In all, I played a total of 22 games last year, and I managed to finish eight of them, a number that will increase to nine as soon as I polish off the last couple levels of Assassin’s Creed 2. Here’s the full list, which covers only retail console games, not downloadable games, PC games or handheld games (games in green are the ones I finished):

Xbox 360: Batman: Arkham Asylum, Assassin’s Creed 2, The Beatles: Rock Band, Borderlands, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, DJ Hero, Forza Motorsport 3, Guitar Hero 5, Guitar Hero: Metallica, Halo 3: ODST, Halo Wars, Left 4 Dead 2, Lips Number One Hits, and Madden NFL 10.

PlayStation 3: Killzone 2, MLB 09: The Show, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

Wii: Dangerous Creatures, Mad World, Pikmin: New Play Controls, Wii Sports Resort.

Obviously, there are quite a few games I didn’t even get around to acquiring. Among the most glaring omissions are Dragon Age: Origins, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Street Fighter IV, Tekken 6, Demon’s Souls, Ratchet & Clank Future: Crack in Time, Brutal Legend, and Little King’s Story.

So what was my favorite game of the year? Was it Uncharted 2, the PS3′s thrilling adventure title that is soaking up “Best of” awards right and left? Perhaps Batman: Arkham Asylum, the sleeper hit that was also the rarest of gems: a licensed property that actually expanded the canon of the source material? Or could it be Modern Warfare 2, the best-selling game of the year that did $310 million in sales in its first 24 hours? Read on to see my Top Five…

5. Assassin’s Creed 2. The sequel to Ubisoft’s 2007 hit takes place in 15th century Renaissance Italy, with a cast of historical characters spanning from Leonardo Da Vinci to Machiavelli. Cities like Florence and Venice are recreated with exquisite detail, complete with markets, brothels, canals, and catacombs. Your character is nurtured throughout the course of the entire game, gaining abilities and weapons at a steady pace. It avoids the trap some games fall into of making you too powerful too quickly, and there’s cool new stuff even in the final levels. Apart from the main story, there are side quests aplenty: treasure chests to track down, an ancestral villa to restore, mysterious codex pages to decipher, and many others. My main complaint is that I’ve long lost track of the storyline, and at about 20+ hours so far, with another couple to go, it strikes me as about 25 percent too long. The controls are still not very precise, and I’ve had too many times where my guy frustratingly leaps into empty space or suddenly runs up a ladder instead of giving chase to an opponent.

4. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Activision’s juggernaut is a gorgeous, rewarding, ridiculous masterpiece of interactive military fiction. The climactic showdown is a pure gem of interactive storytelling, and the multiplayer modes are a thing of wonder, juicing up online gunfights with perks, accolades and awards so plentiful as to make the experience rewarding for even the slowest and clumsiest of triggermen. But in an apparent quest to out-do the first Modern Warfare, developers Infinity Ward made an unbelievable and hackneyed hash-job of the story. Here’s the first line of dialog delivered in the most anticipated game of the year: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Compare that with one of the many sparklers heard in Uncharted 2 that is an example of how to turn a cliche on its head.

Chloe (tossing a grenade in the air): Desperate times, right?

Nathan: What does that even mean?!?

Modern Warfare 2 is also starting to show its age a little bit, much like discovering crow’s feet on the face of your favorite starlet. It doesn’t really diminish your enjoyment of the product, but you make a mental note that things aren’t as fresh as they once were. This was most glaring in the lack of a cover mechanic. Nonetheless, MW2 is undeniably an outstanding game.

3. Batman: Arkham Asylum. Not only one of the best-looking games of the year, it is another example of perfect pacing, where your abilities and equipment improve just enough to take on the next challenge. It seamlessly combined several gameplay mechanics: Splinter Cell-style stealth, God of War-style brawling, and a cool “bat sense” detection system for discovering clues and monitoring enemies. The story is gloriously pulpy comic fare in which Joker takes over Gotham’s mental hospital and lures Batman in for a protracted game of cat-and-mouse that plays out on the physical and psychological planes. The wonderful voice acting of Joker by Mark Hamill is just icing on this already deliciously twisted cake.

2. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Having uncovered the lost fortune of his ancestor Sir Francis in the first game, Nathan Drake is back for a romp through the Himalayas in search of the fabled paradise of Shangri-la. The game begins in spectacular fashion with a breathtaking sequence in which Nathan emerges from unconsciousness only to find himself dangling off a mountain cliff in a derailed train car. From there, the story moves backwards and forwards through betrayal, conflicting love interests, and enough hair-raising action to fill a dozen Indiana Jones movies. Indeed, voice actor Nolan North has so completely perfected the “lovable rogue” that Nathan Drake is emerging as the most interesting and enjoyable swashbuckler of this generation.

