Disclaimer: I haven’t played Uncharted 2 or Assassin’s Creed 2 yet, which is like putting out Best Picture nominations without having seen Saw XVII. Right. Forward.

Coming in at the buzzer:

Dragon Age: Origins

So here’s the thing about Dragon Age (I’ll leave off the subtitle). I really just chalked it up to “Another Bioware RPG” and all the baggage and RPG-trope bullshit that comes with it. Now, smash cut fifty hours of gameplay in the future to the third act. Suddenly, the depth of the characters starts to be realized. Suddenly, it seems I am making decisions that don’t shoehorn back to the predetermined story path.

Generally decision nodes in RPG stories do something like this:

And most of the time, in Dragon Age, this is still the case. But when you get to the third act, you get to a number of decision points (sorry for being vague, but it is deliberate to avoid spoiling for everyone) that do not merge and thus have differing overarching effects on the world to follow. The amount of cutscenes and additional dialogue Bioware had to create for these eventualities seems immense and it is likely why the bulk of this is concentrated at the end of the game.

I actually loaded earlier saves and played through these points to see how differently things could play out. It was quite surprising. I got to certain decision nodes where I sat for thirty seconds or so before making a decision, trying to figure out what the consequences would be. It wasn’t a clear dichotomy between being a Dudley Do-Right and a Snidley Whiplash magnified by the fact that the results would affect the remaining portions of the game.

So yes, at its heart, it is a kill-all-the-ugly-things RPG. Click. Click. Click. Use a spell. Drink a potion. So forth. And yes, they seem to crib heavily from earlier titles in the series (Aside: Is Shale not HK-47? While I appreciate a character with dry wit, it seems they are interchangeable. Replace squishing skulls with meatbags.) But, they did so in a world that while Tolkien-inspired, builds a lot of its depth separate from the normal tropes with characters who had some measure of complexity.

The characters in Dragon Age are more interesting than the characters in Avatar. I think that speaks well for our industry going forward.

Dominion

Holy shit, I’m cheating. This is a card game, like printed on dead trees and stuff. But it is the most compelling card game I’ve picked up since I first picked up Magic: the Gathering in 1995/1996. Dominion hits all the right notes of MTG (creatively forming decks and combos, light probability theory, variety of play) with none of its lows (richest player wins, infinite combos, requirements to memorize vast numbers of cards and mechanics, netdecking).

In Dominion, the group randomly selects ten “kingdom” cards that serve as the universe of possible effects for that game. With 25 different kingdom cards in the base set plus many more in expansions, the permutations allow very few games to play out exactly alike. Players all start out with the exact same deck and use their turns to buy these kingdom cards to expand their deck’s buying power (or hamper their opponents). All in all, it is simple enough that non-gamers “get it” and get into it (and can win!), but complex enough that us nerds go to message boards with spreadsheets and discuss optimal strategies to no consensus.

It is simply put, a masterpiece of game design and people interested in game design would be remiss to not consider its implications simply because it is not in digital form.

Team Fortress 2

I’m just cheating all over the place, aren’t I? This game came out in 2007 and underwhelmed me. While I enjoyed its art style, it just never pulled me in. My ex-roommate convinced me when watching him play early this year that maybe there was something to it. I downloaded it from Steam for the PC (I originally had the Xbox 360 Orange Box version) for $20.

I joined at just the right time. Since then, there have been a number of free (FREE) updates that have significantly upgraded and changed the game’s mechanics. I could list them in detail but it would take far too long. For a game that already has a surprising level of tactical depth, it is quite impressive. There were numerous updates to classes and starting with the Scout update, each provided some new gameplay hook that the game was previously lacking. In the Scout Update, it was now possible to stun even invulnerable players. That little change altered gameplay dynamics significantly. The Spy/Sniper update changed the play dynamics of both classes significantly. There was a Halloween update that ran for only a week that included new achievements and new art. And now there is crafting? Good god. Add to this a handful of fantastic teaser pages and videos. Add TO THAT ridiculous limited time sales that knocked the price of the game down to $2.50.

How does Valve support this from a business perspective? Is it a loss leader? Do they still do volumes of TF2 sales that supports the ongoing development? I have no clue. But you can tell when a game is a labor of love, and TF2 certainly is. It came into its own in 2009 and that’s why it deserves continual recognition. It is an achievement in art, design, writing (for a game that doesn’t have cutscenes!), production and business.

