In recent years, the video game industry has leapt forward as quickly as a frog with a jetpack. As new, ground-breaking advancements like Project Natal and the Sony motion controller wait on the horizon, a steady string of incredible fall releases have been pushing our current-gen consoles to their limit. Unfortunately, not every game harbors such aspirations, instead choosing to follow a safer path that sacrifices originality and uniqueness for familiarity and tried-and-true mechanics. Below are my picks for the ten most formulaic games of 2009, titles that stuck so closely and stubbornly with what has worked in the past that they barely justified their place on the new release shelf.

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You may still be recovering from last week’s release of Borderlands, and the one-two punch of Uncharted 2 and Brutal Legend before that, but this week’s got even more ways to spend your money with Forza 3 Motorsport and DJ Hero. Forza 3 is an Xbox 360 exclusive, preempting the Playstation 3′s Gran Turismo 5 with a boatload of cars (405, to be exact) plus the ability to customize your machines and share them with the world. And of course you can actually drive them as well. DJ Hero, out now for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii and Playstation 2, brings hip hop to the fake plastic instrument genre, with a turntable and a song list that mixes DJ Shadow with Tears for Fears and Gorillaz with Marvin Gaye. Your bank account frowns, unless you hate racing and pretending to spin records.

Playing Guitar-Hero or Rock Band is more like performing on stage than you think. After all, when you’re set back behind the drum kit, and all the volume’s coming from your TV, you really can’t hear what you’re doing as well as you’d like. Enter Altec Lansing’s Stage-Gig, which looks exactly like the monitors used by professional performers. This baby kicks out 40 watts of sound with a 6.5-inch speaker, and it’s meant to be placed right at your feet. You can even daisy chain a few of these speakers together using the included RCA outputs. The Stage-Gig works with Guitar Hero, DJ Hero and Rock Band, and will cost $100 when it arrives early next month. Look, you’re either that serious about the music, or you’re not. [via CNet]