Robert Jiang’s Top 5 Games of 2009

(For the 10 years of Giantbomb and my 5 years visiting it regularly.)

This is my first retroactive yearly top game list with Giantbomb. Whoever is reading this might be wondering where is the list for 2008. Well, I was not actively gaming back then, by which I mean I didn’t get my own Xbox 360 until late June, 2009.( Around the time Micheal Jackson past away actually.) Now with half of months shaved away, here is 5 games I pick to represent my experience with games that year, enjoy.

List items

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  1. Batman: Arkham Asylum

  Die Hard, with Batman!

  This is not only the best game I played that year, it was also the first new(As in the game came out in 2009) disc game I bought that year. After 2 months of catching up with shooters of earlier years, Halo, COD of the Modern Warfare variety, Gear of War and what not, it was refreshing to play a real ass action adventure with both combat and puzzle solving elements. Perhaps because the game came out very shortly after the next item on this list, “polygonal Metrovania powered by Unreal Engine 3” as a one two punch was definitely a thing for the tail end of that summer. Too bad that Konami Digital Entertainment still cannot figure out of a way to make a good 3D Castlevania like this.

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  2. Shadow Complex

  This is actually the first hit of the one two punch mentioned above, but with some flaws, I have to place it lower in this list. This game by Epic and Chair has one of the loudest appeal for its sequel in the last decade, it’s not hard to see after playing it. Though tides and tides of side scrolling Metrovania games have come out digitally after Shadow Complex’s debut on Xbox Live Arcade, fewer of those, while fine on their own, have the AAA polish of it. Which not only made one of the best games of 2009, but also an important for the decade.

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  3. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

  While not knowing that at the time, Mike Whiskey Two turns out to be the only Charlie Oscar Delta I would ever played seriously. The campaign was the most blockbuster bullshit out there(Given that I didn’t have a PS3 until 2014 and never played Uncharted 2, please take this with a grain of salt), Spec Ops is a fun bonus and I spent dozens of cold nights shooting people virtually instead of sleeping. Too bad those map packs got expensive, or I would have stock with COD in the years to come.

  (Kudos to Giantbomb's wiki team to archive this game as it should be called.)

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  4. Halo 3: ODST

  Halo series was one of the reasons why I picked Xbox instead of Playstation(A loyalty I no longer have as it turns out.), yet I always have a problem with the series’ tendency to tease sequels. So as one of two Halo campaign that stand on their own, I have no reason not to like O.D.S.T’s “who is who in sci-fi TV show” story. Plus, a second disc that allow me to jump in on Halo 3 multiplayer without worring about DLC is quite a bonus.

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  5. Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City

  Okay, it’s bit of a stretch, especially given that I played both Lost & Damned and Ballad of Gay Tony as downloadable add-on to Grand Theft Auto IV instead of buying the disc version. But one can be desperate when one tries to put together a list of games for only 6 months. The 2 packs laid the ground work for my personal game of 2013, Grand Theft Auto V, so I would give them their due here in the form of an item on a list.