(Warning, there are some minor spoilers within)

Biggest Letdown – Empire: Total War, Creative Assembly

Now don’t get me wrong, Empire isn’t a terrible game and certainly isn’t the worst game to come out this year nor is it the worst game I’ve played this year but given the standard of the previous Total War games, Empire just didn’t live up to expectations. The Total War series is one of my favorite series of all time, ever since the original Shogun: Total War and Empire promised all that was in previous installations plus a larger world map, a more recent time period, multiplayer campaigns and naval combat.

Really, only two of those really impact the gameplay; multiplayer campaigns which didn’t make it into the final release and are only being patched in now and naval combat which makes the only real bright spot in this installment. While the time period is interesting and fairly unique in the realm of video games, and although mainly my fault for failing to research the game properly, I was expecting Empire to heavily involve the Napoleonic era (an era which they announced recently will be the focus of the next Total War game in 2010) and was quite disappointed when it failed to do so.

That being said, Empire would still be a good game if not for the multitude of bugs and issues that crippled the game to the point it was nearly unplayable; the largest issue being in the case of the AI which was too stupid and buggy to provide any sort of interesting challenge (and given the removal of multiplayer campaigns, the AI was the only challenge in the campaign) which effectively killed the game.

While I haven’t venture back into the game since about a week after I bought it, I’ve heard much of the issues and bugs have since been corrected and as mentioned above, Creative Assembly have finally gotten around to implementing multiplayer campaigns, but the disappointment of the game’s initial release has left too sour a taste for me to get back into the game.

So now that Creative Assembly have worked the kinks out and fixed the issues I eagerly await Napoleon: Total War, hoping that it becomes the game I expected Empire to be (though I’ll probably hold off from buying it on opening day this time).

Overshadowed/Poorly Timed Game of the Year – Assassins Creed 2, Ubisoft Montreal

What do I mean by overshadowed/Poorly Timed? Well, this goes to games that would be game of the year contenders if not for a better game or games in a similar style being released before, or around the same time of, that game. In this case, Assassins Creed 2 is a great game, but my GOTY runner up not only did everything Assassins Creed 2 does (and in most cases, does them better) but was also released 4 months earlier.

As anyone who played the original Assassins Creed can attest, the core mechanics not involving combat were generally well designed and combined well with the level design of the medieval holy lands to provide a great gameplay experience… for a couple of hours. Unfortunately after a couple of hours, you’ve played all the game has to offer and the story wasn’t interesting enough on its own merits to compel people to continue playing the game.

Thankfully, Ubisoft recognized most of their faults from the first game and even more importantly, they actively set about fixing most of them. First, and most importantly, Assassins Creed 2 is far, far less repetitive than its predecessor (though much of the side-quest stuff is still annoyingly repetitive – but unfortunately this is the case with most games where side quests and collectable items are often thrown in as an afterthought, rather than creatively challenging the player in unusual ways not suited to the main quests) and as I found out, you can actually play through the entire game without boring yourself to death.

Breaking up the mindless repetition alone, while a huge step in the right direction, is not the only improvement on the first game; the combat system has also received a nice upgrade, with each weapon in Ezio’s arsenal not only having its own strengths and weaknesses, but also varying in use and strength depending on the opponent and although such a weapon hierarchy certainly isn’t new ground for video games; it makes a huge difference to what was a very bland and uninspired combat system in the original. The story is also a lot more interesting this time around, and more fluidly integrated between the “current day” of Desmond and Ezio’s time, rather than the Desmond scenes thrown in randomly as what seemed to be the case in the first Assassins Creed.

Unfortunately,  the often lauded free-running mechanics still maintain a strange ability to be both completely perfect, and absolute rubbish depending on the circumstances and whether you have to think about them or not. It is easy to flawlessly run a mile across the top of numerous buildings in pursuit of a thief as your mind is focused on not losing them. However, the times the game are most infuriating and needlessly frustrating are when Ubisoft has relied solely on these mechanics for game progression, making the game feel like a poorly constructed platformer rather than a well constructed action-rpg.

Ultimately though, Assassins Creed 2 is still one of the best games to come out this year and would be my runner up for game of the year if Rocksteady hadn’t beaten them to punch with a noticeably superior game, in a similar style to AC2 , and released months earlier.

Runner Up Game of the Year – Batman: Arkham Asylum, Rocksteady Studios

Arkham Asylum is one of those games that come along every now and then and really have no business being blockbuster titles; a licensed title developed by a no-name studio whose only previous release was, by all accounts, an instantly forgettable and rather generic first person shooter and yet it turns out to be the second greatest game this year.

