5. Isis – Wavering Radiant

4. Katatonia – Night is the New Day

3. Pelican – What We All Come to Need

2. Clint Mansell – Moon OST

1. Mono – Hymn to the Immortal Wind

5. Batman: Arkham Asylum (360)

I really wanted to dislike Arkham Asylum. My view was coloured partly by conspiracy theories circulating before release that suggested that Eidos were trying to buy high review scores from magazines and partly by the fact that the last non-Lego Batman release, Batman Begins, was utterly, utterly dreadful. I even held off playing the game for four months because I was so convinced I would hate it. I was wrong. Very wrong, in fact. Pass the ketchup, I have a hat to eat.

Drawing its inspiration mainly from the 1990s Animated Series and the gritty Christopher Nolan films of recent years, Arkham Asylum is a much darker and adult game than previous attempts at making a compelling Batman title. It drips atmosphere and the Unreal Engine adds a real sense of weight and presence to the game world, not least the lead character. Developers Rocksteady have taken a first principles approach to the combat mechanics, stripping back the control system and allowing the player to worry more about timing and spectacle than mastering multi-button move sets. It’s an elegant solution that lets the action flow unhindered and makes brawling a pleasure rather than a chore.  Stealth sections are handled with the same amount of care, turning rooms of heavily armed guards into satisfying puzzles as Batman attempts to silently take down enemies without being seen.

Unfortunately, boss battles are something of a disappointment. The 2D Scarecrow sections quickly lose their novelty and occur just a little too frequently. The Poison Ivy encounter is a wretched piece of game design, a poorly-checkpointed exercise in pure frustration. Killer Croc is a damp squib, after a lengthy build-up, and like Poison Ivy, relies too much on trial and error and learning attack patterns and directions by rote. The problem here is that the boss encounters rely on gimmicks rather than the Arkham Asylum’s bread-and-butter combat and climbing abilities and are, in some cases, disproportionately difficult compared to the rest of the game. There’s nothing that will really hold anyone up for any great length of time but there’s an overwhelming feeling that boss fights are to be endured rather than enjoyed.

Thankfully, there’s more than enough here to make up for these deplorable sections. Arkham Asylum’s detective mode borrows heavily from Metroid Prime but without the tedious backtracking and re-spawning enemies that made that game drag severely in places. Again, it’s a minimalist approach to exploration and the environment that allows the player to get on with enjoying the game world without becoming bogged down in mundane and unnecessary tasks. A special mention must go to the game’s superb voice acting, particularly Mark Hamill, reprising his role as Joker from the animated series. Batman: Arkham Asylum is perhaps 2009′s most unlikely success story, with an unknown developer taking a high-profile movie license and producing a game which has redefined what we expect from future licensed titles.

4. Assassin’s Creed 2 (360)

Let’s set the record straight here. The first Assassin’s Creed was by no means a bad game. There’s no disputing that it failed to fully live up to the levels of expectation generated by the industry hype machine but it still managed to pull off slick, polished and entertaining with aplomb. Had Assassin’s Creed 2 been released in its place in 2007, it would likely have been declared one of the greatest games of all time. But as it is, things have moved on in the last couple of years and ideas that once seemed fresh and exciting have long since been absorbed into gaming convention. Instead Assassin’s Creed 2 is merely one of 2009′s finest games.

Ubisoft have atoned for the sins of the father by removing the fat that made Assassin’s Creed 1 corpulent and unfocused in places. In the first game there was always plenty to do but thanks to repetition of missions types and no overarching goals to work towards, there was little incentive to actually do it. Assassin’s Creed 2 brims over with content and constantly dangles tantalising carrots in front of the player in the form of achievements, new weapons and armour, extra health perks and hidden videos. The new currency system helps of course, with the game able to hand out monetary rewards for completing optional goals to go towards buying new shinies. Elsewhere, combat has been overhauled and is fun and stylish, a ballet of parries, counters and disarms with lead character Ezio facing anything up to a dozen opponents at once. And of course, Renaissance Italy is as gorgeous a place as any to set a game and one that makes the very best of the AC2′s wonderful graphics engine.

Not that Assassin’s Creed 2 is without its faults, of course. The Animus story conceit is as unnecessary as it was in the original game and only succeeds in shattering the player’s sense of immersion at regular intervals. Climbing controls are occasionally ropey and take quite some time to get to grips with (geddit?). For the first few hours, accidentally leaping into thin air while scaling a hundred metre tall church spire occurs with irritating regularity. Then there’s those opening hours themselves, where the game really takes its time getting up to speed and giving the player something approaching a full set of moves and the freedom to explore the beautiful surroundings. It feels restrictive and patronising and is a stark contrast to the free-roaming delights of mid-game and onwards.