Afterthoughts:

I spent a lot of time this year playing iPhone and Facebook games. I could probably make a case for a number of them to be included. Certainly Lock n Roll at $3 or Canabalt also at $3 provided a great deal of interesting play for not much coin. It might been due to my employment situation or it may be a more widely indulged trend, but I shied away from expensive games this year. The ones I did buy didn’t really provide me that high multiple of value-for-money (Brutal Legend for one), but I suppose they weren’t trying to. The above three games cost me a grand total of $40. I got the Dragon Age from EA folks and I bummed the copy of Dominion. Did I just look at full-priced games as same-old because I couldn’t particularly afford them or was it just a particularly bland year?

Previously:

2001 - Halo, Ico
2002 - Splinter Cell, Jet Set Radio Future
2003 - Disgaea, Beyond Good and Evil
2004 - Katamari Damacy, Burnout 3: Takedown
2005 - Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!, Psychonauts, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Meteos
2006 - Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Dead Rising, Guitar Hero II
2007 - Portal, Hotel Dusk: Room 215, Passage, Bioshock
2008 - The World Ends With You, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, Left 4 Dead, Chocolatier 2: Secret Ingredients

How to Assign Values to Game Elements That Don’t Exist Yet:

Superego: What number should go to that attribute?

Ego: I dunno. How about 100?

Superego: Why 100?

Ego: Go F yourself, that’s why.

It looks like I don’t get an AIAS ballot this year since I don’t work for EA anymore. *shrug*. I’m not going to pony up $95.00 to get a vote, but if I did, here’s who would get my votes. Update: As an IGDA member, I get to vote. Huzzah.

Of course, this sucks for the folks making the games I haven’t got to yet (Uncharted 2, Assassin’s Creed 2), but that is the nature of timely awards, I suppose. I simply deleted the categories I wouldn’t vote in due to lack of familiarity with the titles listed. Designers generally only vote in the design-related categories, so things like Art Direction have been omitted as well.

Overall Game of the Year
o Assassin’s Creed II / Ubisoft / Ubisoft Montreal
o Batman: Arkham Asylum / Eidos/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment / Rocksteady Studios
o Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 / Activision / Infinity Ward
o Dragon Age: Origins / Electronic Arts / BioWare
o Uncharted 2: Among Thieves / Sony Computer Entertainment America / Naughty Dog

Wow, I haven’t played the majority of these. Am I out of touch?

Outstanding Innovation in Gaming
o Demon’s Souls / Atlus / From Software
o FarmVille / Zynga / Zynga
o Flower / Sony Computer Entertainment America / thatgamecompany
o Scribblenauts / Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment / 5th Cell Media
o Uncharted 2: Among Thieves / Sony Computer Entertainment America / Naughty Dog

Seeing as Farmville is stolen whole cloth from another company seemingly, it would be hard to vote for them, but I understand the thrust of nominating something from the social game scene and Farmville is #1. Still, Scribblenauts is so innovative that I honestly didn’t believe it was possible until I played it, bugs aside.

Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction
o Assassin’s Creed II / Ubisoft / Ubisoft Montreal
o Batman: Arkham Asylum / Eidos/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment / Rocksteady Studios
o Brutal Legend / Electronic Arts / Double Fine Productions
o Flower / Sony Computer Entertainment America / thatgamecompany
o Uncharted 2: Among Thieves / Sony Computer Entertainment America / Naughty Dog

Bingo. This is the perfect category for Batman. Take a franchise that has had nothing but middling action games and create one of the most compelling licensed games of all-time? The fanboys and the casual even agree. Hot damn. Outstanding direction.

Role-Playing/Massively Multiplayer Game of the Year
o Borderlands / 2K Games / Gearbox Software
o Champions Online / Atari / Cryptic Studios
o Demon’s Souls / Atlus / From Software
o Dragon Age: Origins / Electronic Arts / BioWare
o Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story / Nintendo / Alphadream

While Borderlands was excellent, it wasn’t for its role-playing. Dragon Age: Origins pretty much defines what an RPG needs to be this decade.

