i mean it. People need to start getting with PC gaming. Console games can NEVER be better than PC games. Not until the PC becomes the size of a console. And i mean the huge ass server case i have with 3 graphics cards in SLI and a Quad AMD Phantom Black Edition. Oh wait, thats why my games actually look awesome and work smooth. But let’s gets past that point cause console gamers would say 1080p is amazing, and that it looks better than pc games, blah blah, i can talk crap too, but i dont expect people to believe me, i can prove it. Point is, consoles will always have restrictions, thats why games are made on PCs and not on consoles. Cause the Pc is a work horse. Frankly im getting tired of Console gamers and their limited Vision. When your scope is only as big as a console, you cant see outside of the box. You life consists of holding a big dumb ass controller, cramping your fingers around stupid controls and playing a sub-par game, where as when you play on the PC you get more content, better graphics, better performance, better controls, a better UI and AI. Stupid lame ass console gamers.”

Also, PS3 owners and Xbox owners arguing over which console is better as if it actually matters or something. Shut up and play games.