The Third Annual Coint and Plick poll - Vote for ILG's best games of 2009! (VOTING CLOSES TODAY!)

Hey all; it's end of the year and here we go again!

For 2008's Coint and Plick we had twenty-five voters; this time I'd love to aim for fifty! I'd like to request that folks who even just played one or a very few games this year put in a ballot with us; if you're only voting for one or two games, that's just fine. We like casual gamers too and we'll happily take lurkers! Everybody is welcome.

Please submit your ballot via email to me at
forksclovetofu at gmail dot com
in Pazz and Jop style vote/point format: You'll have 100 points to divide among your Top 10 games released in 2008, with each entry receiving no more than 30 points or less than 5 points. If you'd rather not rank individually, just assign 10 points per game. I'll list the top 50 games of '08 in the final results, presuming I get enough entries.

Additionally, please include the single game released this year that was your biggest disappointment. This can mean it didn't live up to your expectations, flat out sucked, didn't quite get it right... whatever "biggest disappointment" means to you. I'll list the top ten biggest disappointments.

Please note your username on the ballot and the system you personally played each game on. PLEASE WRITE A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHY YOU'RE CASTING YOUR VOTES AS YOU ARE; I'll include some of the best comments with the winners. I may ask for additional people to write brief comments once the ball gets rolling.

DEADLINE FOR ENTRY IS JANUARY 25th; I'll try to have the final results posted by February 1st. I

Pointless obsessive rules:

1) One entry per person.

2) If you don't assign points to your picks, I'll assess each vote at ten points per game. If you do assign points but they add up as either more or less than a hundred, I'll assess each vote at ten points per game. If you assign over 30 or under 5 points to any individual game, I'll assess each vote at ten points per game. If you list more than ten games, I'll just take the top ten on your list. If you include a game that clearly didn't come out in 2009, it won't be counted. Ask on this thread if you want to check to see if your pick is valid. If you're listing an obscure import-only title, flash game, social network or phone game, please include a URL for the game's fan/homepage so I can figure out what you're raving about.

3) Though I'd like you to note what system you've played a game on, I'll be considering votes for a game that's been released on different systems (i.e. PS3/360 Arkham Asylum) as all counting toward one nomination... unless there's a clear difference due to systems that affects gameplay (i.e. Madden for Wii/Madden for 360). In a case like Dragon Age Origins PC vs console, I'll likely not be splitting hairs, but if you want to make the point that you ONLY like the PC version in your ballot, I'll take that into account.

4) Flash games, art games, MMORPGs, videogame versions of card and party games, online fantasy sports, social network games and cellphone games are all entirely valid choices as long as they were versions released and played in '09.

I will also accept any game that has been re-released this year in a new format/console, any game that is in a continuous state of change (basically MMORPGs) or downloadable content for a game made prior to 2009. That means World of Warcraft, any of the Fallout 3 modules and any classic NES games released as Wiiware are legit picks. Here's the catch though: I do ask that you keep in the spirit of the thing and only vote for reissues/new content/ongoing games if you played them THIS YEAR and (when applicable) only on the new system in question... in other words, I won't vote for Braid on PS3, even though I liked Braid a lot, because I didn't play it on the PS3. Similarly, if you played an emulation of Sam and Max this year on your PC, don't vote for the 360 DLC version. If you played a ton of World of Warcraft but not this year, don't vote for it. If you played Fallout 3 for the first time this year, don't vote for the game unless you're voting solely for the new content. And so on.

Things that shouldn't be nominated: board games, card games, puzzles, table rpgs, etc. Good rule of thumb is that if it has a screen, it's valid.

A list of some of the best known games released in '09 follows; your ballot will not have to be limited to these games but they're all certainly the front runners. Make sense? Then VOTE!

