Before getting to the list proper, I’d like to mention a few caveats, a disclaimer if you will. I think it is only fair that I only include games that I have actually played on this list. Expectations rarely measure up to actuality, for good or bad. So while I am sure games such as Halo 3: ODST, Borderlands, Left 4 Dead 2, The Beatles Rock Band, Infamous, Resident Evil 5, and Street Fighter 4 are all most excellent, none of them will be appearing on my list. Additionally, if a game didn’t come out this year, it won’t appear on the list even though this is the year in which I first played them. Otherwise you’d be seeing appearances by games such as Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, LittleBigPlanet, Dead Space, Civilization Revolution, and Battlefield: Bad Company.

You would think these things could go without saying, and you’re probably right. However, you wouldn’t want to deprive me of the fun of writing a disclaimer, would you? I didn’t think so. So without further ado, I bring you my picks for Game of the Year 2009.

Best Playstation 3 Game of 2009
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Uncharted 2 was the only new release that I played on the PS3 this year (due to buying the system so late in the year), so it kind of won by default. Regardless, I feel pretty good about this choice as Uncharted 2 is an amazing example of an adventure game at its cinematic best. The best thing about Uncharted 2 is the interplay between the extremely well-written characters. Incidental banter goes on even while you are playing, not just in the cutscenes, fleshing out character personalities and quirks in the process.

If you could choose only one game to show off what the PS3 can do, Uncharted 2 is definitely the game you want to pop in. The game is absolutely gorgeous, almost to the point of distraction. Getting killed during a firefight because you were admiring a beautiful waterfall or strange sculpture in the background is a problem every game wishes it could have. In a world full of “great looking” titles that think muddy browns are the ultimate in artistic expression, Uncharted 2 dares to use a vibrant palette of colors heavy in reds and greens.

The greatest looking digital scenery in the world doesn’t mean that much if it doesn’t feel alive. Uncharted 2 excels in this area thanks to the amazing quality of the animation. Character movements are smooth and realistic, vehicles bounce around on bumpy roads the way you expect them to, and guns look impressive and dangerous when you fire them. The sheer amount of quality animation in Uncharted 2 is breathtaking. There is definitely a good reason behind those commercials Sony put out where some guy’s girlfriend thinks this game is a movie. Uncharted 2 is almost as fun to watch as it is to play.

Best Nintendo Wii Game of 2009
Unplayed

Unlike the PS3, the only 2009 Wii game I played this year was a big disappointment. It was so disappointingly average that it kind of soured me on Wii games for the rest of the year, causing an apathy that led to skipping games such as WiiSports Resort, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, Dead Space Extraction, and even New Super Mario Bros Wii. Despite all the evidence pointing towards those games being good at the very least, I just couldn’t bring myself to play any of them. For that reason, this category remains empty thanks to The Conduit.

Best Nintendo DS Game of 2009
Unplayed

Some of my apathy towards the Wii bled over to the DS this year. The first half of the year didn’t really have anything that grabbed my attention. However, E3 2009 caused Scribblenauts to leap onto my radar, and I was really excited to get my hands on the game. Unfortunately, Scribblenauts ended up being a great concept hampered by poor execution, especially in the controls department. It is fun for a while as a novelty but gets extremely frustrating very quickly. As a big Zelda fan, I am really looking forward to playing The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, but it hasn’t quite been released yet, so the DS category remains blank as well.

Best PC Game of 2009
Plants vs Zombies

Some people would probably place a different game into this category, but we’ll get back to that in a second. First we’ll get to my pick for the best PC game of the year, Plants vs Zombies. PopCap has figured out some sort of magic formula for creating addictive casual games. For example, Peggle can be a huge time waster, and Bejewled has been cloned about a billion times by now. Plants vs Zombies is a charming little tower defense game in which you have to defend your yard from a zombie onslaught with a variety of cartoony plants. There are several different modes in addition to the regular tower defense mode and plenty of things to unlock, keeping you playing “just one more round” until well after the sun goes down…and comes back up. On the surface, Plants vs Zombies may not seem like it belongs in a list with a bunch of “hardcore” games, but it is just as much fun and far more addictive than many of its bigger cousins.

Best XBox 360 Game of 2009
Batman: Arkham Asylum & Dragon Age: Origins

The Xbox 360 took a much bigger overall share of my play time this year. The number of good games I played on the system made narrowing things down to one game rather difficult. Should I choose the game that surprised me the most? Should I choose the game I spent the most time with? What to do?

