I can't even remember the last time I had such a difficult time coming up with my Game of the Year. There's been so many fantastic games this year that it's really hard to choose from. In 2010, all the games that were delayed from this year are going to be released and it looks like it could be even tougher. So here are my nominees as well as their awards followed by my choice for the 2009 Game of the Year.

Game of the Year Nominees:

Assassin's Creed II

My Score: 9.5/10

-Most Improved Sequel

-Best Story

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

My Score: 9.5/10

-Best Multiplayer

-Best Lead Characters

Borderlands

My Score: 9.0/10

-Most Distinstive

-Most Creative Graphics

Dragon Age: Origins

My Score: 9.5/10

-Best RPG

-Most Intriguing Story

-Most Badass Villains

Halo 3: ODST (X360)

My Score: 9.0/10

-Most Addicting Multiplayer

Batman: Arkham Asylum

My Score: 9.5/10

-Sleeper Hit

-Best Use of Gadgets

-Best Villains

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

My Score: 9.0/10

-Best Use of System Features

Shadow Complex

My Score: 9.0/10

-Most Rewarding

The Sims 3

My Score: 9.0/10

-Most Addicting Gameplay

Street Fighter IV

My Score: 8.5/10

-Most Competitive Multiplayer

-Toughest Game

Resident Evil 5

My Score: 9.0/10

-Most Terrifying Villains

Forza Motorsport 3

My Score: 9.5/10

-Best Use of User Created Content

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony

My Score: 9.5/10

-Funniest Game

-Most Memorable Characters

Guitar Hero 5

My Score: 9.0/10

-Best Cameos

-Best Use of Creative Liscensing

As you can see, it was a pretty tough choice coming up with the Game of the Year. There were dozens of fantastic games this year, and it was really hard to sort through them all and come up with a clear winner. In what was quite possibly the closest race for the award...

Game of the Year 2009:

[spoiler] [/spoiler]

I'm sure most will be surprised with my choice, especially for those who read my blog about the two main contenders for the award. But after much deliberation, I decided to go with what was a little bit of the underdog. As much as I wanted to give other games the precious award, I had to go with it. It was the game that surprised me the most, and it was one that I will never forget. It is also the game that I regret selling the most, and I plan on soon buying it back.

Oh, the glory days of my childhood. I went from a Super Nintendo to a Nintendo 64 one Christmas, and with it a copy of Goldeneye. Soon I was so hooked on the game that I was playing it for many hours at a time with my older brothers. I completed the campaign more times than I could count, and my collection of games expanded to more than 20 in the time of my having it. Here's a list of my favorite games for one of my all time favorite video-game consoles.

#5: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater

The game that got me into a huge love and appreciation for the long-running skateboarding game franchise, I got this for Christmas from my grandparents and played it so much that my parents probably thought I was going to ruin the cartridge. I played multiplayer with many people, and I got so good at it that I was beating every single person I played at it. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater for the N64 brought me into a love and respect for skateboarders everywhere, and I became such a huge fan of the series that I bought every single game up to Proving Ground and loved every single one of them.

#4: Super Mario 64

Oh, Mario games. You hold such a special place in my heart. I borrowed this game from a friend and got so hooked on it that I didn't return it to him for several months (much to his displeasure). I eventually bought my own copy and managed to get every single star in the game on all the Files in the game. I was the first person to tell my friends about what the canon did outside the castle, and that Yoshi made a special cameo when you used it properly. My favorite moments in the game included the Koopa Race, Penguin Slide, and the final Bowser Stage & Battle. I still enjoyed Super Mario World more than this, but I loved every single minute of playing Super Mario 64 and still do to this day.

#3: Goldeneye

Arguably the best game based on a movie there is, Goldeneye 64 got gamers to see that there were some movie-based games out there that were actually good. Actually, stratch that, REALLY good. My brothers and I played through the game many times, figured out all of the game's secrets, and even succesfully unlocked the two secret bonus levels in the Campaign. Even the cheatcodes in the game added in tons more fun, and anyone I talk to recalls Big Head Mode and Paintball Gun Mode almost instantaneously. Goldeneye is the game to beat for best movie game.