1 vs 100
50 Cent: Blood in the Sand
AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity
Afrika
Aion
Anno 1404 - Dawn of Discovery
Arkham Asylum
Assassin's Creed 2
Atelier Rorona: Alchemist of Arland
Band Hero
Battlefield 1943
Bayonetta
Big Word Puzzle Book
BlazBlue
Bomberman Ultra
Borderlands
A Boy and His Blob
Brutal Legend
Bowser's Inside Story
Braid (PS3)
Canabalt
Command and Conquer - Red Alert 3
COP: The Recruit
Critter Crunch
Cross Edge
Dead Space: Extraction
DeathSmiles
Demons Souls
Dirt 2
DJ Hero
Dragon Age
Dragon Quest V
Dragon Quest Wars
Drop 7
Empire Total War
Fallout 3 - Broken Steel
Fallout 3- Point Lookout
Fat Princess
Flower
Forza Motorsport 3
Fossil Fighters
FUEL
Ghostbusters
God of War Collection
Grand Slam Tennis
GTA - Chinatown Wars
GTA IV - The Ballad of Gay Tony
Guitar Hero 5
Gyromancer
Half Minute Hero
Halo 3 - ODST
Hammerin' Hero
Henry Hatsworth in The Puzzling Adventure
Holy Invasion of Privacy Badman!
Hook Champ for iPhone
House of the Dead: Overkill
IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey
Infamous
Inferno Pool
Killzone 2
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
Left 4 Dead 2
Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Lego Rock Band
Little Big Planet PSP
Little King's Story
Lostwinds
Machinarium
Madden '10
MadWorld
Magnacarta 2
Metroid Prime Trilogy
Metropolis Crimes
Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes
Mini Ninja
Modern Warfare 2
Money Seize
Muramasa: The Demon Blade
Mushihimesama Futari Ver 1.5
Need For Speed: Shift
New Super Mario Brothers Wii
NBA2K10
NBA Live 10
NHL 2010 PS3
Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2
Noby Noby Boy
Nostalgia
Okaeri! Chibi-Robo! happy richie oosouji!
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
Orbital for iPhone
Peggle for iPhone
Peggle Dual Shot DS
Peggle Nights 360/PS3
Persona 4
Phantasy Star Zero
Pixeljunk Monsters Deluxe
Pixeljunk Shooter
Plants vs Zombies
Pro Evolution Soccer 2009
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box
Prototype
Punch-Out! Wii
Puzzler World
Red Faction: Guerrilla
Ratchet and Clank: Future
Retro Game Challenge
Rhythm Heaven
Rittai Picross
Rockband: Beatles
Saboteur
Saints Row 2 (PC)
Sam and Max - Beyond Time and Space
Scribblenauts
Section 8
Shadow Complex
Shin Megami Tensen: Devil Survivor
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
Sims 3
Skate 2
Small Worlds
Solium Infernum
Space Invaders Extreme 2
Street Fighter IV
Style Savvy
Suikoden Tierkreis
Tales of Monkey Island
Tekken 6
The Show 09
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 for Wii
Time Fcuk
Torchlight
Trials HD
Trine
UnCharted 2
Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram 5.66
Way of the Samurai 3
Wet
Wii Sports Resort
Wipeout HD Fury
World of Warcraft (ongoing)
WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2010
Yahoo Fantasy Football
Zenonia on iPhone

It's actually the second LostWinds game that came out this year (subtitle Winter of the Melodias).

Some other possibilities: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/26639/Opinion_The_99_Best_Free_Games_Of_2009.php

Ballot cast - you'll get my votes when you return to the office.

If I'm reading the rules right, I love the fact that I can legitimately vote for Chrono Trigger in this! Also noticed no Fifa 10 on that list.

(lol europe)

Was chronotrigger on the wii this year?

What if you already played the game a lot on PC and iPod but you played it SO MUCH MORE on iPhone and the game's name is Peggle and you like that game?

Also by these rules I'm going to presume/point out that we should be able to vote for the L&D/Gay Tony standalone disc if we didn't play Gay Tony as DLC (I didn't).

Chrono Trigger DS was 2009 in Europe, first time I played it and the first time it has ever been released here.

three ballots so far; never too early to vote!

i'll give you a ballot with three games as soon as i figure out what third game i played last year

I've got a huge trailing backlog right now (thanks Steam sale!) but a bunch of old purchases/borrowed games on DS as well means I'll be regretting what makes it onto my ballot... I'll see what I have time to get to in the next 2 and a half weeks. I don't think I'll even get to touch Torchlight!

Yahoo Fantasy Football way too serious to be considered a game imo

testing the waters.

ballot submitted, comments forthcoming

Yahoo Fantasy Football way too serious to be considered a game imo

That's a good point actually, I should probably nominate this:

http://fantasy.premierleague.com

yeah, keep bumping this and I'll vote right at the end, b/c I'm hoping to play a few others before the deadline. As it is my ballot will have maybe 3 games---such are the breaks of spending a year exploring the DS back catalog.

Yeah, you won't get my votes until I've played Bayonetta, which isn't out here until Friday.

