GameGuide

What a strange year this has been for games.

As far as I’m concerned, there hasn’t been one single game which has stuck its hand up and definitively said, “I am the game of the year!”.

On the driving front, Dirt 2 was a ton of fun, and Forza 3 proved to be the best racing game yet on Xbox 360. But, a driving game is never going to be my game of the year.

Batman: Arkham Asylum was a giant surprise, and a very good game. However, it just didn’t click with me in the way that would make it a classic game, though it came close.

Then there was Modern Warfare 2. The single player of that game, I’m really sad to say, will be judged a failure. The pacing was off, it was too short, the story relied on cheap thrills, and the overall execution just lacked maturity. The multiplayer is where it’s at with MW 2, but even that has been glitchy and unbalanced. It’s still a fantastic experience and a lot of fun, and I’ve sunk more days than I care to think about into it. But the games that hang around in my mind are the games that immerse me totally in a world and a story, and Modern Warfare 2 just didn’t do that. 

Then there was Assassins Creed 2. I never played the first one, but the second one was a fantastic game. The graphics (bar the facial animations) were good, the story engaged me, and the free-running gameplay was fun.

But you know what? It didn’t deserve to be game of the year. In fact, over the course of writing this article, I have tried to justify each one of Modern Warfare 2, Assassin’s Creed 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum as game of the year, and the sad fact is, none of them deserve it. Games like Bioshock, Mass Effect and Call of Duty 4 are classics which I often yearn to go back and play again, but the three games I mentioned don’t fall into that category.

So, I’m going to go ahead and do something really silly. I’m calling Dragon Age: Origins as my game of 2009. Why is that silly? Well, I haven’t played it yet. But, I am going to get it very soon, and I’ve been watching every review and reading every article on it I can find.

An RPG in the lineage of Baldur’s Gate, made by Bioware, with a deep and dark fantasy storyline? I’ll bet my house on that formula, even if it doesn’t have the greatest graphics in the world, and even if the PC version is superior to the 360 version. This is a game that I am already planning to spend hours and hours with.

So there you go. Dragon Age: Origins is my choice for game of the year. And though I am absolutely certain it will be a cracker, I think that it also reflects on the somewhat sad state of the game industry this year.

With Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2 and Bad Company 2 out next year, not to mention Halo Reach and the rebooted Medal of Honor, I can’t help thinking that 2009 is one gaming year that will be fading in memory pretty fast.