Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was apparently the most anticipated game of all time, so unsurprisingly it’s also the most illegally downloaded game of 2009 according to BitTorret trackers.

The actual figure is rather scary – a massive 4.1 million copies. Think of how much that would be in lost revenue. EA’s The Sims 3 is the second most pirated game of the year with 3.2 million copies downloaded, followed by Prototype (just over 2 million), Need for Speed Shift (ditto) and Street Fighter IV (just under 2 million).

Also knocking around on the list is DiRT 2, UFC: Undisputed and New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Unsurprisingly, Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust – the worst game of 2009 according the Metacritic – was nowhere to be seen. I bet though some people downloaded it just to see how terrible it really is.

UK Charts

The Christmas sales have only been in full swing for two days so the chart hasn’t been shaken up a great deal by people out bargain hunting. The top 5 is largely the same at least – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 followed by FIFA 10, Assassin’s Creed II, Wii Sports Resort and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games.

Avatar: The Game is up from #12 to #8, but it’s impossible to tell if this is just because the likes of Tesco are selling it for under £25 already or if people really are paying full price for it.

The Beatles: Rock Band and Grand Theft Auto IV are both back in the chart at #26 and #38. I’m guessing that The Beatles is back because HMV were selling the whole kit for a rather nice £40. Nice that is, if you have a place to store it all.

2010 is going to be a good one for Prince of Persia fans; there’s the Sands of Time movie, a new game to tie-in with it and now (well, soon) Prince of Persia LEGO.

The LEGO lovers at Brickset managed to unearth details of the five proposed playsets – Hassasins Hide Out, Battle of Almut, Quest Against Time, The Ostrich Race and Fight for the Dagger – presumably from a LEGO catalogue or similar.

The Quest Against Time looks the most exciting as it features bricks that light up. The Ostrich Race comes with two LEGO ostriches; Fight for the Dagger has a LEGO camel.

Adam has already championed Metacritic’s best games of 2009, but what about the worst games of this year? By cleverly altering the site’s search criteria we were able to find the very worst that 2009 had to offer. Warning: the following ten games suck balls.

In 10th place is ATV Quad Kings (33%, Zoo) a lame and fuzzy racer which was somehow worse than Popcorn Arcade’s “Monster Trux” games. The game at 9th position is a Wii game too – CID: The Dummy (31%, Oxygen). This was knocking around the release schedules for ages and under different names (it was once known as Crash Dummy Vs The Evil D-Troit) suggesting that the developers had trouble pitching the idea to publishers. Oxygen folded a few months back: the quality of the game clearly didn’t help.

8th place goes to a quite a new release – Rogue Warrior (30%, Bethesda Softworks) on Xbox 360. It was developed by Rebellion, who also did the 2000 AD Rogue Warrior game…but this is a different rogue warrior. He’s a human and not a blue mutant, for starters. Oddly, Rebellion are responsible for the 7th worst game on the list – ShellShock 2: Blood Trails (30%, Eidos Interactive). The original ShellShock was done by Killzone 2 developers Guerrilla and wasn’t too bad. This sequel was simply bad.

Obviously, it’s not really called Aliens vs Predator: The Fancy Edition – as the image above shows it’ll be known as Aliens vs Predator: Hunter Edition. The replicator facehugger looks ideal for scaring the next door neighbour’s cat with. Price? Currently unknown but I’m guessing more than £50 seeing as it comes in a steel book case with a graphic novel, sew-on badge, four extra maps a 3D print plus the aforementioned rubber hugger.

UK Charts

I’m a gambling man, so I’m not sure why I didn’t put money on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 being Christmas #1. It’s probably because I’d be too embarrassed to walk into Ladbrokes and actually do it. This is what the Christmas top 10 chart looks like, anyway:

1 CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2
2 FIFA 10
3 WII FIT PLUS
4 WII SPORTS RESORT
5 ASSASSIN’S CREED II
6 MARIO & SONIC AT OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES
7 NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. WII
8 FORZA MOTORSPORT 3
9 MARIO KART WII
10 JUST DANCE

I bet a month ago nobody could have predicted Just Dance making the cut. It’s also fair to say that Nintendo have ‘ruled’ this Christmas – six of those games are exclusive to Nintendo formats, so well done them. Any company that can get a game that’s nearly two years old (Mario Kart Wii) into the Christmas top 10 genuinely deserves a pat on the back.