Still, these shortcomings are relatively minor and with the exception of all the rubbish Animus stuff, mostly disappear after a few hours. They certainly don’t stop Assassin’s Creed 2 being deep, stylish and, most importantly, a great deal of fun. The original game has been scrubbed and polished to within an inch of its life and Ubisoft’s care and attention to detail has produced a sequel that stands head and shoulders above most other games released in 2009.

3. Dragon Age: Origins (PC)

Reports of PC gaming’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Dragon Age: Origins shows that the platform can still hold its own against and even surpass upstart console titles. Indeed, the PC version of Dragon Age is very much the definitive version of the game and harks back to the golden age of Infinity Engine-powered top-down games while preserving the closer third-person perspective of the 360 and PS3 conversions. It’s a huge game with an inordinate amount of replay value and one of the finest RPGs released in the last decade.

For a while though, it all looked as if Bioware might have dropped the ball. The marketing campaign leading up to Dragon Age’s release was crass and sold the game as a “mature” title, featuring blood, boobs and a silly Marilyn Manson soundtrack, shoehorned in without any trace of irony. Thankfully the final game proved to be an altogether more refined affair, even if gratuitous violence and cringe-inducing sex scenes did rear their ugly heads from time to time. In many ways, Dragon Age is the true successor to the Baldur’s Gate series, with a depth and complexity many modern RPGs lack. Combat is tactical and challenging and the game’s morality system thankfully abandons the binary good/evil approach in favour of building relationships with individual characters based on a combination of deeds and conversations. Decision-making becomes a genuine dilemma as the player attempts to weigh multiple potential outcomes, aware that their choices may alienate at least one of the supporting characters.

Blood and boobs aside, Dragon Age is let down somewhat by the fact that is, above all, a Bioware game. It follows a basic structure that has remained virtually unchanged since Neverwinter Nights and Knights of Old Republic and relies on similar narrative conceits. There’s a real sense that we have seen many of the NPCs before and despite the fact that it has been seven years since the company released a true fantasy RPG, the game just doesn’t feel new or fresh. There’s also the question of difficulty level, with Easy a pushover for most players and Normal an often gruelling and punishing affair with relatively straightforward encounters proving disproportionately frustrating.

Regardless, Dragon Age: Origins marks one of the first major shifts in PC RPGs for several years and is a real breath of fresh air after a long succession of MMORPGs and rough and ready German and Eastern European efforts. It’s a high budget, Western title with a developer determined to return to the roots of the modern genre it helped codify. More importantly, it demonstrates that there remains a niche for PC gaming – those playing Dragon Age: Origins on a console really are missing out on the full experience.

2. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3)

You’ll probably already know Uncharted 2 as The Official Game of the Year, as voted for by Eurogamer and any number of other sites. I have no qualms with that but I can’t quite claim that it’s my personal Game of the Year. What I can say is that it’s about as good a game as you could possibly hope to play in any given year. It’s perhaps the most polished game yet released, both in terms of its jaw-dropping good looks and gripping gameplay.

Like Assassin’s Creed 2, the sequel to Uncharted has advanced leaps and bounds over the original game. While the first Uncharted was poorly paced, endless waves of enemies occasionally interspersed with some platforming, Among Thieves nails the mix of combat and exploration and makes the former much more engaging and entertaining. Drake’s Fortune was no slouch in the looks department but the sequel is genuinely gorgeous, with particularly impressive urban environments. The is also full of memorable set-pieces, from the game’s opening in a train carragie overhanging an icy abyss to the encounter with a helicopter on the rooftops of a Nepalese city and a head-on fight with a tank in a Himalayan village.

Great though Uncharted 2 is, it’s not perfect. Its early chapters are schizophrenic and suffer from inconsistent pacing and the player is forced to suffer through the ignominy of a forced stealth section in the second level. As the game reaches its climax, firefights become increasingly predictable and usually degenerate into weeding snipers and grenadiers before mopping up the rest of the human detritus. Technically though, it’s virtually flawless, with only a few minor bugs and glitches popping up in a playthrough. whether the multiplayer mode really adds much is debatable but it seems to have attracted a reasonably devout following on PSN either way.

