Concluding The Third Annual Coint and Plick Poll: ILG’s Best Video Games of 2009 - Part Four: #1 through #20

lol'n @ alla this wtf ilx

still no atelier rorona????????

Oh, weird. Rock Band Beatles hasn't placed yet. Can't believe we're gonna make that a top 10 game.

If that happens, I will ban everyone fronthis forum.

It's gonna happen. I gave it 3 points on my ballot and I notice it hasn't placed yet.

What's wrong with Beatles Rock Band? Do you hate life?

Nothing wrong with it, I just don't think it's a top 10 game.

For almost spurious reasons, I made it my worst game of 2009.

:( Beatles RB is certainly the game I'm most looking forward to playing once I get back to console gaming this autumn.

Every voter was given the option to list their most disappointing game of the year on their ballot. For some, this meant their least favorite game; for some, the one that didn't live up to their expectations; for some, the reasoning was completely personal.

There was a definite consensus "most disappointing game", but several games pulled single votes. Let's start with those.

HIDERE – I pick BEATLES: ROCK BAND, not because of the game itself, but because the Rock Band peripherals (especially the guitars) are so incredibly fragile that leaving them alone for only a few months at a time causes them to stop working. I have two guitar controllers and they are both utterly broken despite not abusing them in the slightest. Yes I DID change the batteries, no that DIDN'T make any difference: one controller doesn't respond at all and the other registers a strum if a light breeze wafts across it. This renders all of the Rock Band games completely unplayable and that's really a shame because I love the concept and general execution of these games and would have bought Beatles: RB if the controllers actually worked. As it stands? Fuck this overly-fragile shit that costs nearly as much as an entire game system.

WillM – CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2 - It wasn't the game itself that disappointed me, but the utter mess leading up to its release. Certainly the loss of dedicated servers for PC was a blow; there's nothing better than renting a server for you and your friends to always guarantee a good game. For me, it was the whole F.A.G.S. scandal that really put it over the top. I have a hard enough time dealing with that shit on Xbox Live, but for a company to put out that kind of hate speech in their advertising completely put it over the top. I don't know if I would call it a "boycott," but that nonsense certainly determined that I did not care how good this game was: I wouldn't be paying for it.

If – KATAMARI FOREVER was a real bummer. "If it ain't broke" is all well and good with something as awesome as Katamari, but _literally_ the same levels as the 360 version from a couple of years ago? Daaaaaamn.

Euler – More than anything it was NOT HAVING ENOUGH TIME TO PLAY video games this year.

Two way tie for THIRD MOST DISAPPOINTING GAME

PRO EVOLUTION SOCCER 2010 - 2 Votes

Roberto Spiralli – PES 10 was a terrible, terrible piece of shit. FIFA 2010 is also quite bad but got C+P points from me on account of at least being playable.

Sondrangerbot – I really wanted this to be the FIFA 2010 of 2009, but it was more like the FIFA 2006 of 2010.

BRUTAL LEGEND – 2 Votes

EZ Snappin - I love Tim Schafer (Psychonauts may be my game of the decade) and I love metal (\m/). The problem is that I hate RTS games and despite everything Schafer said in interviews, Brutal Legend is a goddamn RTS at heart. I finally ended up watching a friend play so I could enjoy the humor without hating the experience. It just isn't the same.

Mordy – What a shitty year for games.

SECOND PLACE FOR MOST DISAPPOINTING GAME

SCRIBBLENAUTS - 3 Votes

CraigG - Maybe if you're not lazy and unimaginative as I am, this is a good game? I had watched the videos and was drawn into the widespread hype of this amazing database where you could conjure up anything and solve puzzles in any way you can think of. Then I played the game and discovered two things:
1) If I tried to think of a Rube Goldberg way of solving a puzzle that it couldn't understand (which was more often than not), it wasn't going to work.
2) Once you solve the first twenty or so levels in the most obvious way possible, you no longer feel the need to be bothered being creative.
And since this game is about the joy of being creative, I put it away forever.

Antexit –What a load of crap. It’s like a Resident Evil puzzle that has 50,000 pieces and only five of them do anything.

