And so our 2009 Non-Award Awards come to an acrimonious close. What have we learned? Well, start earlier next year, that's a biggie. People seem to enjoy writing about things they hate more than things they like. Nolan North was in approximately every game. The uncoveted Best Worst of 2009 Official Victory Chalice is filled with chocolate ice cream. And the Guinness Book of Records will make up any old category you want, as long as the winner is a video game. Seriously, just give them a call. Their rates are very reasonable.

But wait! You also get: bonus Best of and Best Worst of navigation options!

Bitmob's Best of 2009: Part 1
Bitmob's Best of 2009: Part 2
Bitmob's Best of 2009: Part 3
Bitmob's Best Games of 2009
Bitmob's Best Worst of 2009: Part 1
Bitmob's Best Worst of 2009: Part 2 (you are here)

Best Worst Least-Inspired Game: Resident Evil 5
By Mike Minotti
How does the sequel to Resident Evil 4 -- one of the best games of all time -- feel so...meh? Sure, it was a technically sound and beautiful looking game, but where was the heart? The plot was filled with clichés, most notably the uninspired "I've got your back, partner" dialogue that was the extent of expression from the game's protagonists.

Other major plot points included the search for Jill Valentine and uncovering the identity of some mystery women. Who didn't connect those dots immediately? And the game has the audacity to play up the moment of the mystery girl's reveal as some sort of shocking revelation. My intelligence was insulted. Let's not even dwell on how they turned Wesker into a generic villian straight out of The Matrix, it'll just work me up.

Best Worst Use of Nolan North: Everything but Uncharted 2
By Dan "Shoe" Hsu
Unless he can't feed his family without the work, gamers could probably do with a little less Nolan North in 2010. It's not that the voice actor isn't great at what he does; it's just we can only have so much "everyman" in our everyman lives -- he's been in over a dozen games last year alone!

The only role we need to see him back for is as Nathan Drake in the Uncharted series. He's clumsy, awkward, daring, yet oh-so-real at the same time. North makes a better Indiana Jones than Indiana Jones himself in the gaming world, and his grand, epic adventures as Drake capture a classic, romantic spirit long-lost in today's world of Michael Bays and Crystal Skulls.

OK, he did do a fine job in the excellent Shadow Complex, but even Uncharted 2's creative director thought his part there was a little unoriginal....

Best Worst PC Port: Borderlands
By Rob Savillo
Not only was Borderlands' PC release a week after its console launch, but the extra time didn't result in much (any?) optimization for the platform. Standard options were completely missing from the settings screen -- basics like mouse smoothing and VSync -- which forced players to dig into .ini files to tweak the game to their liking.

Additionally, Borderlands wasn't optimized for video cards in Scalable Link Interface (SLI); my needlessly overworked cards reached ridiculous internal temperatures of more than 100°C and froze my system. Frequent general protection fault errors plagued my experience, and matchmaking was mostly broken at launch.

Best Worst Most Annoying Game: Evony Online
By Suriel Vazquez
Facebook games may clog up your feeds with useless messages every time someone does something (I'm never going to help you fight those stupid gangsters! Stop asking!), but at least those updates can be removed, and you could just avoid Facebook altogether. Evony Online, however, carpet bombed the whole Internet -- including right here on Bitmob -- with pseudo-sexy ads about "playing discretely." Not only was the game awful, it was allegedly part of a gold-farming scam for World of Warcraft (which may be illegal, depending on where you live). I'd rather buy those ugly lace outfits from American Apparel. Not that they're bad, or that I'd dare badmouth Bitmob's advertising partners....

Best Worst Cancellation: Six Days in Fallujah
By Andrew Hiscock
Konami showed a considerable lack of a pair when they canceled Six Days in Fallujah, a game about the ballsiest profession on earth. While most modern-day shooters substitute real-life locations and conflicts with something vaguely Middle Eastern, Atomic Games were developing a game based on a very specific incident.

We've yet to see the end product, but the potential for commentary on modern-day conflicts and the human agents that propel them is incredible. If Atomic can find a publisher (they still mention the game actively on their website), maybe we'll find out if they can make good on the concept.