Those are very small potatoes, however. In all ways that matter, Uncharted 2 is the new peak of the action-adventure genre, the Resident Evil 4 of its generation. It would take a very special game to beat it to my Game of the Year and, as it happens…

1. Demon’s Souls (PS3)

They’re not supposed to make games like this any more. Stoic, uncompromising, difficult. Compelling, rewarding, unique. If there’s one thing you can say about Demon’s Souls it’s that it is quite unlike any other game released in 2009. But it’s so much more than that. Demon’s Souls mixes old school values with genuine innovation, grafting an ingenious online infrastructure onto its action RPG framework. It strips the sub-genre to its core elements, ditching everything from strictly defined character classes to conventional currency. And it must be emphasised that it’s tough. Really tough. But behind its unforgiving façade is a game that rewards every second you invest in it tenfold. It’s definitely not for everyone but those who persist in spite of the difficulty will be hard-pressed not to fall under Demon’s Souls captivating spell.

On paper at least, Demon’s Souls does everything that modern games design seems to expressly forbid. With players losing all collected souls – the game’s single currency exchanged for everything from levelling up to repairing armour and upgrading weapons – on death, it punishes failure. Players are expected to learn from mistakes and are never held by the hand. The game’s tutorial is minimal and new characters face the task of clearing the lengthy first level and killing the final boss before being allowed to level up. But though it’s harsh, Demon’s Souls is never unfair. Players die because they have screwed up – misjudging an enemy’s swing, running out of stamina because they have been flailing their sword wildly rather than hiding behind their shields and making calculating swipes at the right moment – rather than at the hands of some arbitrary machination by the game. And with the stakes so high, every enemy defeated feels like a true triumph, every downed boss a cause for genuine celebration.

If there are any criticisms to be levelled at Demon’s Souls it’s the game’s menu and inventory systems. This aspect of the interface is gaudy and poorly designed and selecting a particular item often involves navigating several screens of ugly menus. There are also slight framerate issues when things get a bit busy on screen but it’s never enough to seriously affect the business of killing. There are, of course, those who will find the game too difficult and the only answer to this is that it’s a very niche title and those who are adverse to a stern challenge should stay firmly away.

What’s most amazing about Demon’s Souls is that for a resolutely old school game, it’s actually the most refreshing thing I’ve played all year. It’s certainly stern and forbidding but underneath the surface is a game that rewards the player like no other recent title. In many ways, playing Demon’s Souls is like being involved in a torrid love affair. It’s difficult and often frustrating but the highs are so ecstatic that it doesn’t matter. It abuses you and yet you keep coming back for more, convinced that you’ve deserved your punishment. Demon’s Souls: it only hits you because it loves you. And that’s why it’s my Game of the Year for 2009.

Honourable Mentions

Torchlight (PC): RPG that’s like Diablo with a sugar rush.

Left 4 Dead 2 (PC): More zombies. Can’t really be a bad thing, can it?

Flower (PS3): Immensely pretty and relaxing PSN title.

Braid (PS3): Technically a 2008 release but a recent release on PSN secures the time-based platform puzzler a place in this year’s Honourable Mentions.

Street Fighter IV (360/PS3): The epitome of the modern beat ‘em up.

5. Inglourious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino returns in glorious, Nazi-smashing technicolour. Though hardly the most serious or subtle film of the year, Inglourious Basterds is never less than thoroughly entertaining. Brad Pitt stars as Lieutenant Aldo Raine, leader of a crack brigade of Jewish-American soldiers operating deep behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied France but is upstaged by stunning performances from German actors Christoph Waltz and Diane Kruger. Waltz’s Colonel Hans Landa, the SS’s infamous “Jew-Hunter”, is perhaps the year’s most memorable movie villain, a pantomime foil for Pitt’s rootin’ tootin’ redneck hero. Utterly tasteless but wickedly funny, Inglourious Basterds proves that Tarantino’s star burns as brightly as ever after a string of poor efforts in recent years.

4. District 9

Proving that megabucks are not a pre-requisite for success, District 9 was an altogether more satisfying watch than 2009′s other big sci-fi hitters, Avatar and Star Trek. Set in a near-future South Africa, District 9 centres on the plight of the ‘Prawns’, a sizeable alien civilisation stranded on Earth and interned by humans in segregated settlements. Social commentary is as much a feature of the film as action or humour and though the parallel between post-Prawn Johannesburg and Apartheid South Africa is dealt with somewhat heavy-handedly, this is still much more intellectual fare than the rest of this year’s sci-fi offerings. Sharlto Copley’s Wikus van de Merwe falls at the hapless end of the hero spectrum but the development of his character over the course of them film is one of District 9‘s highlights.