JimD – Woah, it's all true! I can spawn, like, ANY OBJECT I CAN THINK OF! This RULES! Oh, except none of them really do anything. And everything looks ugly. And suddenly I can't really think of anything other than LADDER or GUN.

#1 MOST DISAPPOINTING GAME OF 2009 - NOBY NOBY BOY – 5 Votes

JeffLevine - To say I was really looking forward to Keita Takahashi's follow up to Katamari Damacy would be an understatement. After all, it was Katamari Damacy that got me back into gaming and/or finally got me to take gaming seriously as a hobby. It was the reason I got a PS2, the very first console I ever bought by myself. That this LONG anticipated game ended up being some kind of pointless, interactive screen saver that didn't hold my interest for an hour; yeah, that's what I would call a disappointment.

Polyphonic - I don't know what I was expecting, but I definitely was hoping that this would be a game and not just a doodad.

S1ocki - This has got to be a practical joke.

Also voted for Noby Noby Boy: Edgertor, Abanana, Forksclovetofu

Dan, I guess it's too late to recommend this now, but Rock Band game discs + Guitar Hero guitars is really the way forward. Oh, plus Lips microphones, if you can bring yourself to buy those.

oh man dudes beatles: rock band in the top 10 is so rong

RE4 not only didn't make the top 75, it didn't even make the most disappointing list! One of the most anticipated current-gen games of all and it makes an impact like the sound when you let the air out of a balloon.

RE5, you mean? Yeah, no one mentioned it so it didn't even make the list of nominated games!
The Third Annual Coint and Plick poll - Vote for ILG's best games of 2009! (VOTING CLOSES TODAY!)

I actually bought it so I could try it before I voted, that's what kind of nerd I am, and halfway through the 45 minute HD loading sequence I said fuck this where's borderlands

I was gonna wait to do these on Friday, but you know what?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khbel2p7ou0
Here's your top ten.

nice

#10: Drop7 – Iphone – 71 pts – 4 votes – 2 Top Game Votes – Top iPhone Game
Official Game Site

http://www.touchmyapps.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/drop7_9.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP8xSb9PqUI

BNW: Deceptively simple, totally addicting.

http://www.inspiredm.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/drop7.jpg

Try it online

S1ocki: I have to be 100% honest and make my number one vote the game I played most this year. Totally simple, not very deep, but utterly, strangely addictive and a perfect fit for the iPhone's interface.

http://www.touchmyapps.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/drop7_5.jpg

Programmer Interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfx_xd0p72Y

Dyao: I stopped playing Drop7 after realizing that no matter how well you play, there's always going to be an element of randomness that controls how successful your combos are; it’s just not as satisfying as Tetris IMO.

hey forks are you saving my most disappointing hate screed for later?

yep, it's a mint before the top five because it's so damned amusingly aspie

#9: Torchlight – PC/Mac Emulation – 72pts – 5 votes – 1 Top Game Vote
Official Game Site

http://media.curse.com/CommunityServer.Components.PostAttachments/00/00/48/20/60/ss6.jpg-720x540.jpg

Metacritic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhrNZZf-dOk

Euler: Definitely not a game that easily justifies its value to non-gamers---it's just point and click and kill and level and repeat. Even so, it hits a sweet spot that reminds me why I can never allow myself to play WoW. At least Torchlight goes to sleep when I do.

http://www.frictionlessinsight.com/prevpics/Torchlight/TorchlightB.jpg

Developer Interview

BNW: The amount of inventory shuffling and identifying gets annoying. They put in vendors to do just about everything except identify your shit. I have been playing this as an alchemist summoner who runs from battle and makes his minions kill everything. Sometimes it gets so chaotic I can't tell what I have summoned that is still alive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EryqB-Yt-C4

Webber : Prettier Diablo with mods. I really like clicking on monsters and then watching them die and then clicking on the things they drop and putting them on and then doing it over and over again.

http://imtalkingames.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/torchlight.JPG

The Art of Torchlight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P13tEVSKaGQ

Dyao: This takes everything annoying about Diablo 2 and smooths it out.

http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/games/1/13/12266/thumb_620x2000/12.png

Forksclovetofu: As a longtime proponent of the theory that Diablo 2 is the best game of the past decade, this was a no-brainer of a pick. Sure, it wears thin after about twenty hours and in retrospect I almost wish I'd spent my vote points on Shadow Complex/SMT: Devil Survivor/Arkham now that I played them, but no real regrets.

