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Game of the Year 2009, using Science!
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It's time for Game Grump's Game of the Year award. We don't have a bunch of different silly awards, just the one. The best one, the ultimate one. It's Game of the Year 2009 here at Game Grump, so let's see who was in the running.
Most sites are long finished with “game of the year” features, but we grumps deliberate more carefully. Much more carefully. Unlike most teams who simply sit around and spitball a list, I, as a duly self-appointed editor at Game Grump, have determined a much better way. Collective opinion is so... so subjective! I have determined the only objective way to arrive at the year's best: science!
Yes, science. By gathering actual empirical evidence, organizing it, analyzing it, and presenting conclusive results, I will objectively determine our Game of the Year. Here is my method:
Given: My entire e-mail archive for 2009. Given: My mail program's 'advanced search' tool. Given: Time on my hands. Determine: A list of the video games I mention in a year of e-mails. Determine: How frequently each game comes up. Conclude: The game that is mentioned the most is Game Grump's GOTY.
To show just how carefully this science was carried out, here are details of my rigor:
A message only counts if it mentions the game in a positive manner. All messages count only once for a game, but - A message can count toward multiple games, if many are mentioned. All repeated mail nested in threaded replies is, of course, discarded.
I now present the raw, unbiased results!
All right, we can immediately see some problems with this data. Over half of the list contains games that were released before 2009. And in the case of Super Mario Bros. 2, long long before. And in the case of Um Jammer Lammy, what the hell? Clearly, this data is too noisy to elicit conclusions. It is scientifically impossible to award GOTY 2009 to a game that came out in 2008, or any other year.
Also, we have to admit, there are a few games on this list, specifically Brutal Legend, Street Fighter IV, Borderlands, and 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, which I did not actually play. In the case of some, I caught a demo or some brief playtime. In the case of others, nothing at all. And in the case of 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, I still really, really want to get my hands on it, you have no idea. But if it's unplayed, we can't count it. Let's soldier on.
The data must be cleansed. In so doing, we are left with:
Better. All of these are 2009 games, and thus the winner should be clear. But now we have another problem: Modern Warfare 2 takes the top spot. There is no way on God's Green Earth I'm giving our venerated Game of the Year to Modern Warfare 2.
Due respect, MW2 is a fine game. Superbly crafted, addictive, full of variety, full of fun. It's also full of obnoxious 12 year olds whose parents must be educated on the meaning of the “M” rating (Like the game clerk said: it means 'for adults.' For big boys who are only children on the inside. Every retailer cards for age nowadays. It's your lackadaisical attitude that's getting these games into your rotten little monster's hands, not any corrupt entertainment industry full of devilry and hooker-beating. Yes, I am telling you how to raise your kids, since you don't seem to care to do so).
Wait, what? Where was I? Oh, yes. Modern Warfare 2. Not our Game of the Year. And not because of any personal vendetta, or indeed any subjective motivation at all. No, the reason it doesn't qualify is pure and simple: outlier bias. More science!
I will explain. For years, my friends and I have run a clan mailing list. We talk about games. We talk about getting online at certain times to play games. We talk shit to each other about the games we just played. So, whatever game the group is fixated on, we all tend to mention it in e-mail a lot. And, since there is a slight streak of machismo running through the group (more a wide swath, actually), the games on there tend to be of a certain type. A type with guns in them.
This is why Gears of War 2 topped the raw data list. A 2008 game played well into 2009. This is also why Modern Warfare 2 comes in second place. The loudest area of my gaming life is connected to the clan list. But when it comes to evangelizing games, I cannot take clan list contribution as my true assessment of game of the year.
So then, discard the outlier, and we will have our winner.
Congratulations, Forza 3! Scientifically, you have won Game Grump's “Game of the Year” award! The pinnacle of driving video games on any platform, over and above all driving games in any subgenre, and (yes thank you very much) trouncing the long-since abdicated king, Gran Turismo 5 (more like Also-ran Turismo 5! Ha!), this is the best time you'll ever have with virtual driving.
With over 400 cool cars, gorgeous car-porn graphics, immersive cockpit views, and various things to do off of the track, I'm proud to award Forza 3 our....
 Yes, that's a custom-painted 8-Bit Jesus car tearing it up in first place.
But wait. Wait a minute here. I love myself some Forza 3. Big time. And if you look at the raw data again, you'll also see that its predecessor, Forza 2 also consumed a chunk of my psyche last year. A fine, fine game.
And yet. And yet. Something's tingling in my head, right back there, right at the right side of my noggin. What's that, hemisphere? You think that Game of the Year should be an emotional choice, made with passion, not just cold logic?
