Penumbra:Overture isn’t a bad game. I got it as a Christmas gift from a friend who gifted me the Humble Indie Bundle. I’ve got no problem when you’re forced you to hide and flee from enemies rather than fighting them – I enjoy scary games. My problems with Penumbra came when I was forced to fight those damned little spiders. The combat controls in the game are designed such that it’s nearly impossible to hit anything. When you’re forced to fight, it’s an uphill battle. So I died. And died. And then I died again. Those little spiders are killers. Uninstalled.

Osmos is another Humble Indie Bundle game that I really like. I’ve heard that there’s an iPhone version, and if there were an Android version, I’d snatch it up in a minute, assuming that the pricing is in line with other Android games. It’s the same big-eats-little mechanic that we’ve seen in Fl0w, Spore, Katamari Damacy, The Wonderful End of the World, and a dozen other games, but it’s done so very well. Your amoeba propels itself by exuding tiny jets of itself, so moving makes you incrementally smaller. Economy of movement is key. In addition, the bits of yourself that you propel don’t disappear – they keep going. If they hit another amoeba, it gets incrementally bigger. And as you choose new segments of the game to try, new mechanics evolve. In one, all the amoebas are orbiting a big sun-like thing. In another, antimatter amoebas exist. In yet a third, the other amoebas have AI. The game is fantastic. Alas, the later levels are hard as hell. Too difficult for me, thanks. Uninstalled.

Magicka sounded like the coolest game I could imagine. A CRPG with no levels and no gear. You’ve got a number of elements with strict rules, such that when they’re combined you get different effects. Water, Fire, Lightning, Earth, Cold, Shield, Arcane, Life. Water and fire create steam. Water and cold creates ice. Shield and earth creates a wall of rock. Fire and earth creates a fireball. The system’s complexity is brilliant, and there are myriad possibilities for accidentally killing yourself. Cast a lightning spell while you’re wet and you’ll probably electrocute yourself. Combine healing and shield and you’ll protect yourself from ever being healed. There in no mana in Magicka – you can cast spells as fast as you can bang them out. Play it in four-player online co-op and you’ll be accidentally setting your friends on fire in no time. The only thing? This game is hard. Really hard. I couldn’t even complete the demo. Uninstalled.

Torchlight is a game people have raved about for a long time as the second coming of Diablo 2. It’s funny, because I thought the forthcoming Diablo 3 was the second coming of Diablo 2, but no matter. Torchlight is kind of fun. Kind of monotonous, but fun. I played through for ten or twelve levels before I got bored with it. Then I found myself just not playing it. For eight months. Uninstalled.

I’m currently in the same boat with Fallout: New Vegas. I’m just not playing it. Last night I went back and played Borderlands with a friend from Colorado. Mothrakk is a serious bitch. Sitting in a parked outrunner for fifteen minutes while somebody else shoots rockets at an endlessly circling mutated space moth and hits one out of ten times is annoying – I nearly pulled out a book – but it’s more fun than I’ve been having lately with New Vegas. Hard to say why. Maybe it’s just the been there, done that of having played 100 hours of Fallout 3. I’m hoping that if I install the Project Nevada mod it might make the game fun again.

I’m about halfway through Metro 2033, and hoping that it stays good enough to keep playing all the way through, as I hear it’s got a pretty good conclusion. I’ll have more to say about this game as I get further in. Dragon Age 2 and Portal 2 are coming out soon, so I’ve got to finish up as many of these games as I can.

Appetizers

Trine – Although this is a very meaty dish for a downloadable game, it was still over with a little too quickly for my tastes. The absolutely gorgeous graphics kept me riveted in place just looking at the scenery. I liked the RPG-lite aspects of character progression, but to me it seemed you could pretty much get though the entire game with just the Thief and Wizard. I’ll keep poking my head into Trine-land to work on the silver trophies and gawk at the visuals.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time – I still shake my head in disbelief every time I play this game. Can the SNES game I loved so dearly really be here on my PS3, updated in amazing HD glory? Wait, it also has trophies and online multiplayer? Was I ganked by a squad of Foot soldiers or is this really happening? The game is short, easy, and fairly shallow but I still love it for reminding me the good ol’ 16-bit days.