In the end, I cheated and picked two: Batman: Arkham Asylum and Dragon Age: Origins. While Assassin’s Creed II improves over the original in just about every way and Modern Warfare 2 is an excellent escalation of Infinity Ward’s first foray into modern day gun fights, I decided to give the edge to original titles. Red Faction Guerrilla almost made the cut as it easily dominated my playing time this summer. However, I settled on Batman: Arkham Asylum and Dragon Age: Origins for the same reason. Both games do an excellent job of creating an engrossing world and completely sucking you into it through story, characters, and gameplay.

Arkham Asylum is easily the best Batman game ever made, but you know it is special because it would be a really good game even if it didn’t star the Dark Knight. Rocksteady Studios made great use of the license in a way that turns a really good game into a great one. Sure, it’s a lot of fun to beat up henchmen no matter who you are, but doing it as the ruthlessly efficient Batman is even better. Arkham Asylum feels like a real place you are inhabiting and exploring rather than a set of video game levels. Also, enough can’t be said about including elements of Batman the Animated Series in this game. Arkham Asylum sometimes feels like a slightly darker version of that show, due in no small part to the writing of Paul Dini and the voices of Mark Hamill (The Joker), Kevin Conroy (Batman), and Arleen Sorkin (Harley Quinn).

While Arkham Asylum brings the world of Batman to life, Dragon Age: Origins brings a completely original fantasy setting to life with incredible detail, inhabiting the RPG with interesting characters and difficult choices. Some people would list this in the PC category, and I am sure that it plays very well with a mouse and keyboard. Personally, I have spent well over 70 hours playing the game on the 360 so far, loving every single moment along the way. While Dragon Age isn’t the biggest visual powerhouse, it is still very impressive from an artistic design standpoint if not polygon count. Each place you discover feels like it has a history to it, and every area feels distinct due in large part to the different designs found in the architecture, objects, and creatures that you find.

The biggest strengths of the game, however, lie in the amount of flexibility in how you play your character and the impact of your choices on the world you are playing in. There are six completely unique origin stories to play through that influence and flavor the game differently as you play through it. The thing that impresses me the most about Dragon Age is that it manages to make the game equally fun to play, no matter what type of character you are playing as. Playing as a Warrior is just as much fun as playing as a Rogue or a Mage, even though each play style is quite different. Each character type has a lot of room for customization such as what types of magic you decide to use or if your warrior uses large two-handed weapons, a sword and shield combo, or dual weapons.

Excellent voice acting and a wealth of text-based “codex” entries about all the people and places you visit are just more evidence that Bioware certainly hasn’t lost their magic touch when it comes to creating fascinating RPG worlds to explore.

—

Overall Game of 2009
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

So of all the games released this year, which one stands out? Which one has that little something extra that takes it over the top? (As if you couldn’t guess by those pretty pictures on the left.) While all of the games I’ve mentioned are excellent, Uncharted 2 gets the edge for its sharply written character dialogue and eye-popping graphics. Naughty Dog has raised the bar for what we can expect from video game characters. I hope the studio can eclipse themselves again in Nathan Drake’s inevitable next adventure. Uncharted 3 can’t get here soon enough!

Microsoft’s briefing was full of glitz, glamour, and lots of games. Nintendo’s conference was full of boring lectures, sales data, a few good announcements, and possibly take-home tests. Sony was a bit of a combination of the two, falling a bit short of the quality of the Microsoft show, but they were far more successful than what Nintendo was able to put together. Sony didn’t cut out all the sales charts like Microsoft did, but they didn’t skimp on showing great looking games either.

Sony’s briefing began with a sense of humor about all the leaks they had beforehand, saying they want to be the industry leader even with news leaks. After a little bit of sales data, Naughty Dog came onstage to show off a demo of Uncharted 2: Drake’s Fortune. The game looks amazing, especially in the quality of character animation. After that, MAG (Massive Action Game) was demoed, showing gameplay for the first time. It looks somewhat impressive, but I’m still not convinced that it will be a compelling experience.