Videogame developers need to be more creative when it comes to including the achievements and trophies into their to games – it’s pretty much a given now that once you kill 100 enemies, complete a level or defeat a boss that one will pop up. But it’s not just the reason for gaining a dose of Gamerpoints that developers need to be more creative with – it’s the names that they’re given too.

The guys at Giant Bomb scoured lists of achievements and found that Untouchable was the more frequently used achievement name, popping up in no less than 55 games. The second was Hero (30 games), followed by Veteran (28 games), Survivor (27 games) and Treasure Hunter (19 games).

I still reckon that Dead Rising has the best achievements, including ones for knocking over zombies with bowling balls and also for toppling them over with giant umbrellas.

This Week’s Games

A lot of people will be doing their Christmas shopping this weekend, so releasing a new game the week before Christmas isn’t an entirely mad thing to do. Only Nintendo and Sony are brave enough to do this though, with just two new releases out this week – Buzz! Quiz World on PSP and Nintendo Presents: Crossword Collection on DS. They’re both probably alright, if quizzes and crosswords “float” your “boat”.

If not, then you should get out into town and try to bag yourself a bargain – Game and GameStation have pre-owned stuff for as little as 98p (I picked up NASCAR 08 on PlayStation 3 for a friend) while Blockbusters, PC World and Currys.digital have started their sales too. If you can’t stand the crowds – and I don’t blame you, people can be twats at Christmas – then there’s some good stuff to be had online such as Brutal Legend at Play.com for £17.99 while Zavvi has Borderlands and Operation Flashpoint 2 for £17.95 a pop.

Next week: Nothing, because it’s Christmas Day, but 8th January sees Bayonetta, the apparently very Zelda-like Darksiders and Winter Games 2010 hitting shelves.

Sega have been drip-feeding us the character roster for Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing for a long time now, slowly confirming the likes of Alex Kidd, Billy Hatcher and Shenmue’s Ryo. It looks like they’ve saved the best for last – Banjo & Kazooie will be playable in the Xbox 360 version, according to box art posted on Sega.com.

If that’s to go by then the full title is now a rather long winded Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing with Banjo-Kazooie. It’s still not known if the PlayStation 3 or Wii versions will have extra characters, but there’s certainly plenty of possibilities. The PlayStation 3 could potentially feature Sackboy, Rachet & Clank or Jak & Dexter while Nintendo’s B-listers like Kirby, Starfox or the L-shaped block from Tetris could star in the Wii version. Or maybe even Mario. But I doubt that.

Whilst the actual release of Gran Turismo 5 seems to have been delayed for an eternity, GT fans are in for a treat tomorrow with the launch of GT Academy 2010 as part of the Gran Turismo 5 demo download available on December 17th.

The demo features the Indianapolis GP Circuit and a Nissan 370Z (Nissan are sponsoring GT Academy). Players can race a time trial on the track, with the fastest racers going on to race a real Nissan 370Z around Silverstone, with the winner getting the chance to race in the Euro GT4 Cup and become a professional race driver.

Sounds good, if you’re into that kind of thing. The time trial runs until January 24th, with the demo available to download on the PlayStation Network tomorrow.

UK Charts

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks was the only decent game out last week, so I wasn’t expecting much action in the top 10 chart this week. Something very odd has happened though – Ubisoft’s Just Dance has gone all the way from #30 to #8. Reviews have been appalling – the average review score currently stands at 35% – so I’m guessing that it has been advertised on TV or something.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is still #1, while James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game is doing better in its second week of release now at #29. The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks misses out of a top 10 ranking, having to make do with #12.

The chance of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 being Christmas #1? Almost a dead cert I’d say. Unless even more morons buy Just Dance…

Spike TV’s annual videogame award show aired on US televisions last night. Snoop Dog performed live, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves took game of the year and a whole host of new titles were announced. Thanks to the miracle of the internet trailers for the freshly unveiled (breathe in) Batman: Arkham Asylum 2, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, Spec Ops: The Line, Deadliest Warrior, Tron: Evolution and True Crime can be seen below, courtesy of GameTrailers (breathe out). The first proper in-game footage for Halo: Reach was also shown.

HALO: REACH
BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM 2
TRUE CRIME
STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASHED 2
SPEC OPS: THE LINE
PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE FORGOTTEN SANDS
TRON EVOLUTION
DEADLIEST WARRIOR

Ah, it’s like E3 all over again!