Five Best things of 2009 and the worst

So 2009 almost ended, when looking back, what are the good things happened in 2009. Here is my version:

5. Project Natal
Although Project Natal won't be coming until at least 2010, this thing is very promising. Project Natal won't required any controller and can detect human faces, motion with its camera. For example, it can detect whether you are laughing or frowning and Microsoft said it can capture players movement during the game. So you can actually play tennis with just your motion. However, it remained to be seen whether this technology can be integrated successfully into games.

4.Uncharted 2: Among thieves
It's the VGA game of the year. Naughty Dogs really deserved it. I was amazed when playing through the train level where you fight on the moving train. It feels so naturals and Indian Jones like. The graphic is breath taking, and also character development is well planned. People will love Nathan because of its comment, jokes and various aspect. The story pacing is perfect, and combat is refined.The multiplayer is exciting. It is not as complete as COD series, but nevertheless it is satisfying. The only thing Naughty Dogs has to improve is network infrastructure, sometimes during a laggy game, your character can freeze 2 secs before get killed. And that is really blow the game. Coop wise, I truly enjoyed it very much. Two thumbs up.

3. Price cuts
Yeah! Don't we love price cuts? PS3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii slashed price in September resulting in increase of console sales. If it is good for the pocket, it is good for customer. 

2. The return of E3
E3 2009 is marked as a revival of the biggest gaming show event. Previously E3 was downsized and the show has become invite only, thus reducing significantly the number of attendees. The intention was to make E3 more "private". The result? Not only it became from the biggest game show to the lamest, but also triggered cancelled subscription from some big game companies.
Luckily they realised their mistake soon enough and E3 2009 is back with major gaming news and the exhibition reached 41.000 attendees (up 820% from previous E3 attendance).

1. Modern Warfare 2
Six millions copies sold during its first two weeks of launching window is no joke. While other games can be considered successful if selling above one millions, MW2 is six times more successful.
No doubt millions of player are waiting for this one, the true sequel of COD 4. Multiplayer is enchanced, and I love IW net. They just make it better, and the games connection is improved. Although story wise, I think IW is pushing it a bit, they just repeating what is successful in COD 4 and that make it seems repetitive. Otherwise it deserved the number one spot.

In addition of the best (though I won't do a countdown), this year worst thing happened in 2009 is:

PSPgo
The introduction of PSPgo does raised a few eyebrows. Its download only device, means that existing UMD library will not be compatible with PSPgo and Sony has no solution in transferring UMD into PSPgo.
If it has less feature, then it should be less expensive, right? Not. It cost more than standard PSP and priced at $250.
How about games? PS network is lagging behind in providing a complete library to PSPgo for download and the addition of games is slow. Sometimes new title is coming out for UMD but not for PSN.
And its sales is relatively low, PSPgo just doesn't sell as it is not appealing to gamers.

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