Next up was the official unveiling of the PSP Go. The design is quite a bit different than the current PSP-3000, and it will be co-existing with the current model rather than replacing it. The PSP Go will be in stores the beginning of October with a $249.99 price tag. Coming at the same time as the PSP Go will be a Gran Turismo game for the handheld system. Hideo Kojima decided to show up at Sony’s conference this year (after appearing at Microsoft’s yesterday). This time, he revealed a Metal Gear title for the PSP, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. The game appears to take place early on in the Metal Gear story, according to the insanely long trailer that had several different endings. Seriously, the thing just kept on going.

The next section of Sony’s show dragged on for a bit with a few montages and talk about Playstation Home. The crowd had a bit of fun with the presenters when they mockingly cheered for a Hannah Montana game. On the upside, there was a quick mention of a new Rockstar game exclusive to PS3 that is coming called Agent, but little detail was shared.

Luckily Sony got back on track with a live demo of Assassin’s Creed 2. The game looks more colorful than the original, probably due to the Italian setting during the Renaissance. The game’s new lead character, Ezio, is shown climbing buildings and leaping between rooftops much like in the first Assassin’s Creed. However there were several additions and twists to the formula that were shown as well, not the least of which is using Da Vinci’s flying machine to soar over the city. Ezio also has two different hidden blades, allowing him to covertly take out two guards at once, and he can also steal weapons from enemies as he fights them. The demo ended with Ezio leaping into the river to swim away, something that would have meant instant death in the first game. Assassin’s Creed 2 looks very good, and I can’t wait until it hits shelves this November.

Sony then showed off an English-language trailer for Final Fantasy XIII, followed by the surprise announcement of Final Fantasy XIV Online coming in 2010, exclusive to PS3. Everything seemed to be on track for Sony thus far, but then Sony revealed their take on a new motion controller, grinding the briefing to a halt.

The new controller featured was just a prototype, so the final look will most likely be quite a bit different than what was shown today. The new controller basically looks like a ping pong ball on the end of a wand. It works in conjunction with the EyeToy camera to detect position and rotation in 3D space. They showed off several simplistic tech demos of the thing, but it came off looking rather cheap and gimmicky, despite working fairly well. It is supposedly coming in the spring of 2010 despite appearing like it isn’t very far along. Compared to the technology behind Microsoft’s Project Natal camera, Sony’s motion controller doesn’t seem to be quite as innovative.

Luckily Sony had more games up their sleeve after the motion controller was revealed. Mod Nation Racers is another title in the vein of LittleBigPlanet. The game is a kart racer with tons of customization options. Particularly impressive was the demonstration of the simple to use, yet robust track editor included in the game. After that was a trailer for the new Team Ico game, The Last Guardian, looking a lot like Shadow of the Colossus in its art design. Next, Grand Turismo 5 showed up in trailer form, looking rather pretty, but very light on gameplay.

And Sony ended the show right there…….okay not really. They showed off a ton of gameplay from the first few minutes of God of War 3. The game looks to play a lot like the previous games in the series, except it is a lot prettier in the graphics department. The level of detail in the environments and character models was very impressive, and I’m sure it will sell a ton of copies when it releases in March 2010.

All in all, Sony had a really good show, despite the lackluster motion controller tech demos. They showed off a lot of games and an attractive new design for the PSP, certainly a lot more content than what Nintendo had.

Mirror’s Edge is set in a world of totalitarian rule, conspiracies, and underground organizations. The game’s protagonist, Faith, is a Runner, someone who uses the rooftops to travel “between the gloss and the reality”, delivering clandestine messages for clients who wish to remain under the radar. Early in the game, Faith’s sister on the police force (known as “Blues” in the Mirror’s Edge universe) is framed for murdering a promising candidate for mayor. Faith sets out to clear her sister’s name and track down the real killer, hassled by the Blues at every turn. Along the way, she discovers that the truth is much bigger than what she initially suspects.

Hey! Who put me in an E-Surance commercial?!

The story sounds much more interesting on paper than it comes across while playing the game. Most of the cutscenes are presented in a Flash animation style that fails to live up to the quality of the rest of the game’s visuals. These sequences pull you out of the action when the rest of the game seems focused on keeping you firmly inside Faith’s running shoes. The few scenes that unfold using the in-game engine are much more effective at helping you experience things from Faith’s point of view, making me wish the entire story was presented in this fashion.

