As Gamasutra's resident PC gaming nerd*, I was again tapped to provide our PC-specific Best of 2009 awards. Since I'm not sure if Idle Thumbs is going to bust out another GOTY.cx this year, I figured I'd let you guys know what I thought of this year's offerings by way of my Gamasutra rankings.

The more I reflected on the list, the more I remembered that although this fall has been fairly unremarkable for the PC -- lots of competent but expected multiplatform games, mainly -- the first half of the year was jam-packed with amazingly interesting and unique PC games, many of which were exclusive, with an impressive range of indie to high-budget experiences.

Along with the digital distribution price war really kicking into effect, it's been a fantastic year for the platform. My opinion that the PC is not the place for mainstream triple-A action game experience was solidified; people looking at the platform through that lens (which is understandable, as it's how the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are sold) are likely to come away feeling the PC is comparatively anemic, but those willing to broaden their horizons and examine a more diverse array of genres and scopes will better perceive the true strength of the format.

Here's a quick alphabetical list of all the games I highlighted:
AAaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity (Dejobaan Games)
Batman: Arkham Asylum (Rocksteady Studios)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Infinity Ward)
Dawn of Discovery/Anno 1404 (Blue Byte/Related Designs)
Dragon Age: Origins (BioWare)
Empire: Total War (The Creative Assembly) (Confidential to Nick: Ha ha.)
League of Legends (Riot Games)
Left 4 Dead 2 (Valve Software)
Plants vs. Zombies (PopCap Games)
Risen (Piranha Bytes)
The Sims 3 (Maxis)
Tales of Monkey Island (Telltale Games)
Torchlight (Runic Games)
Trine (Frozenbyte)
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II (Relic Entertainment)
Zeno Clash (Ace Team)

The full Gamasutra article has the Top 5 ranking as well as justifications for each choice. As with other blog posts, we still have no comments, so feel free to discuss in the forums.

*My colleague Kris Graft, who joined this year, has fortunately doubled our staff's PC gaming ranks.

The cast will be a day or two late this week, as Nick and I are out of town, so why not catch up on our surprisingly existent PAX coverage? In retrospect, we should have spaced it out more -- from what we can tell, many of our readers were overwhelmed by so much Thumb in such a short span of time.

We did three audio interviews at the show, first speaking at longest length with adventure game legend Ron Gilbert (The Secret of Monkey Island, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, Humongous' substantial catalogue, etc.), mainly about his upcoming RPG/adventure hybrid DeathSpank but also about the classic Monkey Island games.

Next up was Valve writer Chet Faliszek, currently working on Left 4 Dead 2 and also known as one of the Old Man Murray guys, the other one being fellow Valve writer Erik Wolpaw. We talked about Left 4 Dead 2 as well as, of course, football and Civilization IV.

Finally, we chatted with BioWare's Mac Walters, lead writer on the upcoming Mass Effect 2 and a senior writer on the original Mass Effect, in our briefest (and probably most on-topic) show of the three.

Each is available in the archives, as well as through RSS and iTunes.

If you actually read this blog, you've probably already seen the PAX meet write-up, but just in case you haven't, you should! We've added a few new photographs from an attendee.

Finally, as a few of you know but most probably don't, Idle Thumbs originally began as a feature- and news-driven site comprised entirely of words and images, way back in the misty bygone era of 2004 or so. One of our first interviews consisted of Jake and me sitting in a Bay Area coffee shop with Ron Gilbert for three hours, talking about video games into a tape recorder. The proceedings were laboriously transcribed into three parts over several months.

Because they are now somewhat topical again, but simultaneously against my better judgment and professional self-interest, I am linking to them here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 (the pagination links within each article work, but the internal links to the various parts do not under the current site).

These transcripts are painful for me to read, as Jake and I come off as unprepared and amateurish beyond belief, but I am so surprised that Idle Thumbs ended up interviewing Ron Gilbert again five years later that I have persuaded myself to let them be experienced once again.