1. The Beatles: Rock Band. I haven’t seen a single list that put this game at the top, but for sheer enjoyment and bang for the buck, nothing satisfied me last year like this loving tribute to the greatest rock band of all time. Like Guitar Hero 2 and Rock Band before it, TB:RB redefined how we enjoy music. Rare are the games that inspire people to research their subject matter while away from the console. For all the praise heaped on Assassin’s Creed 2 for its attention to historical detail, it was TB:RB that had me constantly checking Wikipedia, Google and Amazon for more information about the band and their music. I’ve had Beatles records in my collection for 20 years now, but it wasn’t until I played the game that I truly appreciated Paul’s intricate bass playing, the three-part harmonies and, yes, even Ringo’s signature drum work.  This was the game I turned to for comfort after losing my job at Microsoft, taking solace in repeated play-throughs of “Here Comes the Sun.” There are nice twists to the traditional gameplay, too. In addition to playing the songs straight through in story mode, there are also chapter challenges that push you to score higher and unlock new photos of the band. A particularly nice touch is that when in quick play mode, a leaderboard of your friends’ scores is displayed alongside each song. If you have any competitive streak at all, you’ll be replaying each song to make sure you claim the top spot. Finally, the achievements are creative and challenging, such as, playing a perfect solo in “While My Guitar Gently Weeps’”, or, nailing all the hammer-ons and pull-offs in “Octopus’s Garden”. It’s astonishing how appealing and universal the songs are, even after 40 years. When I drive my son somewhere, he asks, “Dad, can we listen to some Beatles?” And more often than not, when a Beatles song comes on, he knows what it is and can sing along. How cool will it be when, in 15 years he hears a Beatles song at a party and says, “Wow, I remember playing that song with my dad as a kid.” Perhaps The New York Times wasn’t too far off the mark after all when they said TB:RB may be the most important video game ever made, in the context of bridging the gaps between generations and between games and non-gamers. Congratulations, The Beatles: Rock Band, you were my favorite game of 2009.

2. Snohomish County, just north of Seattle, takes aim at the latest menace to society: bikini baristas.

3. Papa John’s, which is donating all profits from pizzas sold yesterday and today to the families of the four police officers who were gunned down near Tacoma last month, is so overwhelmed with business that all but three of its 20 Seattle-area stores have stopped taking orders. I love the community response, but this left us scrambling for other dinner plans.

4. Perez Hilton gets bitch-slapped.

5. Speaking of bitch-slapping, have you been weighing the Barnes & Noble Nook versus Amazon’s Kindle? The New York Times’ tech maven David Pogue opines: “Every one of the Nook’s vaunted distinctions comes fraught with buzz kill footnotes.”

UPDATE: Other reviewers pile on:

Here’s The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg: “My recommendation on the Nook is to wait, even if you prefer its features to the Kindle’s. It’s not fully baked yet.”

Here’s the AP: “I’ve been trying Barnes & Noble Inc.’s $259 Nook for a few days, and I’m not eager to prolong the acquaintance.”

2. It’s official: Dead Space 2! The original was one of my favorite games of 2008.

3. Also from The Seattle Times, the infuriating story of how the IRS spent tens of thousands of dollars to audit an impoverished single mother of two in order to squeeze her for $1,400 in (questionable) unpaid taxes:

4. The Federal Trade Commission has issued its annual report on Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children:

“The Commission finds that the video game industry has made great strides in restricting the marketing of violent M-rated games to children. Although there remains room for improvement – particularly in the area of Internet advertising – the video game industry outpaces the movie and music industries in the three key areas that the Commission has been studying for the past decade.” (Hat tip to Dubious Quality)

5. Finally, here’s today’s examination of the Amazon Top 100 sellers in video games. Yet again, New Super Mario Bros. Wii took the top spot. Wii titles accounted for 34 spots on the list, up from 30 for most of last week. Xbox 360 had 11 titles while the PlayStation 3 had just seven. Interestingly, of the Wii games, eight of them, or nearly one-quarter, were music or rhythm games.

As for the hardware, the Wii was still the top-seller, coming in at No. 2, while the low-end PS3 was No. 18. However, the Xbox 360 Elite bundle saw a big jump, to No. 30, while the Modern Warfare 2-themed ”Super Elite” system was No. 84. At No. 91 was the 250-gigabyte PS3.

Lotus Capital Management LP of New York earlier this year realized that a competitor was beating it to a trade it had programed by exactly 3 microseconds, day after day. The loss meant Lotus was forfeiting about $1,000 in daily revenue on that particular trading strategy.

Lotus, a quantitative trading firm that uses high-frequency strategies, invested and tinkered, eventually shaving five microseconds from the router and two microseconds from the execution server.

 This is quite long and detailed for Reuters, which typically caps features at 800-1,000 words.

