In addition to the satisfaction of dragging that last bite of delicious popsicle off of its stick and the pride that fills your body after spelling your name with the trail of a sparkler, the summer months also bring about one other inevitable feeling: the emptiness of not having many videogames to play.

For some odd reason, publishers like to release all their major games at the beginning and end of the year, leaving the middle, extra sunny months a veritable gaming release ghost town: one filled with movie-licensed tumbleweed and dusty, shovelware saloon doors.

But there is still hope!

Today marks the midway point of the year, so what superior way to prepare you for the upcoming months of gaming desolation than with a list of the ideal videogames of 2009?! Using this list, you can start playing some outstanding games that either fell off your radar earlier in the year, or are ones you just haven’t had time to get around to yet. Whatever the reason, these first half of 2009 games should not be missed!

Grab a nice, cool glass of lemonade and hit the jump for a list of fifteen games we here at Destructoid think are worth checking out during this slow, lazy summer: our list of the ideal videogames of 2009 … so far.

Here they are (in alphabetical order):

Bit.Trip Beat (WiiWare)

Bit.Trip Beat has no “characters.” It has no story. It might even have the most “basic” graphics of any game on a current-generation console.

But, man, the game is ridiculously fun.

Playing like a weird hybrid of Pong, Rez, and, I don’t know, Dance Dance Revolution, Bit.Trip Beat is a funky, one-of-a-kind, and mind-numbingly addictive experiment for WiiWare. Using the tilt controls of the Wiimote (no buttons needed!), players are asked to catch “beats” as they cross from one side of the screen to the other. The premise is basic, but seeing the way the game perfectly combines its lovely visuals with the outstanding music is exhilarating. You really need to play it to truly understand the game’s genius!

Choice review excerpt: “Bit.Trip Beat feels like an intentional deconstruction of videogames as a whole, with all forms of complexity stripped away in favor of delivering a simple, concentrated experience.”

(You can read the full review of Bit.Trip Beat right here)

Picked as a favorite by these editors:

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