Zero Punctuation Review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWFmP3csMDY

Dyao's 100% correct re Drop 7 and randomness, I played it for months but ended up hating it for that reason.

yeah i think i gotta go cold turkey on it.

that zero punctuation on torchlight is hilarus

#8: Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks – DS – 73 pts – 5 votes - .5 Top Game Vote – Top DS Game
Official Game Site

http://garedux.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/zelda-spirit-tracks-shot.jpg

Metacritic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ihjsLrBZvM

If: Very much Phantom Hourglass all over again, but PH is one of the better realizations of the Zelda series so it's hard to feel too aggrieved.

http://www.bigshinyrobot.com/reviews/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/134961-LegendofZeldaSpiritTracksMainImage.jpg

Iwata Asks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6dgiMig8Bk

CraigG : I'm just starting the second temple, which may be a bit early to be adding this to my best games of 2009, but I can tell I'm going to like it. That said: I hate the train and I am amazed they managed to find something worse that the boat (dear Nintendo; stop with the shitty vehicles and stick with Epona). Ultimately, the game seems like more of the same from Phantom Hourglass, so I'm pretty certain I'll continue liking this as much as I did that.

http://www.thatvideogameblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/zelda-spirit-tracks.jpg

Eurogamer Review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6dgiMig8Bk

Euler: My first Zelda since the SNES... maybe even the NES? Of the few 2009 releases I played, this one has maybe the highest production values and it's certainly fun. Still, I'd appreciate more depth.

http://th02.deviantart.net/fs42/300W/f/2009/087/a/6/LEGEND_OF_ZELDA__SPIRIT_TRACKS_by_Whynne.png

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUU

Salsa Shark: Sometimes I think this is fun, other times I am annoyed beyond belief. I am especially angry right now after some very aggravating attempts to buy a shield that involved trying to get Beedle's stupid air balloon to the ground, trying to board it while being shot at by pirates, having the balloon float away, subsequently dying and then repeating the process. I am SO tearing up my Beedle membership card.

oh man i love this list so much, i want it to hit the gamer fanboy tumblr radar and make people apoplectic.

#7: Plants vs. Zombies – PC/Mac – 84 pts – 7 votes – 2 Top Game Votes – Top PC/Mac Game
Official Game Site

http://i543.photobucket.com/albums/gg444/bangsatkeh/1-21.jpg

Metacritic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC4E7hd3Gj8

Forksclovetofu: PVZ kept me up past three in the morning two nights in a row. $20 might seem expensive for a desktop defense clone, but damn is this ever polished. Never stressful! And the music is incredible!

http://www.gamerdna.com/uimage/AyypsPb/full/plants-vs-zombies-zen-garden.jpg

Developer Interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lg8mcPOPjI

Antexit: One of the most perfectly balanced and endlessly satisfying games I’ve ever played. It's also the only game this year that every single person I showed it to went nuts over. Almost every one of the fifty or so plants in it was my favorite at one time or another-- when does that happen with the weapons in other games?

http://noaddedsugar.ie/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/plants-vs-zombies-big-05.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98v7Jq6IFrE

Interview with sound designer Laura Shigihara

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r95TAEmnPKE

Ledge: Does this game get hard, ever? (ed. note: Nope.) I am on stage four and I think I've let a grand total of two zombies through, pretty much by accident. I have 2000+ sun power left at the end of every game.

http://ve3dmedia.ign.com/images/04/56/45606_orig.jpg

Gamasutra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqykKOl8TA4

JimD: Hard to even remember what I loved about this, but it's here cos I know I spent a big chunk of my year on it and really enjoyed it at the time. I guess this is a great example of a relatively new game design trend: games that don't need to challenge you to keep you entertained. They can just keep giving you new toys and that'll have the same effect. It's only valid because it's true... well, at least until you've seen all the toys and then that's it and there's little point of ever playing it again. But hey, that's not the end of the world: who has time to replay games these days anyway?

sooo fuckin lame

a crappy desktop tower defence clone (with all the lack of intelligence that implies) that wouldn't be a challenge even for the titular zombies.

