Best Driving Game

When you think about it the standards of this particular genre are far above others. It’s really hard to find a truly awful driving game nowadays and the next evolution in the series is always around the corner. It’s also hard to find a better looking genre as driving games always have some of the best graphics around. Games like PGR, GRID and DiRT are always at a the forefront of graphic technology. This year again proved to be another excellent year for this stellar genre.

ATV games normally tend to be towards the lower echelons of the genre but that’s taking into considering how good of a standard this genre has as a whole. That’s why it was a shock to see how well Pure turned out. It’s arcadey controls and SSX-esque format made it a hit along with some adrenaline pumping jumps and tricks. In a similar arcade vain was Mario Kart Wii with it’s wrongly named Wii-Wheel (Wiieel is better) might not have been innovativly the best game in the franchise but it was a solid entry for the Wii.

Meanwhile the Sony released the ludicrously cheap Wipeout HD on the Playstation Network. With it’s fantastic soundtrack and graphics, Wipeout HD was a hard one to turn down and it was only let down by a tough learning curve. Last year DiRT was my standout racer of the year and this year the team at Codemasters tweaked that same engine into something just as good. GRID might not have had the diversity of DiRT but it did have brilliant graphics and a better racing experience. Something that proved to be a lethal combination.

It’s true to say that GRID would have been the winner if it wasn’t for…

Burnout Paradise

The fantastic Burnout Paradise. Open-world game play isn’t a term used within this genre never mind the franchise as a whole yet the folks down at Criterion pulled it off. It also turned out to be one of the best multiplayer experiences of the year and this is without mentioning the year of free DLC support they have offered. It appears that 2009 will continue to be another great year for this game with seemingly no limits.

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Best Shooter – Best Sports – Best Platformer – Best RPG – Best Action Adventure – Best Rhythm – Best Driving – Best Puzzle – Best Downloadable – Best Platform Exclusives – Best Soundtrack – Best Graphics – Best Artistic Vision – The Line Up – Game of the Year

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