#2: Perfect Dark

Two words: Laptop Gun. Anyone who has played Perfect Dark can think of that and automatically say "Ohhh yeah! I LOVED that thing!" Then we've got the alien Elvis that Joana Dark rescues from a base and we're lead on this crazy journey through many different epic stages. Perfect Dark helped establish a love for First Person Shooters for me, and the multiplayer had me so hooked at times that I questioned my gaming addiction.

#1: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Also holds the honor for being my Favorite Game of All Time, Ocarina of Time holds such a special place in my heart that whenever I begin talking about it I could go on for a long, long time. I've spent countless hours playing through the game, and I even can proudly say that I beat the Water Temple without needing a stratedgy guide or too much frustration. I've memorized how to complete nearly every dungeon, and any time a friend would ask me how to beat a certain part I would be able to recall it and walk them through it with ease. I can't remember most of that too well anymore, but I can say that Ocarina of Time is one game that is going to be incredibly tough to beat.

Other Favorites: Super Smash Bros., Conker's Bad Fur Day, Mario Party 2, Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

(Since I do not own a Wii anymore and haven't owned a PS3 I was unable to put any games for those consoles under consideration. A lot of people would argue Uncharted 2 the obvious choice, but I haven't played it at all so I wouldn't know. It would be unfair to pick a game that I haven't even played.)

Quite possibly the toughest GOTY pick I've ever had to make, it's been so close that I went back and forth between Assassin's Creed II and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 so many times that I was driving myself crazy. The problems I have with both had to be taken into account, and what I loved about them had to be put into a list so I could see them side by side. Eventually, the clear winner was Assassin's Creed II. As much as I love the Call of Duty series, and as much as Modern Warfare 2 blew my mind - I could not bring myself to give it the award. I think the main reasoning behind my decision is that Assassin's Creed II improved on virtually every level possible in the game, and yet Modern Warfare 2 remained the same in many key areas. Sure, it improved in a lot of ways in Multiplayer but the Single Player Campaign just seemed to pack in so much action that it got ridiculous after a while.

I am not hating on Modern Warfare 2 at all here, I am just expressing my problems with it. So that nobody would come under this impression, I'll go ahead and state my issues with Assassin's Creed II as well. The only things that kept it down from a perfect score were some issues with the controls and the camera. Sometimes when I was trying to climb a building or run away from Guards I would sometimes jump in the complete wrong direction or jump off a building when trying to get to another ledge. It's not entirely the game's fault for this, it belongs a bit to me, but it would have been nice if there would have been an easier way for doing certain things. Then sometimes the camera would be put at an incredibly awkward angle whenever I was trying to Free-Run to a certain area, which caused me to either fall or have to start over the goal. This happened to me fairly often when trying to get to the Assassin Tombs, and it was incredibly frustrating to have to start over just because of the camera getting crazy on me.

As much as I loved the story of Modern Warfare 2, I have found that I haven't wanted to go back and play it yet since I completed it. I did not have this problem with the original Modern Warfare, and in fact I went right back in after I beat it. There were certain missions I wouldn't have minded replaying, but I haven't been compelled to just yet. I think it may be just that I'm getting a bit tired of First Person Shooters, but it may be that I'm getting tired of Call of Duty since I've been hooked on the titles for the past several years. But then with Assassin's Creed II, as soon as I was done I wanted to keep playing. I've gone back to find new stuff I missed before, and I think pretty soon I'll replay the Story to catch some stuff I missed and some more Achievements. I think pretty soon I'll want to go back and replay Modern Warfare 2, but until then I think I'll want to play other games before I jump back into it again.

My Game of the Year pick will be announced January 1st, 2010.

(Edited 2 total times to first remove the Xbox 360 GOTY mention since they are both multiplatform games, and because I'm still going back and forth on my pick I need more time to make up my mind officially.)

So I'm proud to say that Assassin's Creed II completely blew away all expectations I had for it. It was a hundred times better than the first game, and beat it out in every possible way. I'm proud to say that ACII is a serious contended for Game of the Year. Modern Warfare 2, I thought, was my GOTY, but now it seems that Assassin's Creed II is a sure contender for me.

