Spencer’s up next with his other favorites from last year.

Iron Brigade (formerly Trenched)

The first of two developers returning from my 2010 Honorable Mentions, Double Fine’s latest, Iron Brigade (prior to a legal dispute, it was Trenched), may have been made specifically to hit all the pleasure centers in my brain. Giant robot shooter? Check. Tower defense? Check. Alternate-history/sci-fi Great War setting? Check and check. Layer on heaps of Double Fine’s comedy writing and art style, and you have an amazing, entertaining diversion that defies easy classification. Exclusive to Xbox 360, this was perhaps the only reason I was miffed when my Live account ended up hacked.

Orcs Must Die

Mechanically, Orcs Must Die is something like Tecmo’s Deception mixed with God of War: a trap-setting almost-tower defense game where you can wade into the fray with your sword if things get hairy. In addition to this, it adds hilarious dialog and general silliness – the orcs would be almost sympathetic if they weren’t mentioning their desire to kill humans, and they’re downright funny even as you mow them down. Top it off with a protagonist who may as well be an ancestor of Bruce Campbell, and you have a guaranteed winner. Frequently hits Steam sales, plays great with a gamepad.

The Stanley Parable

To be honest with you the reader, The Stanley Parable is not, strictly speaking, a game. It’s more of a game about a game, or perhaps a game about games. However, curious little experiment though it might be, it’s a compelling narrative, one that will hopefully make you wonder about games as a medium for storytelling. A remake is on the way, implementing more of the designer’s original vision – in the interim the mod remains free for your enjoyment, and quite fascinating in its current state.

Atom Zombie Smasher

Blendo Games returns with what might be called “Hipsters in the Zombie Apocalypse.” Atom Zombie Smasher is a curious, clever take on the real time strategy and tower defense formats (little bit of a theme in my selections this year). Like its predecessors, AZS is quirky, off-beat and loads of fun, all the way down to its 60s surf-rock soundtrack. Pack up your helicopter, lock and load with the 56th Badger Infantry and enjoy.

However, today, I’d like to discuss a form of gaming that has not appeared, to my knowledge, on this site: pen and paper roleplaying. The genre that contains Dungeons & Dragons, Vampire: The Masquerade, Shadowrun, and countless others. The pursuit that, arguably, gave birth to the roleplaying videogame genre.

Yep, I’m going there.

Unlike some of my other nerdily-skewed pursuits, tabletop roleplaying games remain very popular, with D&D (the most successful of the bunch) the source of over $1 billion in sales for Wizards of the Coast. And while they still occupy the domain of the ultra-nerdy, weekly pen and paper sessions are becoming more the domain of the urban hipster-geek rather than the archetypal basement-dwelling set.

While participating in many of the chronicles and stories my friends assembled, I’ve never been successful in running a game of my own. Sure, there were false starts here and there, but never something for which I was sufficiently prepared, never something into which my players could sink their teeth. Scheming for a spell on a game based on FASA and Microsoft’s Crimson Skies, my plans fell to the wayside, with boxes of aircraft miniatures left to collect dust.

Until recently.

Like any creative pursuit, inspiration for my game struck without warning, as I rode the 545 from Redmond back to my home in Seattle. Idly pondering the venerable Boeing B-17 (the aircraft my grandfather flew in the second World War), I began to imagine if the same plane had been developed in the Crimson Skies universe. Inspiration struck. I had to act fast — experience warned that failing to write then and there would cause me to lose the spark. As the bus rolled along, mired with traffic on the floating bridge, the setting for the game unfolded ahead of me – plot, characters, missions and adventures all channeled through my pen and into my notebook for later perusal and refinement.

The stage was set. Now, I had to draw my wayward players back into the fold.

I gave this list considerable thought previously, but for myriad reasons, it was pushed back until now.

Regardless, here it is, albeit a couple weeks into the new year. In honesty, most of what I wanted to see in the top ten made it there, so this is very much a “best of the rest” situation.

Costume Quest (360/PS3)

While many were less than impressed with 2009′s Brütal Legend, I saw fit to put it on my Honorable Mentions for the year. While the gameplay itself was enjoyable (though admittedly flawed), the story, setting, and flavor more than made up for it for my tastes. Costume Quest is, in many respects, the precise opposite of Brütal Legend (a simple downloadable RPG title vs. an A-list, star-voiced action/strategy game), but it oozes Double Fine’s signature charm. Gameplay is reminiscent of the (tragically) short-lived Penny Arcade Adventures series, but with writing and art so entirely charming that one can forgive the limited length or out-of-season theme. You may wish to delay playing it until Halloween, but it remains recommended.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World / X-Men (360/PS3)

The former is a new, somewhat-flawed but enjoyable downloadable game, the latter is a port of an old arcade / SNES title. Both, however, are enjoyable brawlers best played with friends on a couch. Scott Pilgrim – a surprisingly well-executed film tie-in – is the easy superior of the two, with a fantastic soundtrack by Anamanaguci and amusing, graphic novel-saluting art and boss fights. For sheer nostalgia’s sake, however, anyone raised in the 90s will revel in the nostalgic goodness of X-Men (cheesy dialog such as “WELCOME, TO DIE!” et al). It might be the case that I buy any brawler that becomes available on 360 – regardless of this personal flaw, you will likely have fun with either title in the aforementioned context. Sure, there’s online multiplayer in X-Men, but to hell with that.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (PC)

Yes, it’s Stockholm syndrome with a monthly fee. If you’re feeling the urge to relapse, however, Cataclysm adds enough entertaining new content, fun tweaks to classes and mechanics, and honestly challenging dungeons to hold the interest of the still-not-recovered MMO player in you. Add on top of this the greatest playable race of all time (here’s a hint: it’s not the one that yiffs) and you have a game I’ve been playing just to stop thinking about Star Trek Online at night. It’s grim, don’t judge me.

