Top 10 of the First Half
2009 has been thus far one of the best years for video gaming in history. Never before have there been this many good games this quickly. Sure, sales may be down a bit from last year, but I don’t care about sales numbers. What matters to me are the games, and because there are so many games I’m going to rank the top ten PS3 (as in available on PS3, not exclusive to PS3) games of the first half.
Honorable Mentions: There were a lot of games that came out this year that I didn’t think deserved to be on the list so this is for them. Games like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Ghost Busters and Bionic Commando, they were good but just didn’t make the top ten. Also, I’m including in this BlazBlue, not because it doesn’t deserve to be on the list, but because it was just too late for me to play it.
10) MLB 09 The Show If you’re a PlayStation owner and a baseball fan then you’re already very aware of this game. The MLB The Show series is one of the best baseball franchises in the history of video games, and it’s exclusive to PlayStation consoles. In my experience, the Show is the closest to replicating the real sport as any game has come, but with one very nice improvement over the real thing, it doesn’t take three hours to play a game.
9) Flower When you look up artistic game in the dictionary you see a picture of Flower. That said, it’s the best, most relaxing artsy game I’ve ever played. While the gameplay may be simplistic the music and art style makes it a very worthy experience. It’s also one of the best PSN games of the year, if it were any other year it’d be a lot higher on the list.
8 ) Red Faction: Guerrilla This is definitely the most overlooked of the open world triplets that were released in May/June. It’s very unfortunate that it was released right in the middle of E3 because it was completely over shadowed by the spectacle, and the fanboy war over which is better, inFAMOUS or Prototype. The big feature of this game has to be the ability to destroy everything, and when I say everything I mean everything. Ever wondered what happens when you fire a missile into a wall? Well, this game will let you do that. Everything in Red Faction is physics based allowing you to destroy every building on the map. It’s definitely one of the most fun games of the year.
7) Fight Night Round 4 One of the best fighting games of this generation. It’s really unfortunate that it was released just a few weeks after the best fighting game of this generation. FNR4 is visually stunning and features very intuitive controls.
6) UFC 2009 Undisputed I’m going to get a lot of flack for saying this but I actually liked UFC more than FNR4. Yes, I do think FNR4 does a lot right but I think that a UFC game features things that can’t be in a boxing game. Undisputed is the first game to really get the ground game of Mixed Martial Arts right, and because of it I think it’s the best fighting sim of the year.
5) Resident Evil 5 Racism be damned, this game is good and I’m gonna give it the recognition it deserves. It’s the second best looking game on the PS3 this year and it’s insanely fun to play. I don’t really know what to say about it other than that.
4) Prototype Love it or hate it, Prototype is a very good game. If anything it suffers from developers who tried to do a little bit too much. The story is kind of lax and it’s environment is lacking but I’ll be damned if it isn’t fun as hell. Sometimes it’s great to just forget about story or morals and kill everyone and destroy everything. Plus, as Penny Arcade so aptly said, you can karate kick a chopper, what more do you want?
3) inFAMOUS This is definitely my favorite game that’s hit this year (but why’s it not number 1? because there are better games out there). The reason why it’s listed above Prototype is because I liked inFAMOUS more (duh). While Prototype does have the reeking havoc part down the rest of the experience just doesn’t live up to expectations like what inFAMOUS has. As I said in my review the story is engaging, the gameplay is fun and Empire City is amazing.
2) Street Fighter IV Remember how I said the best fighting game in history came out this year? Well this is it. The only flaw this game has is that it might be a little too hardcore for some. But other than that, Street Fighter IV is pretty much the prefect fighting game experience. This ain’t your daddies button masher.
1) Killzone 2 This should be no surprise to anyone but I do consider Killzone 2 to be the best game of this year. I actually just bought my own copy of this game a few days ago so I haven’t had the ability to just sit down and play it until now and damn, does it ever look good. But, while the game may look good it’s not just sparkles and explosions, the game play’s pretty damn good too. There is a reason why this game got so much hype and haters be damned, it deserved every bit of it. Regardless of which games you liked more, you can’t deny that it has been a great year for PS3 owners. While the console may not be selling a ton if you already own a PS3 you should be very happy right now.
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