The IncGamers Awards 2009 Page 2

30 Dec 2009 at 06:36:03 by Tim McDonald

Best Music Game of 2009 – The Beatles: Rock Band

The combination of The Beatles and music games has been a long time coming, presumably because Harmonix wanted to make a genuinely loving tribute. This isn't just a pack of 40-odd Beatles songs: it's got authentic performance areas, it's got character models and animations which the surviving Beatles reportedly agonised over, it's got utterly marvellous dreamscape environments for songs that weren't performed live, and it's got a wealth of never-before-seen audio, video, and pictures. All of this comes together with Harmonix's utter mastery of note-chart crafting to make a game that will thrill any Beatles fan while slowly turning anyone new to the music into one by reminding everyone just why they're considered one of the greatest bands of all time.

Best Sports Game of 2009 – Fight Night Round 4

It's been a good year for sports games with even the most stale franchises attempting to do something new, but nothing has innovated quite as much as Fight Night Round 4. The boxing champion makes a triumphant return with plenty of vast improvements, including proper physics. While that might not sound too impressive, it means that there's no invisible wall around your opponents and that a crushing haymaker can become a glancing blow depending on what your opponent does. At long last, range matters, and you'll need different strategies for different fighters. Fight Night Round 4 is a surprisingly tactical game that looks dazzling, controls brilliantly, and has a lightning frame-rate right the way through.

Best Strategy Game of 2009 – The Sims 3

The Sims 3 is a deceptively clever strategy game, not least because – until you strip it down to its bare mechanics – it's really hard to notice that it is a strategy game. This iteration has taken another jump worthy of Mike Powell, opening up the entire town to your Sims. Instead of spending their lives in their house and then disappearing off-screen to go to work, you can now send them outdoors. Take your Sim to the park and have him busk, or maybe go to a friend's house and eat all of their food. The Wish system gives a wide variety of goals based on each Sim's character traits, and those same traits give them a level of AI sophistication that stops you having to babysit them every five minutes. There are a wealth of options available here, and you can take as much – or as little – control as you like, with brilliance like Alice and Kev showing just what can happen if you take things to the extreme and then see what happens.

Check out Part two of our 2009 Awards

Agree with our choices so far? Think something else should have made the list in your opinion? Let us know in the comments.

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