Here are the winners for 2009, with the top 3 in each category. There were a few ties, but there's nothing wrong with that. In some categories, there are fewer than 3 winners: this is because for some things, there were only votes for one or two items. I have also decided to not give any awards to things which only got one vote, because otherwise we'd be seeing a lot more bronze medals. Two categories DID have four winners, because there was a tie for third place which had more than one vote for each.

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Best Level of 2009: Battle

Rainforest Revelry by Ragnarok and cooba (9 Votes)

The Curse by Snooze (3 votes)

Agony Void by P4ul (2 votes)

Not much surprise here. Rainforest Revelry is one of the better looking battle levels of 2009, and one of the most fun. I remember having a lot of fun with this in JDC, particularly.

Best Level of 2009: CTF

Golem Landscapes by FireSworD (9 votes)

Sanguinary Sanctuary by cooba (2 votes)

Mt. Helens (CTF) by Superjazz (2 votes)

Another clear winner here. FireSword has shown that even in 2009, he's still the among the best at making CTF levels. Nothing else even came close to Golem Landscapes in the voting.

Best Level of 2009: Other Multiplayer

Karot Shire by Falcury and Wadledee (7 votes)

Mt. Helens (DOM) by Superjazz (5 votes)

Arctic Citadel by Hitch (2 votes)

Greed by Hitch (2 votes)

This one was a bit closer. Karot Shire won, and it's easy to see why: it's not very often that a level like that comes along, creating a sort of JJ2 RPG. The fact that it requires a utility makes it a bit harder to play, but it's very interesting nonetheless. Mt Helens came in close second, and is a good choice for those who prefer more traditional JJ2 gameplay. I'd also like to congratulate hitch for managing to tie for third place... with himself. You don't see that happen very often.

Best Multiplayer Pack of 2009

New Ages IV - THE RAIN by Snooze (9 votes)

Memories 3: Imagination by Hitch (2 votes)

Planetary by Fawful (2 votes)

Again, a clear winner: New Ages IV won by a landslide. Of all of the New Ages packs, IV is arguably the best one. It's a shame that I, II and III are no longer available on J2O.

Best Singleplayer Release of 2009

Episode Five: The Fortress of Ruin by EvilMike (15 votes)

This was literally the only thing that got votes. I guess its not surprising - I put a ton of work into ep5 and it paid off (although I'm going to admit that I did make it too hard). Overall 2009 was actually a pretty dry year for single player. There were releases, but mot most of them weren't too good. I think you guys should release more SP stuff. So much promising work never sees the light of day.

Best Tileset of 2009

Casualty Mines, venue of Bloody Valentine by Gus (11 votes)

Aftermath by LMAT (5 votes)

There were a surprising number of good tilesets in 2009, but two really stood out above the rest. Casualty mines ultimately won, and it's easy to see why. This tileset is also the main reason why Gus got so many votes as "most improved".

Best JCSer of 2009

EvilMike (9 votes)

Snooze (5 votes)

cooba (2 votes)

Gus (2 votes)

The main winners here were me and snooze. Personally, I'm a bit surprised that I won, considering that I only released one thing this year! Maybe it's finally time to go back to making MP levels...

Most Improved JCSer of 2009

Dodges (6 votes)

Gus (6 votes)

Fawful (3 votes)

And here we have our only tie for first place. On one hand we have Gus, whose tileset making abilities exploded in 2009. He's shown not only a high amount of artistic talent with tilesets like Casualty Mines, but also a more experimental flair with some of his more recent releases. Dodges on the other hand is a relative newcomer, but he's shown that he's both a talented level maker and tileset maker (Traditional Japan comes to mind, though that's technically a 2010 tileset). For those who follow the "post the levels you are working on" thread in the JCS forum, it's obvious that Dodges fully deserves his win here, just as much as Gus does.

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Well, that's all for 2009. For a game that came out in 1998, it's impressive that J2O still has good stuff being uploaded. Let's hope 2010 is the same.

A J2O news post featuring the winners will be made later on in this week. (I don't feel like doing it right now, because this post is a lot of work as it is.) If another admin wants to do it for me, go right ahead.

Click here if you want to see the exact breakdown of votes, or want to double check what I did.