Best Worst Game With Brendan Fraser: Inkheart
By Jeffrey Michael Grubb
Former movie star Brendan Fraser was brought to life this year by the DS game Inkheart, based on the movie of the same name about how reading is good for you. Do you see the irony there? Well, Brendan doesn't. Brendan spits on irony. Then cooks it. Then eats the spit-covered irony to help with his irony deficiency.

Inkheart DS makes up for the shameful fact that it is not a book by doing its best book impression. The game consists mostly of reading and doing "fun" chores. It's sublime.

Really, the only thing this game is missing is NOTHING -- except Pauly Shore. Not surprisingly, this game also won Best Worst Game Without Pauly Shore.

If you have read this all the way through, that means you have been seeing a mostly nude Brendan Fraser at your periphery for about 30 seconds. Sorry.

Best Worst Attempt at Erotica: Dragon Age: Origins
By Suriel Vazquez
Many games are guilty of sexual immaturity -- what makes Dragon Age: Origins' sex scenes stand above most everything else, though, is their earnestness. Dragon Age treats the relationships between characters with a degree of sophistication that's surprising for our industry, so when I'm suddenly "treated" to stiff animations of virtual characters having sex with their unmentionables on, it not only robs the entire sequence of any emotional power, it also does a disservice to the rest of the storyline. The culmination of my relationship with this person is an awful -- albeit hilarious -- display of puppet sex? On second thought, let's just be friends.

What's with all the dudes in drawers in this feature all of a sudden?

Best Worst Game to Play on the Train About Trains: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
By Jeffrey Michael Grubb
If you travel, then you know what it's like to sit in coach, surrounded by grumpy people you'd never voluntarily hang out with, and vice-versa. What a great time to pull out your DS and begin shouting, blowing, and rubbing in suggestive patterns!

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks seems like it would be a great game to capture the wonder of traveling. Unfortunately, it also captures the wonder of making an ass out of you. Blowing into the mic is a frequent, necessary technique, and that's not the sort of thing you can do without causing a bit of a scene.

Best of Blurbs (click on the title to read the full text)

Best Worst Most Addictive: Modern Warfare 2
"'I just need two more headshots.' 'I can do that achievement before I go to bed.' 'Alright, last game. I swear.' If you've played Infinity Ward's latest Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare 2, you know what all of those sentences mean...and therein lies the secret to the 235 hours I've put into the game." -Jeffrey Michael Grubb

Best Worst Boss Battle: Albert Wesker, Resident Evil 5
"The coolness factor of watching Wesker dodge bullets and punch through walls increased as the game progressed. But an extended quick-time-event sequence marred the finale, which then led to a last battle against a less-than-human incarnation of the man. Albert, and everyone who played the game, deserved better." -Daniel Feit

Best Worst DLC Announcement: The Beatles: Rock Band
"I would've understood if Harmonix and MTV had decided to hold off on the DLC announcement for The Beatles: Rock Band until a week after the game launched. Hell, I wouldn't even begrudge them for doing on launch day, just to build more buzz for their product. But issuing a press release two weeks in advance that you're holding the best of The Beatles' music hostage as paid DLC?" -McKinley Noble

Best Worst CEO: Robert Kotick (Activision)
"It's Emperor Palpatine himself, Mr. Robert Kotick, CEO of Activision. [He]...has an interesting view on the industry: 'The goal...was to take all the fun out of making video games.'" -Trevor Hinkle

Best Worst Company: EA
"...closing a studio (Pandemic) before Christmas? ...EA showed in 2009 that they haven't developed empathy along with the great games." -Andrew Hiscock

Best Worst Least Inspired Game: Band Hero
"Well, how do we make Guitar Hero appeal to the tween demographic? Just add a bunch of pop songs! They'll eat it up, because our audience is stupid and mindless!" -Suriel Vazquez

Best Worst Useless Peripheral: Wii Motion Plus
"I'm beginning to think Nintendo's execs have collective Alzheimers, what with putting out peripherals with one solid game to support them and then completely forgetting about the whole thing. Well, I've got bad news for you: The motion plus is gone from their minds." -Andrew Hisock

Best Worst Good License Gone Bad: Lord of the Rings: Conquest
"Fault the slightly upgraded Battlefront engine for Lord of the Rings: Conquest's sub-par graphics, but the LOTR license was mainly to blame for the game not working at all. LOTR characters simply did not fit well in the Battlefront formula -- seeing a large number of mages running around broke the illusion completely." -Frank Anderson