(GameNerd Sam Machkovech will conclude this local gaming year-end look with his list of the best games released this year. Spoiler: He really liked a game called 'Splosion Man.)

5) Scribblenauts as a concept

I had nice things to say about the locally made Scribblenauts earlier this year, though its success as a full-blown video game wasn't one of them. To solve the game's myriad puzzles, you'd use the Nintendo DS touchscreen to write just about any word you could imagine—ladder, chainsaw, time machine—and the thing you wrote would come to life to help you solve the puzzle. Really, you could try anything; Scribblenauts supports tens of thousands of generated objects. (Yes, even dopey stuff like "Cthulhu" and "keyboard cat.")

Trouble was, if you wanted to tear through the game by using a few special objects over and over (like a Rocketeer-esque rocketpack), you could finish the game too quickly. The puzzles didn't push players to be as creative as the game's toolset allowed, either. Still, this "write anything, solve everything" dynamic was the first of its kind, and it proved to be one of the decade's biggest gaming achievements—especially because, to an impressive extent, the gimmick functioned as promised. Scribblenauts is a game from the metaphoric future: an all-possibilities romp through endless imagination, and deep enough for both kids and grown-ups. The sequel (not yet announced, but assumed) will be a masterwork.

4) Forza Motorsport 3 as a big-budget game

If I'm paying $60 for a video game, I don't want another boring, macho-murder fest . A game that expensive should feel... well, damned expensive. Games, unlike movies, have always had a ridiculous cost barrier—but it's game makers' fault for pricing people out of the hobby.



I have no such complaints about monolithic corporations or boring excess while I race at 150 MPH through Forza Motorsport 3 . Those endless pocketbooks in Redmond turned out to be the perfect match for this virtual take on the fastest, most expensive cars in the world, and the resulting game has tweaked my expectations of what development time and cash can deliver.

Excuse me while I kiss this game's ass. In terms of basic, visceral thrill, Forza 3 pushes the Xbox to do everything a powerful, 3D game system should. More than 400 real-world racing cars have been done virtual justice, and they look, sound, and control as if they were each spit-shined and driven at a high speed out of Cameron Fry's dad's garage .

Even better, Microsoft gave its dev team, Redmond's Turn 10 Studios, the leeway to make this a candyland for racing control freaks. They didn't need to bother giving fans so many engine and body tweak options for the game's hundreds of cars; Microsoft could've said, "It's pretty enough. Ship it!" Instead, beneath the game's alluring hood beats an engine that grows more powerful as the Forza 3 community adds new tuning setups, paint jobs, and replay videos into the online modes.

You can ignore all that stuff and enjoy the basic, car-porn thrill of Forza 3 , but it's hard not to tinker after getting sucked into the game's high-production experience. I'm not a car guy, and I sure fell hard. With this release, Microsoft sates the form's fetishists the way only a massive corporation can.

3) Swine flu, Seattle style

What does it take to convince you people that the Penny Arcade Expo is a big deal? Over 60,000 gamers worldwide descended upon Seattle for this August's gaming celebration, complete with the industry's biggest names as presenters, panelists, and exhibitionists. The show's success proves that our region is the nation's largest for the hobby. Is that not enough? Does its annual, staggering success bore you?

Then let's go macabre. PAX '09 turned out to be the USA's first major breeding ground for swine flu in 2009. Thanks to wonky scheduling, the Expo's final event crammed thousands of people into the WSCC's biggest hall for 45 minutes of waiting and shared, stagnant breath. Days later, fevers flared and immunities were forged across the country, affecting every major nerd company and college in the States. To deal with it, the fest's organizers printed up a worldwide flight/train list to map PAX's impact.

PAX: So huge, it reacts like a Roman god if it doesn't receive a proper sacrifice.

2) Steam rises

Bellevue's Valve Software had a fine year as a game maker; their November release Left 4 Dead 2 helped millions kill even more zombies, and the developers supported legacy releases like Team Fortress 2 with free, quality updates. But Steam ... that's their baby.

In 2003, Steam debuted as the world's first dedicated online gaming store. Gamers have more online game-shopping options these days, so why is Steam still on top? Because it works, beautifully and simply, in the ways game fans want. The service treats its customers like customers, not pirates, making it easy to do things like install a game to multiple computers. Steam's community features simplify online play with useful bonuses like friends lists and matchmaking setups. And the service sells just about any game you can imagine, from the biggest names to the smallest, shiniest indies.

Steam loudly lauded the latter in most of its 2009 promotions, which is commendable enough, but the service also kept prices looooow with a staggering number of promotions for indie and big-ticket games alike—truly, the store hosted more deep-discount sales this year than ever before. Most other downloadable stores try to squeeze as much cash out as possible, but Steam understands that shoppers aren't paying for the box, or the disc, or shipping. They're buying a little code that they could just as easily pirate.

Steam knows gamers, and therefore, gamers trust Steam. As a result, PC gaming is back in style and helping developers make money there again. Are movie and music studios paying attention?

1) Putting the "Live" in Xbox Live

Xbox Live is similar to Steam—online gaming, friends lists, matchmaking, downloadable store, spotlight on indie games—but for the Xbox 360 game system instead of PCs. And Steam absolutely pounded Xbox Live in terms of super-cheap game sales.

But: Where Steam may win with numbers, Xbox Live wins with people.

You been on this crazy li'l Twitter thing yet? The administrators and employees of Xbox Live sure have, and Microsoft has given staffers like Larry Hyrb and Stephen Toulouse free rein to talk about their jobs online. Lots of companies have tried using Twitter as a customer service tool, but Microsoft connects its game-loving employees to the world not as a complaint buffer system, but as a relatable gang of diehard fanboys.

And they're more than MS cheerleaders. You'll see Team Xbox laud the folks at rival studios—even Sony and Nintendo—simply because these men and women love games. I follow a lot of MS employees on Twitter because they deliver a well-rounded combo of news, announcements, game commentary, and like-minded nerdisms from a grown-up perspective.

Similarly, Xbox 360 has consistently been the first to debut what I like to call "living room" features—stuff that goes beyond gameplay to anchor the Xbox as a useful, shared-family device. They were the first to integrate Netflix on-demand movies. First to integrate Last.FM music streaming. First to connect tens of thousands of simultaneous Internet players to a live trivia game show, complete with prizes. When I go to friends' houses, I see them actually using this stuff, unlike Sony's bomb of a "PlayStation Home" feature.

When the first Xbox released in 2001, most gamers thought Microsoft would bomb as a clueless industry novice. This year, they proved to be the only company to really get its customers. Some eight-year turnaround there, folks.