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Poignant, well written, honest storytelling. That's what I took away the most from this game. Being a huge stealth fan, the gameplay really spoke to me. There were entire fight sequences I avoided by using stealth. When forced to confront enemies, I felt I had the necessary tools to have a fighting chance. I loved the honesty and audacity the game's final moments had. There are very few games that use your own life experiences to help shape how you feel about a game's ending but I felt that TLOU did exactly that. I think those of us that have children can empathize with some of the choices Joel had to make, but very few of us would be willing to make the same choices. At the end of the day, this game isn't about being the hero that saves the day, it's about being human and all of what that entails...both good and bad.
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This ended up being one of my favorite JRPG's in a very long time. Not only did this help me understand why so many people like Pokemon, but it used one of my favorite animation studios Studio Ghibli to do it. I have to go back to this and do the post game activities at some point. It's flippin' tidy, it is!
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Black Flag totally took me by surprise. Assassin's Creed III's ending left a bad taste in my mouth but this game was good all the way through. Not only did it feed my compulsion to want to collect everything in these types of games by giving you some cool extras for doing it (like shanties for your crew to sing, and treasure maps, weapons, and costumes to unlock) but the naval combat stuff has been tweaked and made a bit more full scale compared to the previous game. Oh yea, it also helps that the game looks gorgeous on next gen consoles. It even had a companion app that was well done and added quite a bit to the game. This didn't feel like it was rushed out to make a deadline. It's polished and full of content.
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Although I enjoyed Bioshock Infinite mainly for its story, Metro Last Light strikes a good balance between enjoyable gameplay mechanics and a engaging narrative. Although the game's more interesting survival mechanics (finding gas masks, using bullets as currency as well as ammunition) takes a back seat in this sequel, this game's level design, story telling techniques and satisfying shooting mechanics made it one of my favorite shooters in a very long time.
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If you liked SR3, it's mathematically impossible for you not to like this one. Think Saint's Row 3 mixed with Crackdown. The comedy is still there too, totally worth picking up.
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Not only does it tell a damn good story with visuals, voice inflection, and music, it also still captures what each character is thinking and saying although they speak gibberish. There's no real combat to speak of here, just environmental puzzles, exploration, and platforming. One of the few games where the mechanics of the game directly ties into its narrative. One of my surprise games of 2013.
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It's a fine shooter, but the game's story is really what makes this game special for me. I really enjoyed the twisted Disney princess setup used to introduce Elizabeth and enjoyed Booker's relationship with her quite a bit.
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This scratches that Uncharted itch for me. I enjoyed Tomb Raider despite it being a huge departure from the original series that I loved. I'm really hoping the sequel has more tombs to raid. Those were my favorite bits in this game and there simply wasn't enough of them.
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Just when I'm out, they pull me back in! Nintendo really brings it with this installment. It has a lot of things I loved from other Mario games (Princess Peach can float!), and adds much needed creativity to Mario. The worst thing I can say about this game is that I find the way Mario meows annoying.
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"This game is charming as fuck." pretty much sums it up for me, but there's a lot more going on with Tearaway. Lovely art style, genuinely clever gameplay mechanics based around Vita's functionality, and simply to do arts and crafts that directly affect the environment, it's hard not to have a smile on your face while playing this game.
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