First and foremost, the combat system is so amazingly fluid and as strange as it sounds; it really feels like you flow through the melee, leaving a trail of broken and battered henchman in your wake and Rocksteady have done a brilliant job of making the combat simple yet engaging and barely repetitive. Furthermore, you really feel like Batman rather than the Superman who typically inhabits these types of games; bullets actually hurt you and standing in front of an armed goon will quickly result in a dead Batman.

That’s not to say the game is based purely on the combat, in fact much of the game is sneaking around and exploring the game environments via Batman’s arsenal of tools such as the grappling hook and line gun, solving the Riddler’s hidden puzzles and brain teasers as you go along. In fact, much of the more interesting sections of the game involve little to no combat, especially much of the Scarecrow and medical facility sections.

Which brings me to another highlight; the use of the Batman license, especially Arkham Asylum itself and the villains incarcerated there, are so well fleshed out and developed throughout the game. Events such as the aforementioned Riddler’s gradual mental breakdown as you solve his riddles, to the freaky 4^th-wall breaking scenes with the Scarecrow are brilliantly brought to life and highlight how well the Batman license can be applied to a game as opposed to other mediums. Oh, and also my favorite portrayal of the Joker ever (sorry Heath). Even with the wealth of development through the game’s storyline there is even more in extra unlockables/collectables ranging from tapes of psychiatric evaluation of the main villains to profiles and trivia on characters that don’t even appear in the game itself.

It’s also worth noting how well stealth aspects are implemented in Arkham Asylum; most noticeably the sneaking around on high catwalks and gargoyle statues as well as the hit and run attacks that make Batman who he is. While the game does occasionally abuse these mechanics to construct boss-like challenges, even these segments are usually well implemented with only one such moment I can remember as being exceptionally frustrating.

All in all, Arkham Asylum is one of the greatest games of all time and arguably the greatest licensed game not involving Riddick for a long time, lets hope Rocksteady can further develop and improve on what they’ve done here with its recently announced sequel.

Game of the Year – Dragon Age: Origins, Bioware

So… where to begin? Well, Dragon Age is far and away the best game to come out this year and easily one of the top games to be released this decade. Billed as the spiritual successor to the Baldur’s Gate games (2 of my favorite games of all time), and over 5 years in the making, Dragon Age had huge standards to live up to. Thankfully, Bioware have kept their streak of 0 bad games alive as Dragon Age has live up to those standards at its worst, and far exceeded them at its best.

The best place to start I guess would be the immense volume of content available inside the game – I’ve spent the better part of 60 hours in Ferelden (finishing the main story just once) and feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of the world. As always, Bioware have just done a superb job of bringing the world to life, not only the major characters and areas but even areas so minor they don’t even appear in the game are so well realized with more backstory than many games put into their main characters.

Backstory is nice, but backstory alone is meaningless without development and that’s always been where Bioware has set themselves apart from other developers with similar games and rich backstories; their character development. Very few games do a good job of naturally evolving and developing their characters; usually you can really notice that they’re way too rigid and structured rather than feeling natural and fluid. Furthermore, the interaction between all of your supporting characters actually has a huge impact on the gameplay as well as the story; disappointing or feuding with another party member can cause them to leave you or even have them try and kill you, whereas encouraging and being friendly to them can lead to strong friendships, or even relationships.

Still, all this story and character development wouldn’t produce a Game of the Year if not supported by the strong, though uninspired, combat of Dragon Age. The influences of past Bioware RPGs such Knights of the Old Republic and the Baldur’s Gate series are clear and anyone familiar with any of these games quickly find themselves at home, as little has changed over time. Far and away the largest change is the addition of a FFXII-like system of managing your party member’s actions when you’re not controlling as you can set abilities for them to do depending on certain parameters/circumstances (i.e. healing anyone whose HP drops below 25%) which, although I’d prefer a decent AI system, is well implemented and fits the rest of the gameplay quite well.

In my early opinions, I was disappointed with the strange balance in the difficulty of the game; for much of the game the easy difficulty was far too easy but the “normal” difficulty was far too jumpy (i.e. one fight would be so easy you didn’t even need to be at the computer, then the next against the same opponent would be next to impossible). Thankfully, a patch was released not long after the game’s release which solves this; the normal difficulty is now very playable and less random spikes in challenge.

I could go on for ages, but I don’t want this to turn into a huge piece; the main thing to know is that Dragon Age is by far the best game to come out this year; and unless you have some deep hatred of RPGs, it’s a game no-one should miss.