20. Condemned 2: Bloodshot

Monolith stole the blueprint of hell and with it designed Condemned 2. A grotesque game both visually, thematically and ideologically, it trades the threat of violence and white fear that was so effective in the first game for its dumb and brutal reality, taking what was terrifyingly implicit and making it plainly explicit. The linear path, forcing you to behave in monstrous ways without rhyme, reason or wit makes this the gaming equivalent of torture porn. Meritless.

19. Tomb Raider Underworld

Some critics have misconstrued Underworld’s precision and polish for soullessness and yes, there are times when the design’s meticulous order robs its world of credibility. But really this is a game of supreme competence, executed by a developer that understands its heroine and the laws of her universe in full. The game suffers in some ways by comparison to newcomer rival Drake’s Fortune, both in terms of script writing and gunplay, but Lara’s latest contains enough jewels of its own to be an expedition worth undertaking.

18. Boom Blox

Boom Blox’s lacklustre sales contrast with its fawning, near-universal critical acclaim. In movie terms then, Boom Blox is an art house classic, loved by the cognoscenti, spurned by the massmarket, the kind of product one doesn’t usually associate with its director Steven Spielberg. Proof perhaps that, like their film-judging better cousins, videogame critics wield less power than they might hope.

15. Professor Layton and the Curious Village

Professor Layton takes the Sunday newspaper supplement brainteaser and nestles it into a Ghiblian narrative, proving that minigame compilations, when placed in the right metagame, can be more intriguing and compelling than the grandest long form epic. The watercolour aesthetic and eastern European soundtrack take videogames into fresh, welcome territory. This is the kind of village encountered in dream, the two-dimensional layout of half-memory, filled with curious, often senseless inhabitants. Then the game ends with a climactic twist that impresses upon your mind more than any of the constituent puzzles that led to its revelation. Spellbinding.

14. Rez HD

When I asked Kieron to offer some feedback on my review of the game, he took a long look, a deep breath and offered: “Yeah. The commission screwed you. It’s Rez, for f**k’s sake.” You see, Rez communicates so much of what makes videogames brilliant: the awesome spectacle, the otherworldly, esoteric visuals, the interactive soundtrack and the high-score chasing compulsion of repeat play. So to articulate what makes Rez a triumph is to try to encapsulate in words the very medium’s potential. Perhaps I failed in that aim, but this game, on this system, at this point in time, articulates all that is wonderful about videogames better than almost any other.

12. Rock Band 2

There is no game that I’ve played more this year, especially with friends, especially while having the best of times. Harmonix reveal their pedigree in an assured update to the best music game currently on the market. As a piece of software it’s superior to the new Guitar Hero in almost every way, from the slick, clean interface to the boisterous drum samples themselves. The world tour mode is something of a slog, and as a barrier to unlocking the game’s full roster of songs, is perhaps too steep, but otherwise Rock Band 2 is the greatest co-op music game on the market and that you can import songs from previous games points toward a happy future for its followers.

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