It seems my right hemisphere is demanding a say. What then? What would it have me do? In looking at these results, I have to tell you that science already paints a strikingly accurate picture of my passions last year. I've certainly sunk some hours into Halo 3 ODST. And look at “Board Games!” Those aren't even on a TV. We played them on tables, with other people. Hell, my brother and I tried to design our own! Good times. Even the iPhone makes an appearance with Drop 7, the most profoundly brilliant puzzle game since Tetris, I shit you not. And there's ... ah, there's....
Trials HD. One of the lowest ranking games on the scientific e-mail results. But. Here is a game that took the undeniable awesomeness of Excitebike, distilled it down to the simplest of controls (accelerate, brake, and lean back or forward), and somehow managed to make it infinitely deep. A basic description of Trials HD (the best-of-breed in a pedigree of past Trials games) belies its brilliance. In a sentence: You drive your motocross bike through a warehouse, jumping ramps, maintaining your balance, and avoiding deathtraps in a race for the fastest time to the finish line.
Actually, that doesn't belie its brilliance. That sounds (pardon me) fucking cool. Now, imagine the most amped-to-11, polished-on-every-side, touch-perfect-physics, photo-realistic version of that idea. Now, cram it full of the most creative Rube-Goldberg obstacles you can imagine. Yeah, there are loads of ramps and pits, exploding barrels and even an occasional “booster” power-up. But there are also see-saws, avalanches of truck tires, giant pinball flippers, and steel balls to balance on top of.
And then, the designers start getting really creative. In addition to dozens of courses over five difficulty levels, they designed a dozen mini-games with new goals. Ski jump, intentionally bail to break as many bones as possible, see how far you can (carefully!) tow a trailer of bombs before you jostle them too much and BOOM!
As Vince for Shamwow says, “No paper towel can do that!” All of this for only ten freaking dollars. And if you call now, in the next 20 minutes, because you know we can do this all day, the developers will release a Big Pack of levels, nearly doubling the size of the game, for only five dollars more. All before the ball drops and it becomes 2010.
Whew. Deep breath.
 Trials HD. This is actually the level editor. The level editor is awesome.
Aaand they included the level editor in there, which just blows the doors off. Trials HD only came up in e-mails a few times in 2009. You want to know what those emails were? They were e-mails to myself. I was mailing Xbox Live gamertags that I'd found on the developer's own forums to myself, so I'd have them handy when I got home. So I could become Xbox friends with these strangers. So that I could download their levels and share my own levels with them. That's passion. Obsession. That's more hours transfixed in a game (per dollar at least), than any other game this year.
Forza 3 takes the crown for science, but Trials HD is the winner for passion. In the end, I prefer passion; Trials HD was where I had the most fun in 2009. But respect and recognition must be given to the scientifically proven winner, which I honestly have a good deal of passion for as well.
So, as surely as my brain has two hemispheres (ever at war!), there are two Game Grump GOTY winners. Congratulations to both. Now I think I need to take a drink and lie down. This is what the year's best games do to me. Whew!
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Parry by Daniel Dujnic
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I have to agree with Matt on Trials HD, it wins the GOTY easily. The game is deceptively simple, especially given the accessibility of the early tracks. The later levels are so different that they actually give birth to a second game, where it's not just jumps and speed that are important, but also angles, weight distribution and torque. It gets hard, but I goddamn finished every course, even though some took 30 minutes and 500 tries.
Trials manages that blend of classic and modern gaming that few titles can pull off well. It's ExciteBike how you wanted it to be, with many more jumps and crazy shit, a Quick Restart button, and lively graphics. Trials is also surprisingly immersive - it is the first game that I can remember since the NES days that made physically jerk the controller where I wanted my guy to go (to no avail).
Trials HD wins the 'passion' side, but what about my scientific GOTY? Well, mine is pretty shameful. If I include the Facebook data from my inbox, the clear winner, by a large margin, is Mafia Wars from Zynga. In 2009, Zynga, while other game companies were slashing jobs, was actually expanding (they even opened a new office here in Maryland). Their games seem shallow, but have sharp hooks that catch on the surface of your brain as if you had thrown it through a sticker bush.
I finally kicked the habit. On January 9th I finished the 'New York' part of the game and put it down forever, forgoing any excursion into the Cuba, Moscow, or the soon-to-be-released Hong Kong. Also, as an aside, I gave up on Farmville back before they started expanding it, and I won't go back. The last thing I need is for Lonely Strawberry Cows to show up in my Facebook feed.
So long, Zynga, thanks for all the... progress bars.
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'Game of the Year 2009, using Science!'
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#&rendershop#
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