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It's time I got off my lazy ever-widening butt and posted my 2009 Year in Review coverage. I know I'm pretty late on this. I kept putting it off so I could play more and more 2009 games and give you the best coverage I could. Because this is coming so late, I'm going to forgo the standard awards like Game of the Year for a few reasons, including:

See all of my 2009 Year in Review awards, dubious honors and miscellaneous nonsense after the break.

New Franchise of the Year: Borderlands

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In a year of sequels, Borderlands was a breath of fresh air. Not only is it an addictive, replayable multiplayer title, but there's enough room for improvement that we're already excited for a sequel.

Casual Game of the Year: Plants vs. Zombies

It sounds so simple and so silly. Maybe that's why it works. No one can resist the charms of this ridiculous tower defense game. No one, I tell you!

Downloadable Game of the Year: Shadow Complex

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Raising the bar for what downloadable games can be, Shadow Complex brought classic "Metroidvania" gameplay to Xbox Live and paired it with the best graphics of any XBLA game yet. Thanks to the achievements and challenges, there's plenty of reason to play through it multiple times, making it a great value for the money.

The "I Wish I Liked It More" Award: Brutal Legend

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I've gently slammed Brutal Legend before, but that's only because I care. I like Tim Schafer. I like heavy metal. I should have loved this game. I didn't. I liked it, but I had a lot of problems with it, too. If we're going to hold Tim Schafer up as one of the true visionaries of the industry, one of the men who will legitimize our hobby, then his games better be stellar. Brutal Legend has a great script, a great cast and a great soundtrack. The gameplay, however, is a sloppy mishmash of disparate elements. Mr. Schafer, when you finally make a game with gameplay that equals the brilliance of your writing, I'll be its biggest champion. But Brutal Legend wasn't it.

Story of the Year: Delays

If 2008 was the year of studio closures, 2009 was the year of delays. So many games slipped out of 2009 it felt like the only big game left standing was Modern Warfare 2. Which leads us to...

Year of the Year: 2010

If there's one thing that 2009's delays did, it's set up 2010 to be one of the greatest years in gaming ever.

The "Dead to Me" Award: Guitar Hero

2009 was the first year since the series was introduced that I didn't pick up the annual installment of Guitar Hero. Part of that was because of how little I liked World Tour, but a bigger part was due to the sheer oversaturation of the franchise. 2009 saw the release of Guitar Hero 5, GH: Metallica, GH: Van Halen, GH: Smash Hits, GH: On Tour: Modern Hits and Band Hero. That's six releases, not counting DJ Hero (which I did play). Guitar Hero, I once loved you. But I've been seeing other music games.

Multiplayer Game of the Year: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

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I don't typically play a lot of competitive multiplayer, but I played the hell out of MW2. It's a great, addictive, well-polished, well-balanced online game that's hard to put down. Except for when it's not. See below.

The "On Second Thought, This Has Got More Problems Than I Realized" Award: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Javelin glitches. Hiding in rocks. Infinite rocket launcher exploits. Server troubles. The longer I played MW2, the rockier and more broken it became. Sure, all online games have problems. But Call of Duty is arguably the biggest gaming franchise in the world right now, and Infinity Ward was given massive resources to build this game. No title will ever be completely bug-free, but I was surprised to see how many issues cropped up in this massive, massive game.