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

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

Super Mario Bros Wii is delightful. I think I played it for like 6 hours straight the other day.

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

i did although not extensively. at least not while i was sober. the mutliplay just felt like a hassle rather than an advancement. i was using the same control set-up and thought it was a little loose and unresponsive. lol @ fighting game nerds here tho mb

my biggest beef i guess is like main console smb releases used to push boundaries both mechanically and visually. they felt like deeply considered attempts to improve/expand/reconsider the franchise and platforming generally. nsmbw is incredibly lazy in that sense but its also really sloppy. compare the castle in smw where u are riding the snake blocks at the start to similar lvl in nsmbw ~ the placement of obstacles the timing the layout the choices offered the player are all better, more intuitive, more careful, more cunning in the older game.

smb games used to have the ~best~ level layouts around nswmb is blocky and random and uses space poorly. aerial levels in smb3 feel like they were designed by god on some instinctive preordained shit. whereas nsmbw feels like kids playing w/lego sets.

couldn't disagree more but whatevas

Ratchet and Clank: Future is probably the best R&C game.

i may be overstating my dissatisfaction - kinda working thru some things w/r/t to the nostalgia impulse and conservatism in games rite now - its a perfectly serviceable mario game really.

The only time I played the Mario game, it was three player, and we kept bouncing off each other and unwittingly leading to each others' demise. The mood in the room was not good.

Drop7 was a Flash game I got bored of years ago. No way is it better than even some of the other casual games on this list.

nsmbw basically kinda sux fu ilg
― Lamp, Wednesday, February 10, 2010 5:43 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

u sux

go play style savvy u lumpen nerd

never has my d-name been so apt btw

The only time I played the Mario game, it was three player, and we kept bouncing off each other and unwittingly leading to each others' demise. The mood in the room was not good.

― Your body is a spiderland (polyphonic)

The first sentence I understand. However, for me the followup would be:

It was hilarious, with everyone yelling, "Oh my god! Dude, you are such a dick!" and then peals of laughter rang out until the next exclamation of, "You bastard! You're gonna pay for that!"

Didn't ever get very far but had a great time.

Lamp - I definitely agree that the older, original Super Mario Bros games are better and feel better than the wii one, honestly I don't know if anything can compete with the near-perfection of those classic games - shit nothing on this list does, that's for sure. Still think the Wii game is fun / propeller hats!

RE5 was pretty epic in hype/disappointment. Game was okay but Dead Space was all "I fucked yr girl already lol."

^^^otm

re: brutal legend - when its good, its v fun, but that isnt much of the time. at first i thought that i was just disliking it because thanks to tim schaeffer disappointment, but then i realized that probably the only reason i was playing it in the first place was because of him. take away that mystique and you've got bargain bin at the gamestop written all over it.

true story: last night when playing it i was thinking "well at least if i finish it then i'll probably unlock the whole soundtrack and thats pretty cool, i can let it play in the background when i want a metal mix" which pretty much sums up the problems here.

how did i manage to leave drop7 off my list

Anybody wanna rep for them?

You know, The Sims 3 was good. It's the first Sims game to come out since I became part of a little 2xparents+boy family myself, and making little versions of ourselves then trying to coax them into acting like we do was real FUN TIMES.

It was on my ballot at one point, but got forced out by something else (can't remember what, probably beatles fucking rock band). The other game which was on my initial ballot but then got dropped was the Barclay's Fantasy Premier League. Both deserved a place on the overall list really.

btw i promise not to go all Mad Men/Inglorious Basterds on yall when beatles places, this poll has been a charming bastion of non haterade compared to the other seven polls that are winding down on ILX this week

we're pretty relaxed on the book poll. except when whiney showed up.

http://snp.bpb.de/referate/mk4.gif