3. In The Loop

Malcolm Tucker finally reaches the big screen in the film adoption of Armando Iannucci’s The Thick Of It. Forsaking the Westminster bear pit for the more polite, if equally frantic, world of Anglo-American relations, the TV show’s breakneck pace and vicious humour make the transition to feature length production unscathed. Peter Capaldi is the undoubted star, reprising his role as bile-spitting government spin-doctor Malcolm Tucker, and is supported by returning cast members alongside one-off additions including James Gandolfini. A resolutely British comedy, some of In The Loop‘s humour may be lost on North American audiences not familiar with the rough and ready approach to everything from ad libs to filming but those who persevere will be rewarded with a film that is unrelentingly funny and endlessly quotable. Be warned, the video embedded above includes language that is most definitely Not Safe For Work.

2. A Serious Man

The best Coen Brothers film since The Big Lebowski? Perhaps (in a universe where Oh Brother, Where Art Though doesn’t exist, mind). One of the year’s darker releases, the film follows the Goptiks, a Jewish family living in Minneapolis during the sixties. Professor Larry Gopnik’s life is falling to pieces around him: his wife is having an affair with a family friend, his son is constantly stoned and his daughter is stealing money from him to fund a nose-job operation. At work, Larry is up for Tenure but his application is under threat from malicious anonymous letters and Clive, a failing student determined to pass his exams at any cost. A Serious Man joins the canon of quintessential Coen Brothers movies, though it’s unrelentingly bleak at times.

1. Moon

Equal parts 2001: A Space Odyssey and Silent Running, Moon is the great film-making triumph of 2009. Produced for a paltry five million dollars by British director Duncan Jones, it tells the story of Sam Bell, the lone crewman of a mining base on the surface of the Moon, nearing the end of his three-year stint away from Earth. Sam Rockwell shines as Bell but is supported by an excellent voice-only performance from Kevin Spacey as the installation’s computer, Gerty.  Moon takes a minimalist approach to sci-fi, throwing out many modern genre conventions in the process. CGI is, for the most part, replaced by model work while the sets are basic and have a distinctly retro feel. Themes of identity and loneliness are explored in depth here but there’s a stark beauty amidst all the bleakness. The plot is simple and elegant and though the main twists are easily spotted in advance, the film’s understated style means they always resonate. Perhaps the highlight though is the utterly beautiful soundtrack from Clint Mansell, simple and elegant yet powerfully evocative, much like Moon itself.

Honourable mentions

Zombieland: essentially Left 4 Dead – The Movie but no worse for that.

Drag Me to Hell: dark, disgusting but hilarious Sam Raimi horror flick.

The Hangover: charming neo road-trip movie set in Las Vegas.

Watchmen: convoluted and over-long but very impressive super hero film nonetheless.

Coraline: creepy kid’s 3D film based on the Neil Gaiman book.

For all their flaws though, I find the process of drafting and redrafting annual lists utterly compelling. I’m never entirely happy with any of my lists and actually compiling them usually entails many compromises and tough decisions. This year’s were no different and I fully anticipate looking back in six and then twelve months time and grinding my face into my palm over some of my choices. But that’s what being a critic is all about, right, having to eat your own words sometimes?

Anyway, to kick off the Best of 2009 lists, here’s my Top 10 songs of the year that was. I’ve even thrown in audio for a few tracks.

10. Gorgoroth – Rebirth (from the album Quantos Possunt Ad Satanitatem)

Gorgoroth’s Infernus has always had a talent for writing dark, funereal dirges and this post-Gaahlgate effort is one of his best. It’s suffocatingly grim and oppressive, its unrelentingly sonic bleakness the signature of a band revitalised and even, as the title would suggest, reborn. Worth listening to for vocalist Pest’s blood-curdling scream at around the two minute, fifty second mark but definitely not one for those who veer away from the darker things in music.

9. Dinosaur Jr – Pieces (from the album Farm)

While Farm wasn’t quite the album Dinosaur Jr fans had been hoping for, it was certainly a much more rounded piece of work than 2007′s Beyond. Pieces is a classic Dinosaur Jr track, from the minor-key progressions, to the wall of guitar sound that only become apparent at higher volume levels to J Mascis’s nasal vocals. Easily up there with the best from Green Mind and Where You Been.