The rest of the game looks absolutely gorgeous. Faith lives in a city that looks like something Apple would create if the company got into urban development. Glossy white surfaces are prevalent, accented by splashes of bright, saturated color. While this somewhat simplified visual style gives Mirror’s Edge a unique look, it is also functional in helping you navigate the environment. The “Runner Vision” system causes certain items such as ladders or pipes to become red as Faith nears them, identifying proper routes across the rooftops. Early on, Runner Vision is very abundant, showing you exactly where to go. However, the system backs away a few levels into the story becoming more of a confirmation that you are going the right way rather than outright showing you where to go. However, getting lost is rarely a problem as levels are usually fairly linear. There are usually only one or two correct ways to get to your destination.

On the surface, Mirror’s Edge appears to be a first-person shooter, but it has much more in common with a platformer. Throughout the game, you are running from one end of a level to the other with plenty of drop-offs, enemies, and other obstacles getting in your way. A majority of the time, Faith is required to navigate from one platform to another, oftentimes while being chased. However, sometimes getting up close and personal with your enemies is necessary.

Kick to the face? Yes, please!

Faith has the option to pick up dropped weapons, but the game actively encourages you to use non-lethal means to achieve your objectives. To this end, you have several options that allow you to disarm and incapacitate your enemies. When Faith gets close to someone, they will attempt to hit her with their weapon. For a split second, their gun will flash red, indicating when to attempt a disarming maneuver. A successful disarm results in impressive animations where Faith grabs the weapon and uses it to knock out her adversary. Different weapons result in different take-downs. For example, Faith disarms a shotgun-wielding enemy by kicking their gun into the air, catching it, and cracking them upside the head with it. The window for disarming enemies is pretty small, but Faith can also slow down time momentarily, provided that the ability is fully charged, giving you a bit more time to react properly.

Taking on multiple adversaries without a weapon is a big no-no and will quickly get you killed. However, sometimes you don’t have a choice, and you need to take out enemies quickly. Walking up to them and throwing a lot of punches will eventually get the job done, if you don’t get shot to death beforehand. It is much more effective to run up to an enemy and attack them from the air or from the ground. In general, the more momentum you have going, the more effective your attack will be. A few areas even lend themselves towards literally getting the drop on someone by jumping down from above and landing a well-placed kick to the head. The places where you are able to combine acrobatics with combat are much more enjoyable than taking on enemies in more open areas. For instance, running along a wall and jumping off to kick a guard, spinning them around in the process, never gets old.

Wheee!!

While Faith has many avenues available to her for engaging enemies, sometimes the best option is to run away. Running is what she does best, after all, and this is where Mirror’s Edge absolutely shines. The game does an excellent job of simulating movement to the point that it is a joy to navigate the environment, and it becomes a hassle when you have to slow down just to take out a couple of guys in your way. Unlike most games shown from a first person perspective, Mirror’s Edge does not merely feel like a floating camera. Faith’s arms and legs are visible when she is pulling off spectacular maneuvers, and the camera bobs and weaves to her every movement. The game even goes as far as flipping your view over when Faith performs a forward roll. At first, the immersive style can be a little disorienting, but the simple control scheme goes a long way towards making you feel comfortable in Faith’s shoes.

All of Faith’s acrobatic moves are divided into two simple categories: up and down. Upward moves are assigned to the top shoulder button on one side of your controller, and downward moves are triggered by the bottom shoulder button on the same side. The shoulder buttons opposite these trigger Faith’s melee attacks and a 180 degree spin. Placing all of the major functions completely on the shoulder buttons helps give Mirror’s Edge a unique feel while playing. There aren’t many games that allow you to almost ignore the face buttons. Using different combos of shoulder buttons allows you to perform different moves, creating a surprisingly deep system of movement.

In order to be successful in pulling off proper moves, you must keep up Faith’s momentum. For example, hurdling a medium-sized obstacle will give Faith a small boost while sliding under it will slow you down. It doesn’t take very long to get the hang of things, and keeping Faith at full speed becomes second nature. Part of maintaining your rhythm and momentum is learning to recognize different features of the environment and how to best take advantage of them.

See a couple of small boxes stacked next to each other? Use them to get a large boost in height when you jump off them. Need to climb to a platform above you that is too high to jump straight up? Run up the opposite wall, spin around, and jump to it with ease. Falling from a ledge slightly too high up? Trigger a forward roll just before you hit the ground to break your fall.

Neo said it best: Whoa.

