Did you sit outside a theater in 1989 to picket Back to the Future Part II, too?

No, my problem with Bioshock Infinite was never the plot holes, dumb leaps of logic, any lack of pacing and bad character development. The main problem was that the gameplay was heavily dumbed down where most of the features, that made up for the lack of the original games shooting mechanics, were completely gone. Hacking, photographing and researching enemies, plasmid variety, amount of guns you can carry and weapon variety, interesting encounters that didn't revolve around a single weakpoint are all gone. I also didn't appreciate that they completely removed the freedom and added 100% linear levels. Furthermore I also thought the game was the biggest missed opportunity in recent memory. Its based around multiverses but the most exotic place we visit is Rapture? And why does Columbia feel more dead than Rapture when that was supposed to be a fully living breathing city? All people vanished the second a gun was fired the first time. Despite that I am not even mad, I am simply amazed that anyone can consider Bioshock Infinite a worthy sequel. I just get excited when someone tries to disregard criticism with deflection that the problem is with the player and not the game.

fixed

Disagree, have fun with Infamous in February though.

Such season.

As much as I was disappointed at BioShock Infinite, I agree with Jeff that nitpicking logic leaps and suspension of disbelief is a really shitty way to critique something. At the same time those weren't my problems with the game. It's been a long time, so it's hard to recall, but I think my issues were largely centered on the combat, pacing, and character development. Admittedly, I would love to be told a story that took place in Columbia, just not that story.

jeff seems so critical on sooo many games, yet a cookie cutter shooter is his favorite game of 2013? odd.

Overall a list I agree with much more than I thought I would. Regardless let the Gerstmania Storm begin.

Thanks for going through a really bizarre year with us Jeff. Really appreciate it. Much like many of you have said, video games are my respite from the real world when it can be a bit much to handle. I however have come to a place where most of my friends aren't playing video games anymore or aren't playing them the way I do. You and the Giantbomb crew essentially are my game playing friends, even though the friendship is entirely one-sided. Quick Looks, Bombcasts (and its various nefarious offspring), all are hugely important elements of my week and have been for the past few years. On behalf of all the people like me out there, people you've never heard of but have spent countless hours listening to you, thank you and thank you to everyone else in that office (and in Chicago and New York and who are named Brad Muir and etc. and etc.).

On a side note I'm glad you are enjoying Marvel Heroes again, it's come leaps and bounds since it launched and the developers seem hell bent on building it into everything they imagine it should be. It got a bum rap at launch (perhaps deserved) but I'm glad to see people are discovering and rediscovering it's clicky-looty-superheroy joys.

@jeff

For a game that went through such a trouble early production

"trouble" was probably supposed to be troubled?

Thanks for shouldering the (sometimes terrifyingly heavy) burden of being Mr. Giant Bomb, Jeff. This is the only site on the entire www which has convinced me I should subscribe to it.

You bet your vomiting ass I will continue to subscribe to it as well! Make her grow, Mr. Mann.

Finally some one with sense and not having last of us on there list that game is not fun to play would have been a way better movie than game.

Ughh bioschock...

So overrated, boring combat, you dont even use 90% of the powers.

Such a drag after the first good hour.

Nitpicking can be taken too far, certainly, but let's not take it to the point of being a cheap shot against folks with fair things to say about Bioshock. After all, how good is a narrative that doesn't get you invested enough to ask questions about its world?

I'm kinda surprised that Killer Instinct is missing from both the Top 10 and isn't mentioned in the Intro. Did the current state of the Online drag it off of Jeff's worth mentioning list?

@edin899 said:

Who didn't use 90% of the powers? You? Because I sure as hell did! And it was GREAT!!

Now that's a great list. Every one of them is fun to play.

Revengeance! DLC to play as a talking robot dog! That's some DLC I can feel good about.

Looking forward to playing Revengence, pre-ordered for the PC...and man, I'm now watching the rest of the Steam sale to pick up Anti-Chamber...