8. Infected Mushroom – Herbert the Pervert (from the album Legend of the Black Schwarma)

The Israeli psychedelic trance duo are their best when blurring the boundaries between genres and introducing real instruments into their electronic cauldron. While not quite as magnificent as Suliman from 2007′s Viscious Delicious, Herbert the Pervert once again showcases the mind-blowing results that can be achieved from adding rock and heavy metal instrumentation to a hard dance track. Really remarkable stuff, with a fantastic name to boot.

7. Dream Theater – The Count of Tuscany (from the album Black Clouds and Silver Linings)

At nineteen minutes and sixteen seconds, The Count of Tuscany falls four minutes short of 1995′s epic A Change of Seasons. And while it doesn’t quite match that particular classic in terms of quality either, it’s undoubtedly one of the finest pieces of work the band have released in years. Endless guitar solos, rousing choruses, acoustic interludes, all are resplendent in their prog-tastic glory. Overly self indulgent, perhaps but no less majestic for that.

6. Butterfly Explosion – Comfort of the Dark (from the EP Vision)

Up and coming Irish shoegaze group Butterfly Explosion may well be the Next Big Thing once they finally release their long-awaited debut album in 2010 but for now they are simply floating in a sea of potential. Though the band usually sound like an Explosions in the Sky/My Bloody Valentine hybrid, this track actually bears more resemblance to something by the Smashing Pumpkins, before Billy Corgan disappeared up his own back passage. The slow build to the song’s glorious crescendo is undoubtedly its highlight.

5. Katatonia – Idle Blood (from the album Night is the New Day)

Sounding like a lost cut from Opeth’s Damnation, Idle Blood is one the highlights of an album hardly short of choice cuts. Internet speculation on whether Opeth’s Mikael Akerfeldt was involved continues unabated but regardless, Idle Blood is a remarkably beautiful and haunting track that sees Katatonia incorporate layered vocal harmonies and acoustic instrumentation in a way they have never before attempted on this scale.

4. Sonic Youth – Anti-Orgasm (from the album The Eternal)

Sonic Youth were never a band to waver in the face of commercial pressure, let alone do what anyone expected of them so it’s see something of a surprise to hear the fifty-something New Yorkers revive the accessibility and sexual politics of their early-nineties major label peak. Anti-Orgasm is a grungy, lo-fi track that’s worlds away from more contemplative recent releases but shows that despite their age, Sonic Youth still have a thing or two to show the kids about how to write abrasive rock classics.

3. Pelican – Ephemeral (from the album What We All Come to Need)

A tighter and much more focused reworking of an EP track from earlier this year, Ephemeral bears the mark of a resurgent Pelican, confident in fusing their newly discovered sense of melody with the riff-laden legacy of their earlier work. Somewhat reminiscent of the monolithic Drought from Australasia, this track gradually evolves from a simple bass riff to a writhing, complex monstrosity as layers of instrumentation are added, then taken away again before crashing back in once more with double the force. A real lesson in post-metal songwriting.

2. And So I Watch You From Afar – Set Guitars to Kill (from the album And So I Watch You From Afar)

As well as being an absolutely blistering slab of instrumental rock, this track undoubtedly walks away with the award for Best Song Name of the Year. Probably the best thing to come out of Northern Ireland since George Best, And So I Watch You From Afar somehow create catchy, danceable songs without resorting to verses, choruses or anything else that remotely resembles a traditional song structure. The sheer energy and euphoric joy expressed by the album version of Set Guitars to Kill is surpassed only by the utterly remarkable live performance.

1. Devin Townsend Project – Addicted! (from the album Addicted)

With a towering Wall of Sound that would make Phil Spector cry with envy, Devin Townsend must surely rank as one of the world’s premier producers. When he turns his hands to his own work, the results are usually remarkable and Addicted! is no exception. The title track of Addicted, the former Strapping Young Lad mastermind’s tongue-in-cheek attempt at creating an MOR rock album in the style of Nickelback, the song stays close to Townsend’s metal roots but adds layers of sound quite unlike anything seen in his previous work. From female vocals to soaring choruses, Addicted! is perhaps one of the most uncharacteristic tracks Townsend has ever released yet is all the more remarkable for that. It’s a sonic wonderland, the sound of an artist both exploring and pushing his limits and a genuine joy to listen to.

And that’s it for now. Check back over the next week or so when I’ll be listing my favourite albums, movies and games of the year, plus perhaps a look at some of 2009′s prize turkeys.