Release Date: August 25, 2009.
Platform: PS3/360/PC/Mac
ESRB Rating: T
Developer/Publisher: Rocksteady Studios/Eidos Interactive
GameRankings: 92%
Completely Arbitrary Personal Score: 9.3/10 (Great)
This might surprise you coming from the biggest Batman fan you'll meet, but I wasn't sold on Arkham Asylum until a couple weeks before I played it. It looked fun, but maybe a little too much of a beat-em-up to be the Batman game to end all Batman games. It seemed...lacking, is perhaps the word. That is until I found out that Paul Dini, producer and writer of Batman: the Animated Series was involved. Not to mention Kevin Conroy as Batman, Mark Hamill as the Joker and Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn. Four of the biggest parts of what made the Animated Series one of the best things about my childhood were in place, and I was intrigued.
Then the game had to be better than I had ever hoped or imagined it would. Dark, claustrophobic and unmistakably Batman to the core, Arkham Asylum remains one of the most pleasant surprises in the history of my gaming fandom. It was brilliant beyond hyperbole, mixing the heart and humanity of the Animated Series with the dark thematic brilliance of the best graphic novels and the breakneck pacing of the Nolan films, Batman: Arkham Asylum is maybe the quintessential Batman work of the past 15 years.
One of the things the Batman mythos has always operated on is the concept of fear. Both in how a man in a bat costume can manage to be so terrifying, and how that same man's fears are both what drive him in his quest, and what arguably makes him as insane as the maniacs he regularly defeats and locks up in the eponymous Asylum in never-ending battle for Gotham's fate.
So, yeah. I enjoyed Arkham Asylum a little.
Halo 3: ODST
Release Date: September 22, 2009.
Platform: Xbox 360
ESRB Rating: M
Developer/Publisher: Bungie/Microsoft Game Studios
GameRankings: 85.14%
Completely Arbitrary Personal Score: 8.8/10 (Very Good)
There are those among Halo-fandom who will tell you that Halo 3: ODST is the worst thing the series has ever produced. Those people, while technically right, are missing the point. ODST is easily the most unique and experimental of the Halo games. Set during Halo 2's storyline, the game follows the exploits of squad of eponymous UNSC troopers lost in the destroyed and conquered city of New Mombasa.
To be honest, the setting and plot of ODST are less important than the atmosphere. Fallout 3 aside, this game does as well as any other in illustrating the effects of loneliness on the human psyche. The "flashback" levels that occur whenever you discover evidence of the rest of your squad are fun, but more traditional Halo sequences. It's what happens while you're looking for said evidence that sets this game apart. Traversing through a decimated city, with the rain coming down just light enough to keep the fires going, never sure if the next alleyway will take you where you're wanting to go or just another dead end is truly magical, and is more than enough to warrant to full price tag this game demanded, despite being an expansion. The soundtrack stands at the top of Marty O'Donnell's already majestic work on the Halo series. Everything about this game is dark and unique like very few things that came before it. There's not really any way for me to describe it other than by giving you a gameplay video. It took me a while to find one with no voiceovers.
Brutal Legend
Release Date: October 13, 2009.
Platform: PS3/360
ESRB Rating: M
Developer/Publisher: Double Fine/EA
GameRankings: 80.9%
Completely Arbitrary Personal Score: 7.4/10 (Solid)
Tim Schafer is one of the funniest and most original people in gaming. While I understand Jack Black isn't everyone's cup of tea, the prospect of him working with Tim Schafer to make a game about heavy metal was a very intriguing idea. I have to say, despite whatever ever else comes out of this review, it worked. Brutal Legend is a funny, original game that draws upon the vast and epic history of one of the most deeply beloved genres of music to deliver a truly unique and interesting experience.
It sort of never really goes past that concept and becomes an actual game, however. It's fun, but only overcomes being a VERY generic slasher when it attempts to become some sort of hybrid action/first person RTS game, and it only works with middling results.
Still, this is an uncommonly clever game, and it sometimes very funny. Lemmy Kilmister, Rob Halford and Ozzy Osbourne are in it, and that certainly can't be a bad thing.
Dragon Age: Origins
Release Date: November 3, 2009.
Platform: Xbox 360/PC
ESRB Rating: M
Developer/Publisher: BioWare/EA
GameRankings: 90.5% (PC version)
Completely Arbitrary Personal Score: 8.6/10 (Very Good)
Dragon Age was the first medieval based, "swords and sorcery" style original IP from BioWare since the halcyon days of the Baldur's Gate games in the early 2000s. As is fitting for a company as good as BioWare, they appeared to have lost none of their touch. Dragon Age is an wonderfully expansive game, filled to the brim with the sort of political strife and ethical grey areas that are so often commonplace in a BW game.
The gameplay, while easily seen as being tailored to the PC, was still more than acceptable on the console port (which I played, having not had a high-end gaming computer since 2004 or so). All in all, despite the game's high pedigree and even higher quality, it ended up being a much quieter game, in tone and in presentation, than I had become accustomed to. That isn't to say that I don't understand the opinion that it's just as good as KOTOR or Mass Effect, just that it didn't seem to be operating at its full capacity. I felt like it could have been more.
Still, what it was was one of the best games of 2009, and just another example of the mastery BioWare had developed over gaming.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Release Date: November 10, 2009.
Platform: PC/360/PS3
ESRB Rating: M
Developer/Publisher: Infinity Ward/Activision
GameRankings: 93.39%
Completely Arbitrary Personal Score: 8.2/10 (Good)
Like most sequels, Modern Warfare 2 suffers from expectations. Not to say that it wasn't as good as the original, or even that it wasn't as good as expected, just that everyone pretty much knew what it would be. What made the original Modern Warfare such a surprise for most people was how much more intense and fluid it was than the other Call of Duty games (also how many risks it took from a storyline perspective). The second game, while certainly rife with memorable moments, falls into the unfortunate trap of being functionally indistinguishable from its predecessor. When you can't tell, offhand, if a certain set piece comes from a the first or the second game, that can only hurt the second. The first is what people remember. The second is what people forget.
Left 4 Dead 2
Release Date: November 17, 2009.
Platform: 360/PC/Mac
ESRB Rating: M
Developer/Publisher: Valve
GameRankings: 89.21%
Completely Arbitrary Personal Score: 7.2/10 (Solid)
Let's get something out of the way right off the bat: I didn't think there should have been a sequel to Left 4 Dead, at least not immediately. I admit to being more than a little upset that Valve thought this game was more important than making a new Half-Life game. Thankfully, I was able to put that aside when I played L4D2. That doesn't mean I thought it was any better than the original. Honestly, it suffers from a lot of the same problems as Modern Warfare 2 does: functionally, it's not really distinguishable from the first. It follows the same formula, with the same engine, with similar (if slightly more enjoyable) characters and locations. It does a few new things, but the same basic formula, both online and off, maybe isn't the best way to go about releasing a sequel less than a year after the original.
It helps that said formula is still pretty enjoyable, but it doesn't quite do enough to not make this game a slight disappointment. I'm probably less excited, to this day, about this game than any other game Valve has ever made.
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