To begin with, we have chosen two subjects close to our cold, soon-to-be-pummelled hearts: Indie and Esoterica. That's why you might not see the latest instalment in yearly franchise X feature, even if it's sure to be just as good as it was in 2008.

Many of our choices are entirely personal, and we fight for them but we also attempt to highlight the under-hyped, provide varied selections, take developers' pedigrees into account, prioritise novelty over known quantities, reward thinking outside the box, and so on. Despite the possibility that 2009 will pale in the glow of 2008 - last year's cheeks were flushed by one high-scoring blockbuster and leftfield masterpiece after another - there were friendly, backbreaking arguments for ringleaders Tom and Oli to snuffle their way through. Sometimes this was because they defy categorisation (does Gearbox's hybridised RPG/FPS Borderlands belong with Shooters, or with RPGs?), and sometimes it was because they have yet to take on tangible form, but still merit inclusion (like Ubisoft's conceptually righteous I Am Alive).īut it turns out this was nothing next to the agony of deciding which game to name as our star, and how to form its supporting cast. In keeping with our Coming Attractions theme, we then give one game Star Billing, and name a Supporting Cast of four of its contemporaries.ĭeciding where games belong caused much debate. We've chosen a dozen categories - Shooters, Racing, Action, Adventure, MMOs, RPGs, Sports, Music, Fighting, Strategy, Indie and Esoterica - and divided games among them. In other words, we're not sure we can face another week of name, paragraph, name, paragraph either. Among gaming mags and websites, previews of the year to come are a New Year tradition as inescapable as only going to the gym for the first three weeks of January - and like the annual rush to aerobic renewal, they often fizzle into half-hearted exertion with the cold snap.

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