Despite having plenty of moves available for almost any situation, you will find yourself missing plenty of jumps and falling to your death. Luckily Mirror’s Edge has a very good checkpoint system, so you will rarely have to replay large sections of the game over again. When you are running full tilt across rooftops, making death-defying leaps, or hitching a ride on a subway train, Mirror’s Edge is at it’s exhilarating best. The times when you are forced to stop and take out enemies are where the game can get somewhat frustrating, especially if you are attempting to play through the game without using any weapons. The game is made much easier when you actually use the guns taken from your enemies, even though they are only good for a few shots before becoming useless. There are no boxes of ammo lying around, so once the clip goes empty, you’ll have to acquire another weapon if you want to continue shooting. Holding a weapon also restricts Faith’s speed and her ability to climb, adding a little extra incentive to get rid of a weapon quickly.

Apart from the main story, there are several other modes to play through. Each story level has three hidden messenger bags to collect, and speed runs for every segment become available after your first play-through. Additionally, there are several videos, music, and pieces of concept artwork to unlock, but the meat of the extra content is found in the time trial mode. The time trials feature several courses running through bite-sized chunks of the different levels in the game. Depending on how fast you complete a course, you will earn a rating of one, two, or three stars. It is very likely that you will fail to meet the base time your first few times through a course until you discover the optimum route, something that isn’t always obvious from the get-go. To help with this, you can download and race against a ghost of any of the one hundred fastest times from the online leaderboards. Doing so will reveal the fancy moves and routes through a course that others have used, provided you can stay close enough to their ghost to see what it is doing. The good thing about the time trials is that you don’t have to worry about any enemies bringing your momentum to a screeching halt, but a lot of the courses can be fairly difficult to finish with even a one-star qualifying time, so expect to spend a lot of time trying to shave few seconds off your best time.

This should be easy...

Mirror’s Edge is difficult to pin down. It does so many things right that should add up to something great. In particular, the freedom of movement in Mirror’s Edge is unparalleled by any other first person game out there. Despite several aspects of the game bogging it down from being the free-flowing experience it should be, the game is still a lot of fun to play and well worth checking out.

Final Grade: B-

I tend to gravitate towards arcade-style racing games. If I wanted to experience reality, I’d just go drive my own car. I like playing games where I can crash into things and generally drive like a maniac without having to worry about tinkering with my virtual ride to improve performance. Burnout Paradise fulfills these inclinations in spades. If you aren’t burning through traffic, flying off ramps, and crashing through billboards, you aren’t experiencing all of the addictive fun that Paradise City has to offer.

Multiple Cars + High Speeds = Car-Flipping Fun!

It’s a good thing that the collisions in Burnout Paradise look really great because crashing into buildings, trees, signs, fences, and other vehicles is a frequent occurrence. The physics system in place assures that every single crash looks completely different, so it never gets old seeing the carcass of your former vehicle bounce and hurtle down the street. The game achieves a great sense of speed as you race down the street, making collisions that much more thrilling when they occur and avoiding crashes just as nail-biting. You will often find yourself flying through traffic, jockeying for position among a group of cars racing for the finish line, and having a blast doing so.

The entirety of Paradise City is there to explore from the beginning of the game, and it takes a long time to find every single nook, cranny, and shortcut. The city is a very large and varied place containing many different areas including downtown high-rises, beach front property, curvy country roads, railroad tracks, and a packed freeway. Some areas of Paradise City seem to be perpetually under construction, providing many ramps, drop-offs, and shortcuts to take advantage of.

There are many ways to experience Paradise City. Each stoplight hosts one of five different types of events to participate in, should you choose to activate it. The Race event is fairly self-explanatory, although there aren’t any set routes. Instead, each race ends at one of eight different landmarks throughout the city. How you get there is up to you as long as you cross the finish line first. Marked Man events are a variation on a normal race in which several cars are trying to take you down before you can reach the finish line. The goal of a Road Rage event is to take down a certain number of cars within a set time limit without totaling your car in the process. Complete as many tricks and jumps as you can for big points in Stunt Runs, and race against the clock using a specific car for each Burning Route.

Discount airlines can be a little scary at times.

