My wife and I have been seriously digging Trine. After having played it over the weekend, I’m ready to say that it’s a front-runner for best game I’ve played in 2009. Granted, I have yet to play Dragon Age: Origins, and I’m not sure whether I’ll be playing Uncharted 2 in 2009, but as of right now my “best games” list has only two titles: Dead Space and Trine.

First things first: Trine’s graphics are absolutely amazing. Not since Oblivion and Half-Life 2 have I actually had to stop and admire the scenery. These are some serious triple-A graphics – more than you’d generally expect in a $20 downloadable game. The music is likewise very well composed and performed. I’ve had the songs from Trine stuck in my head for the last 48 hours.

I’ve primarily been playing through the game multiplayer with my wife, and we’ve been loving it. Maybe there’s something to this gaming as therapy thing. She’s playing primarily as the thief, and I’m switching back and forth from the knight to the wizard. Although there are certainly frustrating moments, such as when my wizard drops a plank on her head and knocks her down a bottomless pit, or when I get annoyed that she hasn’t spent the past two decades perfecting her platforming skills like I have, it’s generally a really good time. The moments where the teamwork really clicks are immensely satisfying – when she stands on a block that my knight throws upwards to an inaccessible ledge or she pulls off some impossible-looking grappling swing. It’s also really fun to get creative with the structures the wizard can build.

I’d been concerned with how the game’s view would work with two players. It’s not split-screen, so what would happen if the two characters moved too far away from each other? Thankfully, the game handles it as well as I could have hoped – it zooms back just slightly as you move apart, and when you get too far away, it’s actually possible for one character to be off-screen. While that’s certainly annoying, it’s rare and usually easy to fix. If the characters get very far away, one is teleported to the other’s location – a mechanic that we’ve exploited more than once.

Another thing I really like about the game is that the achievements seem difficult yet doable. In my single-player game, I’ve collected all experience in the first three levels, plus gotten the “Whoops!” and “Survivor” trophies. The more difficult achievements include getting all experience on all levels and completing the final level without dying. Nothing tedious or impossibly difficult like playing through Dead Space using only the plasma cutter or winning 10 consecutive ranked matches in Street Fighter 4.

I think I’ll be playing and enjoying Trine for a long time.