The real 10 best games. Fuck Brothers.

Will have to check out Rouge Legacy. Bit disappointing none of you guys picked Tomb Raider for even a list, considering its my game of the year? I feel an bit out of the loop.

I agree with most of this list. Although a clear lack of Vocaloids.

Gone Home is an interesting proof of concept at best, realistically it is a pandering cliche.

Brothers is simply clunky and not fun.

neither is "great" and do not deserve a top ten billing over many other games this year.

I don't think it's weird you care about the characters in Saints Row. Well ok, I think it's weird but not out of character, I mean heck, you care about the dumb storylines of wrestlers.

BioShock's world stops being interesting after a few hours, dunno what the appeal really is after the amazing opener.

That seems silly. I mean, it's a really cool way to compare time and score, DmC does it per stage, instead of lumping it all together into one sum, which just seems confusing. Either way, I'm glad I waited! Love me some discounts.

Why is that a bad thing? Do you like watching/playing stuff where everything is obvious? Personally I don't mind a story that makes you think.

Revengeance isn't my kind of game, but I wish it was.

Bioshock Infinite was successful enough to get people to hate it. And sure, with the right premises it could be easily disputed. It is really difficult for me to accept Many worlds or the various forms of Multiverses as true science, though many scientists do, or at least as logical rational possibilities of what is known. But you cannot run true experiments to acquire applicable observational results. We cannot even see light (information) beyond the visible universe. Or experience the supposed sundered universes of all possible paths. Yet conversely people think they know the truth, which is even more laughable.

Of course on top of that, I actually enjoyed the combat of Bio-shock. I'm not a very good gamer, but I got off on how basically Magic intersected with the conventional weaponry.I was also happy that the events favored no present political or social agenda. I get tired of these rigid blocks of thought anyways. Not that they exist in a vacuum. I enjoyed the plot of Bio shock.

Having said all this, I am going to overcome my own indifference, and check out The Last of Us.

Pretty sweet list Jeff. I like the balance between small indie games and big budget games. I really wish Saints Row could have made it to the site top ten but I can see why it wouldn't. I liked Bioshock a whole lot and it's high on my list but as I've pointed out on several threads, playing on hard for my first playthrough really hurt my overall enjoyment of that game. It's been a hard year for Giant Bomb but I appreciate everything you guys have done to keep things going. Thanks and keep up the great work.

I finished Antichamber in two sittings after Steam had a sale on it the other day, and I loved it. Thanks Jeff, for showing folks how cool this game is.

The main criticisms against Bioshock Infinite seem to be for its rather odious politics rather than any plot hole type thing. Which I totally understand.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF~

This pleases the Levine.

I liked Bioshock Infinite a lot. The story was interesting and fun to dissect with people after it was done, the world was really cool and fun to explore, I thought Elizabeth was an interesting character and good companion. But the gameplay really dragged the experience down for me. It was so generic and predictable that I got almost no enjoyment out of actually playing the game and tended to rush through combat encounters so I could get back to wandering around the environments unhindered and watching characters interact. The relentless linearity and dull combat encounters made advancing the plot a very tedious process and I hope Irrational's next game has interesting mechanics and level design that compliment the originality of their worlds.

Antichamber! I bought this game cause of the quick look. Best Steam purchase I've ever made.

Someone finally gives Antichamber the props it deserved

@sooty said:

i wish there was more skyhook traversal and crazy chases/falling through the sky, but i was pretty much enthralled throughout.

and i quite dug the climatic final battle where it felt like everything clicked into place mechanics wise, at least IMO. felt a sight more satisfying than the songbird boss battle i was predicting...

I was playing on hard and thought the end took way too long, freaking endless waves of bullet spongey enemies. Maybe it was my own fault for playing on hard.

I've noticed nearly everyone shows screenshots of the first hour or so and then barely the rest of the game which is why I think too many people give it credit for looking so pretty initially. The game's engine/graphics don't hold up well when it's not super bright and saturated. I was very taken by the game at first but after 2 hours of the combat I really wanted it to hurry up and end.

