Troy Goodfellow, Staff Writer:

5. Sims 3 -- Speaking of phoning it in...Gamers just come to this series with no thought whatsoever about whether it will be any good. Fortunately, Sims 3 is a great addition to a series that will keep on giving the world sleepless nights and EA money mattresses to doze on.

4. Plants v Zombies -- Cute and irresistible, and the fun only really begins to start once you've completed the adventure mode. A slew of minigames and the chance to keep playing harder variations on the adventure make PvZ the sort of triumph we've come to expect from Popcap. Good to see that they aren't just phoning it in now, because if anyone could...

3. OOTP Baseball 10 -- A better statistical model, a better interface, and all the historical versimilitude you've come to expect from baseball sims. This series seems to keep getting stronger with 9 and 10 both being much better than anything else out there.

2. Demigod -- Still a chance of being the best game of the year based solely on the strength of its online combat. Even with the early launch troubles, Demigod has given me more thrills and new sights than most games in recent memories. Updates will help give this game the longevity it deserves.

1. Dawn of War 2 -- In many ways the archetype of the new American RTS. Fast, combat focused, and more RPG upgrading for soldiers than building upgrades. One of the best MP RTSes out there, with a campaign that most observers didn't really appreciate as much as they should have.

Dawn of War II

Neilie Johnson, Staff Writer: Lessee...from what I remember (The early part of 2009's already pretty hazy)

5. Ceville: PC adventure - In the spirit of Monkey Island, Ceville is a cartoonish, slyly tongue-in-cheek take on the doings of a fairytale tyrant. The characters are a hoot, the writing's hilarious and solving situations by switching among lead characters keeps things interesting throughout the game.

4. Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper: PC adventure: This one was a surprise - one of the most varied and interesting old-school point and clicks made in a while. Holmes is the quintessential anti-hero; a drug-doing, woman-avoiding, police-confounding misanthrope who spends half his time locked in his room and the other half collaring criminals. This game bravely faces the seedy aspects of the Ripper case, coming up with some new and creative ways approaches to the usual adventure game interview/puzzle construct.

3. Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood: PS3 - Ray McCall's my new favorite game hero. Being a huge fan of the Dark Tower series, I kept thinking of Ray as a hybrid of Roland Deschain and Father Callahan, blasting his way across the wild West. I loved the game's story, the settings, the collaborative gameplay, the crazy Concentration modes and the Deadwood-like soundtrack.

2. Red Faction: Guerrilla: Xbox 360 - This was one of the best open world games I've every played. Whether hauling ass across the desert in a futuristic taxi cab, helping my Red Faction buddies topple an EDF facility or bashing fools in the face with my trusty sledgehammer, it was one of the most satisfying action gaming experiences I've ever had.

1. Fable II: Xbox 360 - A 2008 game but so what? The best way to sum up my love of Fable II is an excerpt from my own review: "To get the highest possible attractiveness rating, my lady Hero had to wear a Three Musketeers-like hat, a pink cropped jacket, a corset, thigh-high boots and a pair of brown daisy duke shorts. Tall, muscular and covered with scars, she looked like a Pussycat Doll gone horribly wrong." I also loved that later on, I was able to terrorize the villagers by putting a big curly moustache on her.

Meghan Watt, Staff Writer: My problem is that I've been backtracking so much (Mirror's Edge and so on) that 2009 has just been a rehash of 2008. But I'll see if I can squeeze out 5...

5. Sims 3: PC - I promised myself years and years ago that I would never ever play another Sims game. See, when it's 4:00am and you feel that making sure your Sim gets some sleep is more important than your own, this wave of realization hits: Why does my Sim get to learn how to cook and become an astronaut? Why, if I worked hard, I could also do that! And I bet I could do it without even burning the house down. Well... I finally broke my vow and picked up the Sims 3. And it was glorious up until my Sim became a best-selling author. Then I cried.

4. Red Faction: Guerrilla: Xbox 360 - I'll have to jump on the bandwagon here. I remember one of the first missions where I had to demolish a building - I know crazy, right? - and I tossed a few mines on the supports. I didn't think I had enough to finish the job, so I went ahead and stood inside the building while I set off the explosives. After the big shabang, I was ready to set down a new batch when I heard this distant creeeeeak. Then a pause. Then... oh no. I hightailed it out of there as the rafters started to come tumbling down, and made it out just in time to watch the building fall flat. And I was in love.

3. 'Splosion Man: Xbox Live Arcade - Again, I'm a sucker for co-op. But you know what's even better? Watching my sadistic little fire-man make childish airplane noises as he soars toward a room full of terrified scientists, just to giggle and blow them to smithereens. It is so, so wrong and so, so awesome.

2. Little King's Story: Wii - I can't believe no one mentioned this one! I know it looks terribly childish, but it's actually a real challenge with an original style and beautiful soundtrack to boot. It's funny and far more mature than the cover would have you believe. Plus you get to marry a handful of princesses.

1. Resident Evil 5: Xbox 360 - This is by far the most fun I've had in a while. It isn't my favorite of the series, but I'm a sucker of co-op. However, I think the game could have used a little more horror and a little less action.

Resident Evil 5