I'm in the same boat; I think I can scrape together 10 games from that list I've played this year, but that would include ones I really didn't like. Got a couple of games to start this week having finished all the Fallout DLC and Arkham Asylum, but ultimately I expect I'll be nominating less than ten games.

Kudos for taking this on again, Forks.

less than ten games is FINE; I really want to encourage sometimes/casual/girl and boyfriends of gamers to vote this year.

Borderlands people, do I realistically have time to play it, in addition to many other games, in the next t hree weeks (I'm a busy guy generally with only an hour or so to play games a day)

haha if my wife were to vote it would be

1. Peggle for iPhone

-----

not sure you want that.

i do! it's honest!

i would be thrilled if iphone peggle beat uncharted2; it feels realer to me than a lot of the gamer only lists bandied about right now

I will have her send a ballot then!

do we submit our ballots to this thread?

nope, mail them to me at forksclovetofu at gmail dot com

And yes: GTA standalone add-on disc would count as a unique game.
And if games came out in your country in 09, I'll accept them; please note the local release date in your ballot tho'.

I sent in my ballot. imo, this was the worst year for games this decade. (Compare to 2007, 2008 + 2000.)

sb

Maybe I'm just playing the wrong games, but compare my #1 game this year (Arkham Asylum) to my #1 game last year (Fallout 3). Not even comparable.

I would stack any of my top 3 (Demon's Souls, NSMBWii, and Bowser's Inside Story) up against my runaway GotY from 2008 (Yakuza 2)

I only played two of those (Demon's Souls and Bowser's Inside Story) and they were fun, but nothing amazing. Of course, I didn't love Yakuza 2 so....

Seven votes in; keep em coming!

I don't think this has already been asked, but as I'll be clocking in at less than 10 games most likely, should I still assign points, or will they just be taken as 10pts each?

you can use up to 100 points, no more than 30 per game. unless you note a score, i'm assuming it's 10pts each. If all you want to do is nominate three games and you think they're all worth 30 points, go for it. It may skew the final score, but that's a sign of devotion and interest for those games. I'll note when i post the scores how many people voted for each game.

11 ballots! Would love to get a few more today... who's up for it?

hey u want me to add the deadline to the title at some point?

um, sure!

and put in your ballot!

i know i know.

am also trying to get some more play time on a couple of contenders

oh and to antexit upthread: borderlands will def consume a lot of time, but it is very put-downable - almost everything you do is individually pretty bitesized, theres just lots and lots of it

wow this is going to be a lot harder than i expected - so far i have done quite a bit of whittling and i still have a list of 20

Ha, I made a list of everything I haven't played that I want to play and it was three times as long as my top ten... and I owned half of it!

i tell myself i'm gonna get to some more games after i finish Spirit Tracks but wow the deviousness of the puzzles REALLY ramps up

re. Spirit Tracks, I've been surprised at how challenging the combat has been. Beating the boss of the Snow Temple was pretty brutal, though I think the lack of precision in the stylus control there hurts things.

I'm working through the Ocean Temple now, and made it to the boss last night, tried once, died, and decided to try again later.

protip: if you didn't know (I didn't figure this out for ages) holding down the L or R shoulder button gives you a quick easy toggle for your subweapon - made things a lot easier and faster for me

i've never had a precision problem with any of the stylus controls, it's just that some stuff feels a little frustrating when you can't move and use an item at the same time, or you and your phantom both need to move and you're furiously drawing lines/shoving Link to get in sync for certain platforming areas (speaking of which - god wait until you get to the final tower area)

Also, is it normal to get hand cramps playing this (or any DS game)? Maybe I'm just getting old but I remember playing EBA for hours on end before noticing any kind of hand pain - I can't play Zelda for an hour without it creeping up on my stylus fingers. I'm using a third-party pen size stylus - this might be a contributing factor

huh, I didn't know that about the L/R button. It'll help with the Ocean boss, since using the whip there is key.

I have a tricky time making quick movements with the stylus in this, and that's a problem in combat which is pretty unforgiving since I don't have much life yet---five container hearts, which after falling off the edge a few times shrinks quickly.

I haven't gotten cramps per se playing DS but I have had my hand get sore after playing e.g. Civ:Rev for a couple hours straight.