Tower Defence games - another thing I don't see the appeal of. Come to think of it, I don't really like games.

do not get PvsZ at all, always loved fieldrunners on my ipod tooch tho.

#6: New Super Mario Brothers – Wii – 91 pts – 8 votes – Top Wii exclusive
Official Game Site

http://gallery.thatvideogameblog.com/cache/new-super-mario-bros-wii/NewSuperMarioBrosWii_03.jpg_626.jpg

Metacritic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnkgU5sxwek

Zappi: People are downplaying this one because it doesn't "push gaming forward" or whatever. Pfffffft. It’s got what I want: clean simple graphics, responsive controls and brilliant level design. Nobody does this better than Nintendo.

http://wiimedia.gamespy.com/wii/image/article/994/994647/new-super-mario-bros-wii-20090615031123443.jpg

Iwata asks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNinTucBxJA

CraigG : This has managed to slightly delay my desire to sell my Wii. I loved New Super Mario on the DS and this is just more of the same. While most of the power-ups are re-skinned from previous Mario adventures, there is a great variety that (like SMB 3) helps keep the game fresh. I guess the main appeal here is nostalgia; I got Mario Bros 3 on the NES for my birthday at an impressionable age. It's just so endlessly fun to have the same gameplay mechanics in the familiar desert, ice, air, etc, scenarios but with all new levels!

http://gallery.thatvideogameblog.com/cache/new-super-mario-bros-wii/NewSuperMarioBrosWii_10.jpg_626.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8NlHpoRyHs

If: Would be on my top ten for the frenzied, hotly contested multiplayer alone, even if it didn't have a single player with its share of classic moments as well.

http://darkzero.co.uk/asset/2009/06/new-super-mario-bros-wii.jpg

Miyamoto talks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNI2yimhzec

JeffLevine: A 2-D Mario game? For most gamers, that's probably all I need to say. If it hadn't released in the middle of a crowded holiday season when there were so many other games to play and without online, I certainly would’ve ranked it even higher.

nsmbw basically kinda sux fu ilg

my reaction:

STAGE ONE: rad!!!!!! a reason 2 use my wii!!!! man i sure do love mario!!!!
STAGE TWO: this is p fun... yeah. sure are lotsa coins. hmmm need 2 get my bf 2 play this w/ me multiplayer
STAGE THREE: wow the controls on this cld use some work but its just like playing classic mario... except uglier and sloppier. but its still fun
STAGE FOUR: excited for some new ideas... mb new kind of lvl or a new mechanic. more jumping... idk.
STAGE FIVE: fuck this game im playing smw

As promised, before we do the top five I wanted a little palate cleanser. So here is the final "biggest disappointment of the year" vote. It is presented unedited and in HD.

Jjjusten: FUEL

Oh you jerkoff goddamn dirtbags.

This game is maybe the biggest missed opportunity of the decade. What makes is worse is that all the pieces are there for this to be great, which made me wait in vain for the patch that never arrived. It is hard to believe that this broken piece of crap didn't get some post-release developer loving, because the problems are so glaring that they really arent up to debate. A shortlist:

1. Ok, so you have huge freeroaming postapocalyptic wasteland. Awesome right? Well, it might be if there were ANY OTHER PEOPLE LIKE YOU DRIVING AROUND. Instead, with the exception of a very few chase cars, all you get is big fuck off instant crash you heavy earthmovers and trucks. In what world does this decision even begin to make sense.