Main Course

Torchlight – Sometimes I wish I’d never found this game. For me, it’s like playing single player World of Warcraft. Never ending piles of rare, unique and set specific loot, a powerful and loyal pet, cool looking gear, endless random dungeons, questing that is never tedious and you can save any fricking where you want. Plus it runs like a champ on my laptop, ensuring I can get my Torchlight fix no matter where I am. I have a feeling 2010 will be filled with this excellent game as well.

Street Fighter IV – What can I say, I bought a $125 joystick and customized it just to play this game. It’s not perfect, and some of the new characters suck (I’m looking at you Rufus) but SFIV is all that I expected and more. I love the art style, I love the Super and Ultra combos and I love being the only one using C. Viper and Blanka online. And although I wish they’d have gone with DLC instead of a new release, I’m really looking forward to Super Street Fighter IV next year.

Crimson Gem Saga – This was one of my surprise favorites for the year. A truly deep turn based RPG with great graphics, interesting characters, a sense of humor and I can play it anywhere I like. It’s probably about a 40 hour adventure too, so I’m not even close to finishing it. Another perfect PSP game to pick up and play for 10 minutes, or 2 hours, and then save and go back to chasing children or pretend that I’m working.

Killzone 2 – If anyone ever tells you that PS3 and Xbox 360 games look pretty much the same, then I would challenge them to compare Killzone 2 to any 360 game and tell me it doesn’t blow them completely away. Despite a predictable shallow story, this was my favorite FPS of the year. Absolutely stunning graphics, excellent weapons and controls and addictive multiplayer. I loved this game all the way up to the final boss battle and then that cheap bastard done pissed me off. Ok, so I loved 99% of the game. For me, Killzone 2 was the pinnacle of FPS gaming in 2009.

Comfort Food

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 – MUA2 could have been an amazing game, but instead the developers were lazy and gave us a copy and paste of the first game, and then unpasted some of the good stuff and dumbed it down even further. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it could have been so much cooler if they’d at least tried. As it stands, MUA2 is a great action game, allowing you to team up more Marvel heroes and take it to the bad guys with all their special powers and new Fusion moves. There are also new characters to destroy stuff with via DLC. I particularly enjoy using Jean Grey and Ms. Marvel together, they pretty much vaporize everything on the screen. Whenever I play MUA2 I get that warm, cozy feeling that I’ve done this all before. Wonder why that is?

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – Yes, this is a great game. Yes, it’s disturbing at times. And yet it’s still a pretty run of the mill FPS with great graphics and some neat gimmicks to make things interesting. I’m a sucker for a methodical take cover & shoot FPS and MW2 fits the bill nicely. It’s not nearly as great as Killzone 2 (and not as pretty either) but blowing up Russians with Predator drone missiles as if they were ants under a magnifying glass is great fun.

Guilty Pleasures

Half-Minute Hero – I’m still in love with this game. I’m over five hours into this alleged 30 second game and it’s still a blast. The last time I played I got caught in an avalanche and had to fight polar bears naked. It was epic. This is the perfect portable game, right down to the save system. If you have a PSP, dust it off for this game, you will not regret it!

Plants vs. Zombies – This game didn’t hold my interest as much as I expected but it’s still a very fun distraction. I fire this up on the laptop and play it with my 10 year old daughter, she loves finding out about the new types of zombies as we move through the game. Crunchy!

There were other games I played in 2009, many of them being 2008 releases that I was late in playing. I’m still working on the DLC for Valkyria Chronicles. Prince of Persia was one of my favorite games of the year. I’m slinking my way though Dead Space and loving it so far. I also have a stack of 2009 games that I won’t even be able to touch until sometime next year. Games like Ghostbusters, Dead Space Extraction, Dragon Age, House of the Dead Overkill and Uncharted 2. This was such a great year for games, I can’t wait to play the goodies that 2010 will have to offer us.