Two weeks folks! Need me some ballots!

i will vote after i finish train zelda and start devil survivor

I skimmed the 2008 list to refresh my memory - wow, what a crazy year that was! I don't think this year's going to hold up nearly as well, but who knows until the list is up.

cold lampin

BayonEtta James - All I could Do Was Cry AAAAaaaaAAAaAAaaAAAA!!!

red faction against the machine - guerilla radio

i'm not very good at this game today

Panic At The Disco - Lying Is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Tekken 6 Her Clothes Off

20 ballots! Aiming for fifty this year, so if you ever post on ILG now is the time to jump on! Even if you only had one '09 game that you loved, submit a quick email to forksclovetofu at gmail dot com with that one game and get your ten points counted!
Make Friday the time to get them in please!

jjusten, can you add that deadline now?

wait the deadline isn't the 25th?

haha check it i am a mindreader! xpost

my wife is gonna send you a ballot forks; I sent you mine earlier

yeah i totally thought i'd have til monday!

i think forks is just trying not to get the other 30 ballots all on monday, but if that isnt the case i should change the deadline up there to jan 22

I'm trying to get some of this done over the weekend; early ballots are welcome!

sent mine in forks. this year i predict big casual gaming upsets

big casual upsets

i can tell you that 1-5 are all one vote away from being reordered.

1-15 actually; there are thus far a lot of people voting for a lot of games with very little consensus. Top three have changed at least ten times.

Oh shit. I think I'm getting Borderlands today. If I play it over the weekend and <3 can I supplant something on my list?

My votes are in!

to give you an idea of the melee, we have 24 votes in and EIGHTY THREE nominated games. and you might not believe what peggle for iphone is currently beating.

THIS MUST NOT STAND

well unless it's FUEL, which deserves to get beaten by uh everything

yeah, your "disappointment" essay on FUEL was a thing of hate-filled beauty that i look forward to sharing.

hahaha oh man that fucking game just riles me up

Seriously though, 83 games? And I'm hoping for half again as many more votes, which means (even conservatively) that there should be at least a hundred games that folks would be willing to nominate as their favorite from what is tbh a very small pool. There may not be a great obvious GAME OF THE YEAR for 09 but there was a shit ton of CHOICES available.

as much as everyone seems to be nonplussed with this years crop of games, when i was putting together my list i was frankly amazed at how much good shit came out this year

My predictions:

1. Peggle iPhone
2. Demons' Souls or other nerd challops
3. Assassin's Creed 2 or Uncharted 2
4. something your girlfriend voted for like Lipstick Maven 6 or something
5. M. Slocki is gay

Batman will be top5.

borderlands should be but prob wont quite make it

Haha about to coop on my dark horse contestant. Free yayo bitches!

^^ racist

I'd actually love to move Borderlands up on my poll. I've started loving it to death since I submitted. Any chance it could get moved up to 1 and everything else moved down a space?

hahahaa hoo boy not as intended but lol xpost

gonna have to leave votes as is; it's just too complicated to reorganize. we'll all be okay.

Submitted my vote (such as it is) yesterday. Hopefully you got it. Doubt it'll cause any upsets :)

25 votes; can i get some weekend love please? Don't make me call you out!

Last call folks; please get them in today!

annnnnd sent

you got mine, right?

Exciting things happening this week in order of how much I'm looking forward to them:

4) Apple event
3) Me buying Mass Effect 2
2) Coint and Plick 09
1) Lost Season 6

cosign except I'd probably mark you buying Mass Effect 2 at #4

If you got a letter back from me, I got it.
Deadline is tonight at midnight! We're at 29 votes; can we at least get to 35?
Let me know if you need an extension for special reasons.

oops i forgot to send mine! doing it now

did you get my vote (from several weeks ago)

cdn't be bothered reading all that op, hope my ballot is ok I never vote in any of these ilx things and frankly don't know how any of u crazies can focus long enough to do the compiling

Will M please put something as funny as your comments about Fable 2 last year

if i wrote you back, your vote was counted.
if you hit me by ilx mail, i probably got it.
Last call?

the only three problems with that are
1) i am losing my "edge" insofar that i cannot write angry like i could a year ago
2) i already sent in my ballot like 2 weeks ago and my biggest disappointment paragraph is much more serious and boring
3) nothing this year sucked as much as fable ii

STILL I WILL TRY TO THINK OF SOMETHING!

i like will's disappointment entry this year, it is otm

Last call? I'm starting the thread shortly, but can take something if offered in the next thirty or so. Let me know here or hold your peace.

No? Okay, let's do this.
The Third Annual Coint and Plick Poll: ILG’s Best Video Games of 2009