Flotilla: Orbital Battleship Maneuvers (PC/360 Indie)

I like to call this one “Hipsters in Space.” Part Homeworld, part turn-based, with an arcade-adventure feel and quirky, unique art that oozes style, Flotilla is eminently enjoyable. It’s more than a little silly, and might not be your cup of tea, but give the demo a try. It’s wonderfully unique, and undeniably delightful. Where else can you get schooled at space combat by an eyepatch-wearing penguin chick? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

While our Top 10 Games of 2009 deserve attention for their overall excellence, we can’t neglect this year’s remaining deluge of fantastic games — titles that just missed the final cut. Be it their charm, gameplay or presentation, our Honorable Mentions were simply hard to forget. We now present part two of a five-part series of Honorable Mentions articles, one from each member of the Silicon Sasquatch staff. Here are Spencer’s picks.

Though our top ten is a sturdy list of the year’s finest titles, we each had some favorites fall through the cracks. Here, then, are my preferred runners-up.

Red Faction: Guerrilla and Brütal Legend

June — Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows | Rocktober — Xbox 360, PlayStation 3

Alec Mason (left) wields an ostrich as a sledgehammer while Eddie Riggs holds his beloved guitar, Clementine

Brütal Legend and Red Faction: Guerrilla are shoo-ins, the former being a flawed but ultimately fun strategy/adventure title, the latter a shallow but supremely enjoyable shooter with great physics and solid multiplayer. Both are worth playing, especially considering they’ll probably hit the $20-30 price range soon.

Gratuitous Space Battles

November — Windows

The name really does say it all.

While Left 4 Dead and its sequel were setting the standard for zombie apocalypse simulations, Tripwire was busy ignoring them both while releasing Killing Floor. Where the former titles are teamwork-oriented and story-driven in their portrayal of the infection, the latter is a gore-filled zombstomp – less about getting from point A to point B and more about taking down as many zeds as possible in post-apocalypse Britain.  Freaky English voodoo-thrash-electronica accompanies the action flawlessly.

Team Fortress 2

October 2007 — Windows (also available on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as part of The Orange Box — but unfortunately without the Windows version’s updates)

The latest update pits the Blue Soldier against his best pal, the Red Demoman

Team Fortress 2 nets my final spot; yes, I’m quite aware it came out two years ago, but Valve’s regular updates are packed full with something for everyone; maps, hats, weapons, and even achievements for the recovering gamerscore-junkie. Valve’s commitment to TF2 makes it the best team multiplayer experience on the PC, as it has been for two years running.

I’d like to preface this by saying I have no interest in Modern Warfare 2′s multiplayer component. The betrayals of Activision and Infinity Ward have come and gone; the damage is done, and for once I feel like I have nothing to say on the topic.

However, the single player portion continued to intrigue me. I loved the campaign in Call of Duty 4, as well as the previous Infinity Ward-crafted stories of Call of Duty 1 and 2. Procuring a copy of the latest game to continue the Modern Warfare storyline felt like a good idea, like an olive branch offered to a quarrelsome friend.

To the studio’s credit, the single player was certainly an exciting experience. Indeed, it never stopped the excitement. Even when I hoped the game would slow down a bit and let me get my bearings, there was non-stop, full-on action. Too much perhaps, and out of some necessity.

As it turns out, Modern Warfare 2 is a hideous patchwork beast assembled from the successes of its predecessor — stitched together with threads of blasting sound, unrelenting fury and boring cliché. Only a few moments weren’t copies of some pulse-pounding Call of Duty 4 scene. Did you enjoy Modern Warfare’s sniper segment? Now there are two. What about a stunning mid-air leap to a helicopter? Check. Vehicle escapes? Three. First-person reception of an execution-style pistol round? Two. Spectacular character death scenes? One (and a half). Every little facet that made Call of Duty 4 special was copied and plastered all over Modern Warfare 2′s campaign, and unconvincingly so.

Spots that Infinity Ward couldn’t properly put a primer coat over were painted in thick shades of camp. Modern Warfare 2 runs the gauntlet from the popular good-guy-turns-bad betrayal to the Cold War-era Soviet invasion of the United States fantasy, à la Red Dawn, Red Alert 2 and World in Conflict. The only moments where this abomination is remotely reminiscent of classic Call of Duty were the sections from the perspective of the U.S. Army Ranger, which fell victim to the already-mentioned Russian invasion absurdity. Even old videogame clichés were pursued, including the obligatory character voiced by Keith David, and the vaguely-justified motion sensor. No ironic stones, it seems, were left unturned.

I dubbed Call of Duty 4, without hesitation, both my favorite game and the best action movie of 2007. Tragically, Modern Warfare 2 was for me the worst action film of 2009, a year that saw Transformers 2 in theaters. When the dust settled from my straight-through six-hour campaign session, I knew why the pacing had been kept so frantic: Such haste temporarily distracted me from all the sameness; it shifted my attention from the growing feeling that I had experienced all of this content before in previous games and films.

Once the credits stopped rolling, Modern Warfare 2 laid threadbare at my feet. The challenges were somewhat amusing, but easily abandoned, and the graphics hadn’t improved in two years. In all, well… it felt like a Treyarch game.

Thankfully for Treyarch, Modern Warfare 2 has set the bar nice and low. Perhaps the World at War developer can take the crown from Infinity Ward; it seems the old guard has forgotten how to wear it.