List items
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Hotline Miami is the type of game that doesn't pussyfoot around just how depraved the human mind can be, but it does so in such a contradictorily tasteful way. The swaying playing field, the explicitly while simultaneously implicitly brutal violence and the sloshy, drug-haze soundtrack make Hotline Miami not only my favorite game of the year, but one of my favorite games of all time.
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If you were like me and came of age in the late 90s/early 2000s and played multiplayer PC games, that meant you played Counter-Strike. While the matchmaking in CS:GO started out as much of a shaky social experiment than anything, things have settled down and it's great to see all of CS's metagame being applied to the game itself.
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Fez was pleasant enough. The art style is remarkable for making polygonal art appear as two-dimensional sprites, and the language puzzling was a great internet phenomenon for that 2-3 weeks after launch. What made Fez for me, however, was the outstanding music composed by Disasterpeace and the deep integration the music has in the atmosphere of the game's environment. Many of the musical cues in Fez sent shivers down my spine, some of them nearly brought tears to my eyes. I pre-ordered the Fez soundtrack the day the game came out and it has been on constant rotation on my phone.
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Frog Fractions is a surrealist send up to the games I played as a child. Excellent.
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Depending on whatever mood you catch me on, I will likely claim Half-Life to be my first or second favorite game of all time (between Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3). While I'm not crazy for the voice acting, it's hard to not capture at least some of what made and still makes Half-Life a great game today with this hyper-detailed remake.
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I'm a genuine fan of the Paper Mario series. For over a decade now, Nintendo's localization work in bringing this series stateside has been second to none. Sticker Star is no exception, and although I'm not a big fan of the sticker-based combat of this entry, I simply can't resist the absolute charm that oozes from this game.
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The original X-COM is a game that I wanted to like so bad, but those were feelings the game could never reciprocate. UFO Defense kicked my ass so many times I simply could never get into it, despite my respect for the game in theory. With Enemy Unknown, I'm glad that Firaxis has made an X-COM game that wasn't expressly designed for crazy people.
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Although I enjoy this game and the original well enough, Trials Evolution makes my list because I enjoyed watching a friend of mine play this game. My friend, who despite claiming to love video games, has quite possibly the worst dexterity and skill I have ever seen from anyone, my very aged parents included. So for him to play trials is an exercise in futility, one which I enjoyed every second of.
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Scribblenauts is just like, cool, man. One of my favorite moments playing video games this year was sitting with my girlfriend plugging in any random thing that came to mind to see if Scribblenauts had dreamed it up in their game world.
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It's not *terribly* different from last years entry, but it's still the best damned sports game on the market and I love basketball, so what can you do?
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