There's still a few weeks left in the year, and as soon as the year ends I will start making my list for my picks for Game of the Year. The Saboteur is still ahead, and if I hear good things about it I think I'll try and pick it up. But if not, then consider Assassin's Creed II and Modern Warfare 2 my two picks for my Game of the Year. :)

Assassin's Creed II - Impressions

Picked this up today after I traded in Batman: Arkham Asylum and Skate 2 (I regret the former already) so I could get it for $20. I'm only a few hours in, but I can safely say already that this game improves upon everything from the first in every possible way. My favorite thing about the original was climbing all of the buildings, and there are updated mechanics for it in the sequel that make it even more fun to do. I think my favorite things so far are all the new Assassination Techniques as well as being able to upgrade your equipment. I just recently was able to purchase updgrades on the town I'm in, and I'm really excited to do that because I love seeing how game worlds change whenever the player introduces something new.

This sequel may go down as one of the Most Improved Sequels of all time. The first title was good, but it was flawed in many areas. It's as if Ubisoft really listened to all the feedback and tried to intergrate as many improvements as they could. The only complaints I have found so far are that sometimes whenever I'm Free Running on rooftops, sometimes I will want to go one direction and it will send me in the completely wrong way. This has happened sometimes whenever guards were chasing me, and on several occasions caused me to fail some missions. I'm glad there are good checkpoints in the missions though, because if you had to start all over then there'd be millions of pissed off gamers out there. :P

Borderlands - Impressions

I'm getting pretty close to finally completing this game (I've been putting it off for a while now) and I'm pretty excited to see how the story develops. I think this may be one of my favorite new IP's of the last several years, and I'm sure that it could probably have a few sequels. The idea to add loot to the mix was a brilliant move, and really what makes it stand out from FPS games, which as we know is a heavily crowded market. Another fantastic thing that I love are the graphics, which really give Borderlands some added personality that makes it shine. Gearbox had a ton of really great ideas for the game, and I'm glad they were all implemented as well as they were. I've been playing as Lilith (the Siren) and I've really been enjoying playing as her a lot. I'm always happy to change things up a bit in games whenever I get to play as a Female character, it's something I've been missing ever since I stopped playing Perfect Dark so much. I think I may even play through the game several times just to see how each character's different abilities change up how you play through the game.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Mini-Review

This is going to be hard to compact into a Mini-Review, but I'll try and get straight to the point with what I bring up. Whenever I first got my hands on the original Modern Warfare, I was blown away with the incredible moments of the game. This got me to wondering, "How can they EVER top this?!" All there is to say is, they topped it in EVERY possible way! Time and time again during the Campaign, there are moments that leave you breathless and amazed. Infinity Wards has some serious cajones for some of the stuff they pulled off (such as the airport level) and I'm really glad that they had them to do the stuff they did. I don't want to spoil anything major about the story, but I'll just say that I was really happy to see some returning characters in the Campaign, including one that literally made me stand up and shout "YEESSS!" Soap MacTavish's triumphant return was especially nice since we finally got to see his face, and he is one of the most bad*** Video-Game characters out there.

Then we've got the Multiplayer, which is why millions of users of Xbox Live have accounts. The Multiplayer was another thing that I was wondering how they were going to improve it, and once again I was extremely satisfied with the new additions. Blowing up a UAV never gets old, neither does throwing a knife at someone and hitting them in the face. All the new Weapons, Perks, and Gametypes are all terrific additions and I'm thrilled to see how Infinity Ward was able to change up some of the previous perks from the original title to make them more fair than they used to be. The Martyrdom Perk is now a Death Streak perk, and you only get it whenever you're a Level 27 or so, and that little change really helps out a lot whenever you're in a game. The Multiplayer is now way more intense than ever before, and you never know quite what to expect from an opposing player with the new Kill Streak Rewards. (Getting an Auto-Turret next to the Headquarters is oh-so-satisfying.)

Infinity Ward is a rare breed of a company. Any sequel they put out, they always (ALWAYS) make it bigger and better than before. From Call of Duty, to Call of Duty 2, to Modern Warfare, to now, they've topped what they've done before time and time again. I can't even imagine what they've got planned for their next installment in the franchise, but I know for sure that it's going to be incredible.

Coming Soon: Full Reviews for Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony, Borderlands, and Assassin's Creed II.