2. So the races are pretty great. Except for when they are completely broken and unwinnable. For example, when you hit some mystical spot on a dirt hill where no motorcycle can manage to get up it (well, with the notable exception of all the mortorcycles getting driven by the other AI dudes). Oh and by the way, if you fuck up even once, you can't win the race. Ever. (Apparently Codemasters decided NOT to include the rewind function in this because uh) Which brings us to:

3. FUCKING LOAD SCREENS. Before every race. After every race. Also, whenever you restart a race. Long boring load screens with the same looped terrible music EVERY TIME. Yet, this is a game where there are no load screens when you are out driving randomly over a supremely detailed sandbox open world. Again, how is this even possible? What manager didn't stop this at the design stage. IT'S MADDENING.

4. The open world, which I am sure took the majority of game design time is utterly and completely pointless. Outside of some weird achievement mining, there is no reason whatsoever to go outside of the camps where the races occur. Ever. And if you're thinking that if nothing else, driving to the next camp on the world map will have some purpose, sorry, no, you are wrong. Because the people who made this game hate you, and apparently themselves, because the drive to the next camp will take approximately 20 minutes, unless you manage to hit some huge impassable unmapped canyon that will require you to backtrack and add another 10 minutes to that. On the way, if you are really lucky, you may have the opportunity to run into some of the random gas cans scattered about or crash into a wrecked vehicle that gets you a new horrible livery for one of the cars you may or may not have.

5. Oh and yeah, those gas cans? One assumes that they are a means to keep your car going, and so you have to keep on the edge of your seat making sure you don't run out of fuel, right? Nope. FUEL is actually in game money, so hitting those gas cans gets you incrementally closer to buying some new piece of shit car that despite its superior rankings in the stats department might be far worse than the one you are driving. Oh yeah, and by the way, most races require you to pick from a shortlist of specific cars, so if you pick the wrong one, you dont get to play. Not the right KIND of car, but the actual specific model of 4 wheeler with the exact dumbed down road warrior name. For no reason. So guess how often you bother buying a car because it looks like fun vs. waiting until you hit the next roadblocked race and buying the required vehicle. yep.

I tried, good lord I tried to make this game have some tiny shred of value, some playability, any reason whatsoever to grind through the terrible parts to get to the good stuff. But you just can't do it, the flashes of enjoyability are so sparse that it just can not justify the terrible endless hours you have to sink into it.

Never buy this game, no matter how cheap it gets.

Aaaaand let's pause for a few hours to let you speculate on the finals and bitch about current placement.

forks, asperger's doesn't exist anymore. you should have called jjjusten's post "amusingly reminiscent of one suffering with a social dysfunction on the autism spectrum

oh man dudes beatles: rock band in the top 10 is so rong

TOP 5!

I kind of feel bad for voting for it now. It's the only thing I did vote for which hasn't already been listed, and NO FUCKING WAY was it the one that deserved to place highest. It's just rock band. With beatles songs.

RB: Beatles, Dragon's Age + Arkham Asylum. What are the other 2?

but beatles are the GREATEST BAND OF ALL TIME ergo..

as long as FUEL doesnt make it

forks, i forgot to vote. can i give 100pts to FUEL pls?

lol lamp. and that quote attributed to me is a rewritten version of what i said. thats ..... odd.

zappi, "I’ve done a bit of editing to streamline but I’ve made every effort to maintain your meaning. My apologies if you feel misquoted; feel free to correct me on this thread."

BTW, the following games did NOT receive a vote. Anybody wanna rep for them?
AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!, Band Hero, Brutal Legend, Fat Princess, God of War Collection, Guitar Hero 5, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Little Big Planet PSP, Little King’s Story, Lostwinds, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, Noby Noby Boy, Peggle DS, Phantasy Star Zero, Pixeljunk Monsters Zero, Ratchet and Clank:Future, Resident Evil 5, Saboteur, Sam and Max, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Sims 3, Tales of Monkey Island, Trine, Wet

not me

Lamp - re: NSMBWII, did you ever try out the co-op (thought it was pretty fun that way too & changes up the way the game works quite a lot)? Also what control scheme were you using? I thought just the wii remote on its side felt pretty nice... admittedly, I still haven't played as much of the game as you did - keep meaning to go back to it...

Tales of Monkey Island really should've been my greatest disappointment. So not fun to play.

i put beatles rock band on my ballot just as filler. starting to feel real guilty over here...

just remember: YOU DID THIS

we've made a terrible mistake