As we count down to 2010, I decided to look back and recount on some standouts from this past year.  Rather than do the usual Best RPG or Best Action Game, I’ve made some awards that are a little more unorthodox.  In lieu of explaining them they’re pretty self-explanatory; I also didn’t bother limiting myself to just games that I had reviewed.  So if you’re curious about RMG choices or just killing a few minutes while we wait for the stroke of midnight, enjoy the RMG 2009 Game Awards!

The Time Bandit Award goes to…

Dragon Age: Origins – BioWare games have developed a habit for their impressive replay value, but even by that standard Dragon Age: Origins will suck up hours of your time.  It took me 35 hours to finish this thing between the main storyline, numerous side quests, and the DLC content.  I didn’t even complete all of the side quests, which I suspect would boost the game to at least 40 hours.  Even the main story quests alone are substantial with quests that take you across all of Ferelden through sizeable dungeons, from mountaintops to dwarven caverns.

The Surprisingly Good Game Award goes to…

Dead Space Extraction - This is probably at the top of everybody’s “Best Game Nobody Played” list, but there are plenty of good reasons for it.  Visceral Games has made one of the few rail shooters for consoles, rather than an arcade rail shooter that happens to be on a console.  The story seamlessly weaves in with Dead Space canon, the graphical downgrade from the 360 is surprisingly minor, and the game makes intuitive use of the Wii motion controls.  It’s just a shame that the sales don’t reflect the effort from the development team.

The Best Adrenaline Inducing Game  Award goes to…

Forza Motorsport 3 – Barely edging out Need for Speed: Shift, the speed factor of Forza 3 bordered on frightening at times.  From the point of view of a driver’s seat, watching your speedometer climb while your engines roared as you flew at lightning speed down a roadway was legitimate cause for an amazing adrenaline rush.  It was equally as adrenaline-inducing to clip the grass and spiral wildly out of control.  Even from a third person perspective, Forza 3 is a literal and figurative rush to play.

Best New Concept Award goes to…

DJ Hero - In a world where guitar games have thoroughly saturated the gaming market, DJ Hero demonstrated that there was plenty of untapped potential in music rhythm games.  Some were apprehensive about the thought of adjusting to a new and very different type of peripheral, but Activision eased you into the game gently.  Once you had the hang of the turntable you’ll be able to enjoy an immersive experience augmented by a great soundtrack and a lot of content.

The Best Game to be a Good Natured Asshole Award goes to…

New Super Mario Bros. Wii - In the Wii iteration of New Super Mario Bros., Nintendo saw fit to give players some peculiar opportunities.  You can now bounce off of other players and knock them out by throwing shells.  This leads to a litany of opportunities to aggravate your friends: Behold as you bounce a buddy of yours straight into a bottomless pit.  Watch as he retaliates by knocking you out with a shell to prevent you from getting that power-up, as you in turn get even by gobbling every power-up that subsequently appears.  As long as you’re playing with other good sports, you’ll have fun turning New Super Mario Bros. Wii into a rousing game of “Who can survive the longest?”

The Best Sandbox Award goes to…

Prototype – If Grand Theft Auto IV gave you superpowers, Prototype would be the result.  In Prototype you have free rein over Manhattan; glide at high speeds through the air, run up tall buildings and form massive craters when you crash into the ground without taking any damage, and leap across skyscrapers effortlessly.  Cops and the military will chase after you for revealing yourself or causing too much trouble, lending to even more chaotic potential by unleashing your various blades, claws, and blunt weapons or hijacking enemy weapons.

The Surprising Disappointment goes to…

Brutal Legend – Brutal Legend itself isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s reasonable to say that action fans betrayed.  The demo was insultingly misleading by suggesting a third person action game akin to God of War.  Instead we got what was chiefly a console real time strategy game.  That in itself wasn’t bad, but the controls were stodgy and your only strategy amounted to zerg rushing whatever you didn’t like and watching your headbangers pummel it into dust.

The Inevitably Bad Game goes to…

Avatar: The Game – Even dedicated promises by James Cameron that this game would be just as epic as its film counterpart fell flat on its face.  It’s linear, dull, and suffers from the same problems that every movie-tie in has.  Your movie-making prowess is as stellar as ever, Mr. Cameron, but that doesn’t extend to games.

The “Good Lord, Just Release it Already!” Award goes to…

Final Fantasy XIII – This has been at what, three E3 summits?  Come on Square-Enix, you owe this to us after Final Fantasy XII!  We know as much as we can about Final Fantasy XIII without even having played it.  Mass Effect 2 and God of War III were considered for this award, but to the developers’ credit they kept a low profile and waited a while before starting to release information about.  We know FFXIII perplexingly well considering it hasn’t even been released.

The “Give us an Update!” Award goes to…

Half Life 2: Episode Three – We’ve barely heard a peep out of Valve considering the conclusion of the Episode trilogy of Half-Life 2.  Despite some concept art Valve has been mum on what happens next in this series, leaving Half-Life fans hanging.  Just to clarify, this isn’t a complaint that the game is taking too long by any means – it just feels like an eternity since we’ve stepped into Gordon Freeman’s shoes.

The RMG Top Five Video Games of 2009

There’s no way I could give these games ratings from 1-5.  They’re all superb in their own ways with excellent strengths, and in a few situations comparing them would be petty because of genre differences.  So without further ado, in no particular order, my top five games of the year are:

Assassin’s Creed II

Dragon Age: Origins

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Batman: Arkham Asylum

These five games all dazzled me in different ways, and even then it was difficult selecting a top five; I simply couldn’t put myself through deciding which was the best.  Happy 2010, everybody!