It's not even just that there was a lot of combat, it was just...dull. The previous games had more variety with weapons, ammo, traps and plasmids. Boo.

Thanks for being you, Jeff. Great list :)

Best list of the GB crew imo.

No gone hobo and otherwise mostly GAMES with actual GAMEPLAY.

There's a reason why Jeff is the boss.

I thought Bioshock Infinite was a good game, I didn't like the ending, and doggone it, people like me!

*Looks in mirror*

I really dug Bioshock: Infinite's story, but I felt like I spent wayyy too much time shooting dudes (and ladies) in the face, and it was boring as fuck.

Outstanding fucking list. I expected to see GTA V up there, but I can understand why it wasn't. Awesome to see that Jeff put Infinite in the top spot, I concur.

MASSIVE respect for Divekick! Gerstmann keeping it real.

Wow, I need to jump into Revenengence or whatevs it's called.

hell yeah bioshock

A few hours seems too much. As soon as I started shooting things and the busy streets were emptied to become hallow corridors the world lost any identity it had to me.

this this this

I like Infinite enough that I have it up on my list at #9, but man did that that game have serious issues with its narrative that doesn't involve the time travel thing.

Bringing up points of racism and revolution and "resolving" them with the gutless "both sides are bad" conclusion is sad.

If you're not going to give those incredibly important and sensitive themes the attention they deserve, then don't bother bringing them up at all.

As Infinite stands, they are merely background elements made to help prop up the world that was in the end about a white man and a white woman's relationship with a time traveling multiverse twist.

It felt cheap because it seems like Levine and co. just brought those issues up in a lame effort to make the game feel "more mature" by tackling them in the manner that they did.

Maybe if they were only brought up in passing, it'd be more forgivable. Of course, the setting makes that impossible. There's also an argument to be made that keeping it all tucked away in such a setting would be even worse.

But going the opposite route that Infinte took is more perilous. By making race and revolution such integral parts in the first half of the plot and the world-building, the blunders are all the more offensive because of the political statement the game ultimately makes with what it presented.

And no, making caricatures of how racist America was in the past isn't daring an indictment of racism at all. It's absolutely the safest route to take because no one would argue against that at all.

If all Infinite's developers could do is to poke fun at centuries old racism and then paint the revolutionaries in the same bad light for rising up in armed struggle, then there is a helluva way to go for them to tell complex and compelling stories using those particular themes.

With all that said, time travel and multiverse stuff was pretty fuckin' awesome.

Combat really could've been less tiring though.

Also great to see the MGR love! Kickass game that's funny and at least takes a simple but firm stance against child soldiers and the insanity of how war fuels modern economies and politics!

I always disagree when people say that story is flawed and especially if they say because 'it doesn't make any sense until the end'.

That story is about cycles. An infinite loop. When you play the game a second time, you find that from the very beginning of the game right until moments before the end, the story is explained perfectly and everything makes sense. It's explained in a way that you'd only know what to look for when you know what the ending is going to be. Which is pretty amazing because they don't drop subtle clues, they actually spell it out for you, but you won't pick up on it the first time because you don't consider it an option. For example: they straight up say Songbird is created through ideas from a man in a underwater city in another place. Among many other things.

I think that makes the story genius. A story about an infinite loop, where if you play it in a loop it makes perfect sense. That's amazing to me.

I don't get why being funny instead of being an emotional experience makes the difference between being allowed to have 'holes' in your story (and I put that between quotes because people dramatically exaggerate how many holes there are in Infinite's story). The theme is a multiverse. Something that is barely understood in reality. Of course there are going to be some holes. That is probably the comparison Jeff was making.

How about we skip the exact titles and just say: any time travel/multiverse movie/game ever has holes. It comes with the genre.

I disagree. I'll take new and interesting but flawed over stuff similar to shit to we see every year. Also you forgot to call them pretentious.