2. I’ve been checking the Top 100 best-selling video-game items on Amazon. This morning, the top game was New Super Mario Bros. for Wii, while the top console was the Wii, occupying the No. 2 slot. The PlayStation 3 appeared at No. 19 (120 GB model) and No. 72 (250 GB model). The Xbox 360 was not on the list. The list featured 30 Wii games, 15 PS3 games and 12 Xbox 360 games.

3. More on space travel from from Charles Stross and why the word “starship” is misleading.

Such an interstellar capability isn’t going to look much like a “ship”. It’s going to look more like a DVD balanced on a microwave beam, or a can of beans hanging below a light sail energized by lasers powered by huge orbiting solar power stations. There won’t be any biological agencies aboard: just AGIs (artificial general intellgences) or something equivalent ported out of a fleshbody’s cranium. No hands, only nanotech assemblers. And after a voyage of decades or centuries it’s going to have to stop — somehow braking at the other end — then spend more decades farming rocks, slush and sunlight to build ever-bigger physical structures until it can build the equipment with which to phone home.

If anything, it’s going to resemble a seed pod for a different kind of life, and on arrival it’s going to hatch and grow into a tree, or a forest, or a manufacturing-industrial complex. Finally, long after arrival, it might have sufficient resources to divert from homeostasis and growth to construct a biosphere, open communications with home, and prepare to download digitized colonists — if the whole uploading concept doesn’t prove to be chimerical, and if there’s something to be done with the serialized primate core-dumps at the other end.

 4. Here’s the scene from “The Matrix” where Neo dodges bullets on the rooftop. Only this one’s been done in Lego.

5. On an open thread on Kotaku, commenter Danarcho voices concerns about the tight collaboration between the military and the video-game industry. I take a more sanguine view.

2. Another cool China link: artist Liu Bolin becomes invisible by painting himself exactly like the background.

3. Finalists in National Geographic’s International Photography Contest. My favorite is the one of the New Zealand farmer.

4. Crispy Gamer’s Ten No-Bullshit Rules for buying video games for kids. Crispy Gamer is increasingly becoming one of my favorite gaming sites. These guys can write.

5. Lev Grossman picks the six greatest fantasy novels of all time.

2. What kind of political system is suitable for colonists on an interstellar journey? Sci-fi author Charles Stross flags some interesting issues.

3. Think movie acting can be bad? Try the 50 Worst Video Game Voice Acting clips.

4.  ”Sometimes his loose-limbed shuffle and sibilant drawl suggest Jimmy Stewart as a crackhead.” That’s The New York Times reviewing Nicholas Cage in his new movie, “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans”.

5. Crack that whip! Pearl Jam does Devo.

2. CageWatch: Nicholas Cage stars in “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans”. Warner Herzog directed, so this has a shot at being decent, or at least fairly entertaining.

3. Remember the U.S. container ship that was hijacked by Somali pirates a few months ago, with a standoff that ended with SEAL snipers taking out the pirates? Well, pirates attacked it again. Only this time, the ship was ready, as a professional security crew repelled the assault with small arms and, awesomely, a sonic blaster.

4. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 raked in $550 million in its first week, topping the previous record-holder, Grand Theft Auto IV, by $50 million.

5. Malcolm Gladwell responds, partially, to Steven Pinker’s recent criticism in the New York Times Book Review.

It’s not the game. As with all forms of entertainment, people will reasonably disagree about what is fun or exciting, but DJ Hero was well-reviewed, with Metacritic scores ranging from 84 to 88 depending on platform.

And it’s not the marketing. Clearly, Activision is putting serious muscle behind the game with a TV spot that features Eminem, Jay-Z, and uh, some random white dude at the turntable. That spot, incidentally, seems to be a minor hit, with nearly half a million views on YouTube and an average user rating of 4-1/2 stars.

I don’t necessarily think Activision over-estimated the size of the market for the game, as Bill at Dubious Quality posits. It won’t ever outsell one of the flagship Guitar Hero releases, but it should do at least as well as, say, one of the band-specific offshoots of Guitar Hero, like GH: Metallica or GH: Aerosmith.

So what is it? Quite simply, it’s the price. At $120, DJ Hero costs twice as much as Modern Warfare 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2 combined. And it’s about a third more expensive than the early Guitar Hero games. On top of that, you have the $200 Renegade edition being heavily promoted in stores, where customers could overlook the fact that there’s a cheaper version.

The original Guitar Hero games succeeded because the extra $20 or $30 they cost seemed like a fair value for a fun and innovative guitar controller. The DJ Hero turntable is a fantastic piece of hardware, but it’s clear that consumers aren’t seeing it as worth another $60. Not in this economy.

My hunch is that DJ Hero needs to hit the $99 price point to really take off, but that it could see a decent Christmas regardless as it ends up being the “big gift” under the tree for many kids.