The open world design of Burnout Paradise lends itself towards cruising around the place looking for things to do. Paradise City is chock full of events and challenges to complete, but the game is still fun to play even if you are just speeding around from street to street. Burnout Paradise encourages this by letting you “own” every individual street in the game in two ways. It will keep track of your fastest times racing down a road and your highest scores in Showtime mode on each street. In Showtime mode, your car is sent careening down the road, and the object is to cause as much damage as possible to other cars and the environment before your car comes to a rest. Using your boost will keep your car twisting and flipping down the road, making it possible to crash for several minutes at a time. Once you have the fastest time and the highest Showtime score on a road, you “own” it. This feature of the game is especially fun when you have several friends that also own the game because all of your scores are uploaded to Burnout’s online servers. This means you will get a fast time on a street only to find that one of your friends has beaten it the next time you boot up the game. Every time you turn onto a new street, the game displays who owns the road, setting up competition with your friends, even when you are technically playing offline.

If you don’t want to participate in any events or compete against your friends’ best times, there is still plenty of fun to be had in Paradise City. There are 400 gates to smash down, 120 billboards to crash through, and 50 Super Jumps to discover. These things are hidden all around Paradise City, oftentimes in places that lie off the beaten path. Finding all the gates, billboards, and jumps is an especially good way to learn the ins and outs of Paradise City, giving you more of an edge during events. There are also about a dozen parking garages throughout the city that provide several opportunities for catching big air.

Sometimes a single wheel is all you need.

At any point while driving around the city, you can bring up the online menu with a quick tap on the right of the D-pad. Regardless of what mode you choose, you seamlessly jump into an online game wherever you are on the map. You can choose to join a specific type of event such as a race, but the real fun comes from Freeburn Challenges. As the name implies, Freeburn allows a group of players to cruise around Paradise City doing whatever they like. The mode includes a long list of challenges for everyone to attempt based on the number of players available. Some challenges are competitive, pitting everyone against each other in a race to be the first to perform a task such as taking down a number of other cars or drifting for a particular distance. Other challenges are cooperative, tasking the entire group with completing objectives. All of the online features in Burnout Paradise are well-implemented and fun to play.

There are three different classes of cars in Paradise City that cater towards different types of driving. Speed cars are good for getting somewhere fast, but they also crash much more easily than the other two types. The boost for this type of car cannot be used until it is filled entirely, but boosts can be chained together by holding the boost button down. Aggression cars are tough vehicles that are good for knocking other cars around, but their top speeds aren’t as fast and they generally don’t handle as well. This type of car gains boost by taking out other cars and knocking things down, usable as long as there is boost left in the tank. Stunt cars lie somewhere in the middle, traveling faster than aggression cars and taking a bit more of a beating than speed cars. As the name implies, flying off ramps and performing other stunts will gain you boost to use whenever you like. Each car in your junkyard is rated according to its speed, boost, and strength abilities. As you progress through the game, you will unlock better and better cars, soon finding a few favorites that you will rely on for most of the heavy lifting.

When this baby hits 88 miles per hour...

If the original game wasn’t packed enough for you, Criterion Games is raising the bar for studios supporting their game after it hits retail. After it was released early in January 2008, Criterion released several free updates for Burnout Paradise throughout last year that added a ton of content to the game. The Bogart update fixed several early bugs with the game. The Cagney update added several new online challenges and made Stunt Run, Road Rage, and Marked Man events available to play online, along with several other tweaks to the game. Later in the year, Criterion released the Bikes pack which added a dynamic weather system and a customizable day-to-night cycle to Paradise City in addition to adding four motorcycles available to ride and several new challenges based around the new vehicle type. Soon after, trophy support was added to the PS3 version of the game. Recently, Criterion released another free update that further tweaks the game, including the ability to restart events, the most requested feature since the game was released.

This year, Criterion is beginning to release premium content for Burnout Paradise, continuing their support of the game. The Party Pack has already been released, featuring a “pass-the-controller” party mode for people playing the game together on the same console. The Legendary Cars pack will be released soon, making four different vehicles based on famous cars available to drive. These new cars were based on the DeLorean from Back to the Future, Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters, KITT from Knight Rider, and The General Lee from Dukes of Hazzard. Criterion has already announced several other premium content packs planned for release throughout 2009 including Toy Cars (another car pack), Big Surf Island (a new playable area added to the game), and Cops and Robbers (presumably a new event type).

It’s hard to find another game that offers a better value than Burnout Paradise. The original game was packed with features, and Criterion Games continues to support their game long after it hit shelves by providing a ton of new downloadable content. Paradise City is a fun place to play, and it should continue to be so for a long time to come.