Sports Game of the Year
o FIFA Soccer 10 / Electronic Arts / EA Canada
o MLB 09: The Show / Sony Computer Entertainment America / SCE San Diego
o NBA 2K10 / 2K Sports / Visual Concepts
o NHL 10 / Electronic Arts / EA Canada
o Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 (Wii) / Electronic Arts / EA Tiburon

I’ve got to show some love, even though The Show 08 was a great game and 09 was probably better.

Portable Game of the Year
o LittleBigPlanet / Sony Computer Entertainment America / SCE Cambridge Studio
o Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story / Nintendo / Alphadream
o Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box / Nintendo / Level-5
o Scribblenauts / Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment / 5th Cell Media
o The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks / Nintendo / Nintendo

While Scribblenauts was incredibly interesting and innovative, it didn’t hold together as a game nearly as well as Layton.

Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year
o Brutal Legend / Electronic Arts / Double Fine Productions
o Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon / Nintendo / Intelligent Systems
o Halo Wars / Microsoft Game Studios / Ensemble Studios/Robot Entertainment
o The Sims 3 / Electronic Arts / The Sims Studio
o Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2 / THQ / Relic Entertainment

Casual Game of the Year
o Drawn: The Painted Tower / Big Fish Games / Big Fish Games
o Flower / Sony Computer Entertainment America / thatgamecompany
o Flight Control / Firemint / Firemint
o Plants vs. Zombies / PopCap Games / PopCap Games
o Scribblenauts / Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment / 5th Cell Media

Social Networking Game of the Year
o Bejeweled Blitz / PopCap Games / PopCap Games
o Farm Town / Codebell / Codebell
o FarmVille / Zynga / Zynga
o Restaurant City / Electronic Arts/Playfish / Playfish

Really? Can I vote for none of the above? I guess you have to give it to Farmville just to recognize their success.

Outstanding Achievement in Portable Game Design
o Henry Hatsworth / Electronic Arts / EA Casual Studios
o LittleBigPlanet / Sony Computer Entertainment America / SCE Cambridge Studio
o LocoRoco 2 / Sony Computer Entertainment America / Sony Computer Entertainment International
o Patapon 2 / Sony Computer Entertainment America / Sony Computer Entertainment International
o Scribblenauts / Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment / 5th Cell Media

Didn’t we do this category already?

Outstanding Character Performance

o Batman: Arkham Asylum - Joker / Eidos/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment / Rocksteady Studios
o Brutal Legend - Eddie Riggs / Electronic Arts / Double Fine Productions
o Resident Evil 5 - Sheva Alomar / Capcom / Capcom
o Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - Chloe Frazier / Sony Computer Entertainment America / Naughty Dog
o Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - Nathan Drake / Sony Computer Entertainment America / Naughty Dog

Outstanding Achievement in Adapted Story
o Batman: Arkham Asylum / Eidos/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment / Rocksteady Studios
o Ghostbusters: The Video Game / Atari / Terminal Reality
o Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 / Activision / Vicarious Visions

Outstanding Achievement in Original Story
o Assassin’s Creed II / Ubisoft / Ubisoft Montreal
o Brutal Legend / Electronic Arts / Double Fine Productions
o Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box / Nintendo / Level-5
o Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time / Sony Computer Entertainment America / Insomniac Games
o Uncharted 2: Among Thieves / Sony Computer Entertainment America / Naughty Dog

You would think being unemployed would have given me a lot more time to read, but obviously this wasn’t the case. Whereas 2008 gave me two of my three favorite books of all time (Perdido Street Station and The Scar), I had no such luck with gems in 2009. Iron Council didn’t live up to the previous two (and is probably why Mieville took a hiatus from Bas-Lag novels), I spent some energy on business-y books (Kawasaki, LeBouef, etc.) and Fantasy and Science Fiction cut down their magazine to a 150% sized bi-monthly format to cut costs. Regardless, I’m still behind. Liar’s Poker was a great find and recommended. Here Comes Everybody could have been contentless but certainly wasn’t.

