So you voted for some games that you felt deserved game of the year for 2009, but some of yours have been eliminated already. What does that mean for the top games? Don’t know about those yet, but here’s 8 and 7.
8. Demon’s Souls- Demon’s Souls is one of those games that five years from now, when there’s talk about the next King’s Field, everyone is going to claim that they too played Demon’s Souls. Its a game that sits on the level with Ico and Vagrant Story. Passed on by many when it came out, immediately killing the chances for a true sequal.
“The first words out of this game’s mouth is that if any of this shit really happened, you’d be dead real quick. But there’s more. A patchwork of muscle memory and instinct starts to weave just below your skin. You start talking another language to yourself when you can’t play. You start noticing platforms and curiosities off in the distance long after you’ve turned off the console. Implicit in the crushing reality of make-believe is that the more you sacrifice of yourself, the richer the reward at the end; even if that’s just a visual reward, even if it’s just a personal reward, even if the journey is its own reward. First impressions are misleading. If any of this shit happened to me in real life, I’d be ready for it. Demon’s Souls taught me a lot about by myself. ”
Negative: “I couldn’t find a single person to say something negative about this game. The closest I came was the jealous younglings yearning to play this Playstation 3 exclusive. That, and there’s those pussies that complain its too hard. My Circuitjerk tip: Grow a pair, grab a sword, and let’s slay some demons.” -Dan
Not so fast! A late, and well executed negative from Marshall:
“For me, it’s a brutally bitter morsel. I understand its simple calculus: Think carefully before you engage the enemy. And this works. Beautifully. Yet, for me it was just too punishing. Forcing players that die (and lose ALL of their captured souls) to re-clear areas they spent hours carefully advancing through strips away any feeling of progression. It’s like you were never there. And it’s felt keenest when a player dies just trying to reclaim her bloody smear on the floor.” – Marshall
7. F.E.A.R. 2- Fear came out of nowhere in 2006 and had gamer’s and spectators reaching for the lightswitch and 
trigger simultaneously. Fear 2 came out of nowhere as well, but not the same way. We didn’t really started hearing about this until only months before its release. There wasn’t real time to build gamer hype. Hell, most people were just picking up Fear files and playing the fan created content.
“A rock-solid shooter cut to the shape of a paranormal thriller, F.E.A.R. 2 laid down an enthralling story painted on a dark canvas. With no deficiencies and no minutiae overlooked, the action and pacing married perfectly with the ghostly visuals and ethereal vibe to offer players an incessant tug toward moments of creeping unease and the hope of answered questions.” -Marshall
Negative: “One of my biggest gripes about FEAR 2 is that it is the same old creepy little girl trying to scare you. The gameplay doesn’t really change much from 1 to 2. The game isn’t all that scary, but for some reason that is what they try to use to set the game apart from other FPS. That’s just it though, it is just another FPS that doesn’t really have a great storyline and seems to fall in amongst the crowd.” -Robert
I am shocked that FEAR 2 made it all the way to # 7.
I’m a tad bit shocked too. GROW UP PEOPLE
I’m guilty of voting for FEAR 2, but when I looked back at the games that came out this year, FEAR was actually one of the top 10. Now saying that, I’m 90% sure that FEAR 2 was my number 10 slot.
It was a solid shooter, with a decently intriguing story, and had the best Mech mechanics since the original Armored Core in 1994.
I hate to throw down this divide of “getting it” and “not gettting it,” but if you walked away from this game figuring it was the “same old creepy little girl,” you weren’t paying attention. It was the reflection of that girl’s face in the military industrial complex and the broader implications of tabula rasa. It was the slow descent into madness, the long slip sideways into the void. And I don’t mind mentioning that it has the best M1014 shotgun in all of videogameland.
yawn… play somthing better then “generic FPS with survial horror angle and generic scary child”
I am going to say I am no just shocked but a little disappointed it made it to #7
Hey I played the MMO Tabula Rasa!
I think part of the reason I couldn’t vote FEAR 2 higher is because I couldn’t detach myself enough from the feeling I had playing the first one. The absolute horror, the beautiful gunplay, the unbeatable AI all worked together to give you something that was unheard of in 2006.
Now that its 2009, I was expected to be blown away again. FEAR 2 was unable to blow me away the same way that Uncharted 2 did. It was unable to reveal anything about this story that I’m deeply invested in like Resident Evil 5 did.
When all was said and done it did poorly on my list. I don’t think its fully the games fault, but rather my emotional attachment to a memory.