Final Grade: A

The new Prince, who is really just a glorified thief instead of actual royalty, finds himself lost in a desert searching for his gold-laden donkey. He soon runs into a princess named Elika and becomes entangled in her plight. Long ago the god of light, Ormazd, was forced to trap the god of darkness, Ahriman, and his corrupting influence inside a sacred tree. Thousands of years later, Ormazd is long gone, and Ahriman is trying to escape from his prison.

Freddy ain't got nothing on me!

The Prince follows Elika to the temple in the middle of the desert that houses the sacred tree. However, when they get there, Elika’s father chops the glowing tree in half with his sword, releasing Ahriman’s corruption and darkness upon the land. The dark god is still trapped inside the tree, but his prison is weakening. Elika and the Prince set out to cleanse the land of corruption in order to keep that catastrophe from happening.

To pull off this monumental task, the Prince and Elika must find several “fertile grounds” and purge the corruption from each area by unleashing Elika’s magic. Once all of the fertile grounds have been cleansed of evil, their combined power will allow the pair to go back to the temple and reseal Ahriman inside his prison.

Prince of Persia’s story is fairly simple but well-told. There are several cutscenes during the game that explain what is going on, but the tale especially comes to life if you take advantage of the “on demand” dialogue system. At any point during the game, you can hit a button to talk to Elika. She will describe the history of the land, convey points of interest from the area you are in, or reveal information on your enemies. Sometimes the dialogue has nothing to do with what you are doing, and the Prince and Elika will get into a sparring match. It is all completely optional, but it goes a long way towards developing the two characters and their relationship.

Standing in the Prince’s way are four of Ahriman’s henchmen, each with certain strengths and weaknesses that you need to exploit in order to defeat them. Rather than throwing you into battles with multiple enemies at a time, Prince of Persia focuses on head to head duels. You are able to trigger several different attacks with simple button presses, combining them into impressive combos that cause more damage than a single attack. You can use the Prince’s sword, gauntlet, and Elika’s magical powers to attack your foes as well as taking advantage of your acrobatics to lengthen combos. You will have several encounters with each of the henchmen throughout the game.

Cool kids use an underhanded grip.

Making your way to all the fertile grounds requires some fancy moves on the Prince’s part. Running and jumping through the environment has always been the strength of the Prince of Persia games, and this one is no different. You are able to run along and up walls, climb cliffs using special rings mounted to the wall, jump between giant columns, and use your gauntlet to slowly slide down vertical surfaces. Elika can even help you to leap across longer distances by giving you a magical boost, effectively giving you a double jump.

Elika will rescue you any time you are about to fall to your death by pulling you back to the last stable surface you were on. This is a clever way to handle a checkpoint system, and it effectively keeps you in the action and prevents things from getting too frustrating. Moving through an area can become very rhythmic once you get used to how the Prince moves and start to recognize the visual clues in the environment that tell you where to go. You will have the most success when pressing the right button at the right time.

Each time you cleanse one of the fertile grounds, glowing orbs called “light seeds” are scattered throughout the area. Collecting these seeds causes Elika’s power to grow, eventually unlocking four different special powers. These powers help you reach previously unreachable places in specific areas. Each power is tied to a specially-colored plate. Triggering Elika’s magic on one of these plates will allow you to soar through the air or run long distances up walls. You can unlock these powers in any order that you choose, somewhat giving you the ability to pick your path through the game.

After you unlock the last of Elika’s powers, you will find that there are still a few hundred light seeds left lying around. Collecting these can be a lot of fun, especially because doing so takes you to many different nooks and crannies that you might not have bothered to find otherwise. Collecting every single orb isn’t necessary, but it is great to have if you like to compulsively collect things in video games.

I'll take the Express to the ground floor please.

Prince of Persia has a slick art style that the developer describes as illustrative cel-shading. I would describe it as more of a living watercolor painting. Regardless of what you call it, the art style is beautiful and unique. There are many places in the game where I paused for several moments to admire the scenery. Everything looks very good in its corrupted state. However, after an area has been cleansed, the colors become really vibrant and the world seems to pop off the screen. I found many of these places to be rather breathtaking.

The Prince’s new adventure is a worthy one. Unfortunately it comes to an end far too quickly. Prince of Persia isn’t very long, even if you take the time to track down every single light seed before finishing the game. It can be a good thing to leave your audience wanting more, but not when it detracts from the experience at hand. When the journey was over, it felt like it had only just begun.