Last year: 31 Titles, 7,967 Pages, 21.77 Pages/Day (2008 was a leap year)
This year: 18 Titles, 4,960 Pages, 13.59 Pages/Day

Fiction

• Achewood - Worst Song Played on Ugliest Guitar by Chris Onstad (Graphic, 136) Hopefully the first in a long line of director’s cut styled Achewood anthologies. The best thing on the Internet, now in dead tree form.
• Flight - Volume 5 (Graphic, 363) - I didn’t buy volume six. The art is just remarkable, but I don’t find myself coming back to any of the stories anymore. Stopping my auto-buy of Flight anthologies was simply a cost-cutting measure.
• Iron Council by China Mieville (564) - By any measure, this is a good “New Weird” fantasy novel. But after his previous two, there was such high expectations that simply weren’t met here. A good read if you devoured his first two Bas-Lag novels.
• Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link (297) - Wow. I read the titular novella in Fantasy and Science Fiction in 2005 (?) and loved it. Having not really read anything else of hers since, I saw this collection and tried my luck. No one-hit wonder, there is barely a flat note in the whole collection. Her other works now line my Amazon wish list.

Non-Fiction

• Art of the Start - Guy Kawasaki (217) - Bootstrap. There. I saved you 217 pages.
• Enough - John C. Bogle (255) - I love Bogle and this is a great semi-autobiographic book about avarice in the financial industry. Not too heavy and if you know Jack Bogle at all, it is pretty predictable, but it has a great message.
• Football Official’s Guidebook (Crews of Four and Five) High School Mechanics 2009 (262) - I wish this book would have been required of me my first year officiating. Fantastic and filled many of the holes left in my training.
• Here Comes Everyone - Clay Shirky (304) - I commented about this above. A great book on living and working in a crowdsourced world. I need to read it again since it was the first book I read last year and I’m a bit foggy on the details.
• 2009 High School Football Rules Simplified and Illustrated (181) - This was essentially useless.
• Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis (249) - Fantastic autobiographical look at 1980s bond trading that is waaaay more entertaining than you would think the subject matter would be. Lewis shows his skills as a writer that would make him famous with The Blind Side and Moneyball. Love it.
• The New New Thing by Michael Lewis (269) - Picked this up right away after finishing Liar’s Poker. Same style, but the subject matter is the go-go Internet bubble and one of it’s biggest personalities - the founder of Netscape and two other billion dollar companies.
• The Perfect Business by Michael LeBoeuf (224) - Okay, but not what I was looking for.
• Ignore Everbody - Hugh McLeod (159) - If you read McLeod’s blog (and I did), then you get most of this book from his “Rules for Creativity” post. I stopped following him on blog and twitter because he became nasty and when that personality veil falls, it is tough to get back. Still, the words in this boo are wise and you can read it standing in a Barnes & Noble pretty quickly, not that I condone that.

F&SF

• Fantasy & Science Fiction 02/09 (160)
• Fantasy & Science Fiction 03/09 (160)
• Fantasy & Science Fiction 04-05/09 (260)
• Fantasy & Science Fiction 06-07/09 (260)
• Fantasy & Science Fiction 08-09/09 (320) - There were a lot of great stories in F&SF this year, but since all my copies are in boxes right now, I can’t crack them open and reference. They don’t have enough new authors, but the quality is quite consistent.

I announced over Twitter and Facebook that my own personal adventures in unemployment would be over next month which is absolutely terrifying and exciting. I’m moving to New York City (!) to take a design gig with Gameloft which I am extremely excited about. I’m less excited about the whole having to find an apartment and move in a month which also holds Christmas, New Years, my birthday and my parents visiting for a week, but I’ll take what I can get.

Luckily, I have Gameloft’s NY Nights (a social-sim game which is a steal at 99c) to teach me about airport protocol:

and culture:

The bonus to any of the blog’s readers that are still left (I’m shocked by the numbers seeing as I’ve barely posted this past year - posts about Farmville and Mafia Wars get a lot of Google hits as expected, but there are a lot of organic hits, too. Thanks if you are one of them!) is that I will be posting a lot more. The original purpose of the blog was kind of a warm-up to the day - I’d read the game news sites, comment on something by posting if I had something novel to say and then start my work. Being employed in the industry will allow me to get back to that routine.

I’d also like to thank Paul and the good folks at GameJobHunter, who helped me to connect with Gameloft. I worked with Paul many moons ago at Tiburon and now he and a few buddies are running a totally free site that doesn’t list the same six jobs that cycle through Gamasutra every week. I highly recommend checking it out if you are in that in-between state.

I have a few posts brewing in my head that I won’t mention. I also have my yearly game awards and I think people will be interested in that mine will probably be uncorrelated with any major review site.

Also: Demoman and Soldier updates? Yes, please.