Final Grade: B+

Handbrake is a free open-source video conversion tool available for Windows, MacOS X and Linux. I stumbled onto this piece of software only a few months ago and I have found it excellent at producing first rate compact versions of some of my DVDs.

It is specifically designed to create MPEG-4 versions on DVDs, but will also complete conversions between a limited set of video codecs (e.g. MPEG to AVI).

Using Handbrake couldn’t be simpler. Just insert your DVD and from the Handbrake main screen select the  VIDEO_TS folder of the DVD and Handbrake will scan for content and provide a list. The normal tricky part of trying to figure out what video and audio codec your device needs has been made easy by having a varied selection of devices to pick from. Selecting your device automatically sets up Handbrake for the optimum quality of video and audio for the output file. Hitting ‘Start’ kicks of the encoding and will dump the file to the place of your choice.

I’ve so far tried this on my iPod Touch and PSP and found that a 2 hour movie ends up around 1GB when encoded for my Touch. With 32GB to play with I’ve stuck several movies onto my iPod and have found them all very clear and easy to watch while sat on the train. I also have many more sat on my Mac and they still look pretty good on the full screen. Having a whole selection of films and TV shows on my Mac is great for traveling and also cuts down on battery consumption as there is no DVD drive to power.

Some of the devices included in the automatic settings include Apple TV, Xbox 360 and PS3, so you can also load these up for watching on your TV.

Buy an 8GB USB stick, load it up with 16 hrs of all your favorite movies and TV shows and you can watch them whenever you have access to a computer, PS3 or Xbox 360.

Please remember, using this software is for personal use only and not for selling on copies of all your DVDs!

Find the software here.

Next week sees the release of Gears of War 2, Resistance 2, Quantum of Solace, and Tom Clancy’s End War. Hope you have you wallet’s primed for use. Keep reading:

This weeks releases of note are:

Sunday (Oct. 26)
Guitar Hero World Tour (PS2, PS3, Wii, 360)

Monday (Oct. 27)
Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 3: Baddest of the Bands (Wii, PC)

Tuesday (Oct. 28)
Fallout 3 (PC, PS3, 360)
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 (PC)
FIFA Soccer 09 All-Play (Wii)
SingStar: Vol. 2 (PS3)
MotoGP 08 (PC, PS2, PS3, 360)
MotorStorm: Pacific Rift (PS3)
Scene It? Box Office Smash (360)

Wednesday (Oct. 29)
Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode Two (Steam, PSN, XBLA)

Thursday (Oct. 30)
Meteos Wars (360)

Sunday (Nov. 2)
AC/DC Live: Rock Band Track Pack (PS2, PS3, 360)

What have you bought so far, and what are you looking forward to?

Monday (Oct. 20)
Dead Space (PC)
Midnight Club: Los Angeles (PS3, 360)
Wii Music (Wii)

Tuesday (Oct. 21)
Fable II (360)
Far Cry 2 (PC, PS3, 360)
BioShock (PS3)
Spider-Man: Web of Shadows (DS, PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii, 360)
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS)
Crash Bandicoot: Mind Over Mutant (PSP)
Eternal Sonata (PS3)
Star Ocean: First Departure (PSP)
The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon (DS, PS2, PS3, Wii, 360)

I can tell you that I’m already well on my way to falling in love with Fable II. Also, for those of you with only a PS3 to game on, be sure to give some consideration to BioShock and Eternal Sonata. Both of which have shown up on the 360, and I vouch for them. Good times to be had there.

Sorry to those of you that was hoping to see the sequel to the smash hit Barbie’s Horse Adventures show up on the list, but I had to cut it off somewhere. Still, that’s out there if you are interested in seeing Barbie have adventures with her horse. Apparently, they are having a riding camp this time. I’m sure that will be a Game of The Year contender for sure.

It only get crazier from here out, too. Next week will see LittleBigPlanet, and the week after is Gears of War 2. But let’s take it one week at a time. What have you picked up, or plan on picking up?

Show Notes

Movies

Jessica Simpson cast in Mort the Dead Teenager

Tidbits on War of the Worlds

Box Office Slump to Continue

Video Games

PS3 Expected to retail at $400

Nintendo Revolution without HD
(To Petition)

Baseball League allows Video Game to Sim game

Other

Discussed Internet entertainment – Twit – The Broken

Zombie Dogs Arise in US

Broadcast Flag