Best of 2013
Here's my GOTY list for 2013! As is the custom I am being weird and didn't finish this until the middle of January.
List items
-
This is the game I played to completion the most times in 2013, across 3 different platforms. It has it all. Beautiful graphics, a fun pulpy adventure story that actually treats its female characters with some respect (Lara finally wears pants! It's stupid that that is a big deal, but it totally is!), and gameplay that puts most other 3rd person shooters to shame. The open world is fun to explore, the pace is energetic, and there's tons of content here. I can't wait for the next gen version of this game in a couple of weeks. It might actually win the top slot in 2014 for me, I like this game so much. It's the best.
-
Dead Rising 3 is the most refined game in the franchise, and yet it keeps all the great weird things that make me love the series. It's Dead Rising, but with brilliant visual detail and gameplay that's actually really fun for hours and hours. The story is still firmly in bad B-movie territory, but the character work is surprisingly solid.
-
This is the best game ever made about Quantum Mechanics, and the most shooter-y of the Bioshock games. Some people didn't like that. I thought it was a fun game. This is the greatest third entry in a trilogy from the last generation of consoles. It rounds out the story of Bioshock beautifully, and my mouth was hanging open for the last 15 minutes. I never expected such an elegant story construction out of a game.
-
Speaking of elegant story construction, this game takes the narration idea from Bastion and runs with it. Techland finally makes good on the promise of Call of Juarez and delivers an outstanding, fun romp of a wild west game.
-
Crytek marries its top notch visuals with their most fun gameplay to date. Sure, this is kind of just a brawler, but the combat is fun and varied and flows soooo well. The story is pretty boilerplate, but the stable of experienced British actors do everything they can to sell every last syllable, and I kind of love that. Did I mention this is a beautiful game?
-
Ninja Theory's best game, and the most fun game to play in the DMC series. This is a clever reboot that still has some nods and winks for series fans, and manages to tell a complete story while still leaving open a satisfying sequel door. I hope they make that sequel.
-
The Lego games continue to be great, and this one mixes a fun plot for fans of the Marvel movie universe with lots of great comic book fanservice, and physics particles everywhere. It's impressive how consistently good this series is, probably helped by the fact that they've iterated on the same mechanics for a decade.
-
I know folks were mad about the micro-transactions in this game, but it still has the best feeling simulation driving physics in gaming. And now it has 1080p visuals at 60 FPS with a brand new visual treatment. If you want to drive cars on a console, this is the choice. And it's brilliant.
-
NBA 2K14 has a weird magical quality to it where it feels exactly like watching a basketball game. The commentary, the graphics, and the animation all connect so seamlessly that it's weird and super impressive. This is another game where people were made about the economy in the game. I personally didn't think it was that broken, so it doesn't bug me, but then I'm not a hardcore sports game fan. Whatever that means.
-
I almost pushed this game off of my list because it's super huge and I haven't finished it yet. But this game is a great game about Pirates with about 8 million things to do, and next gen tech finally allows the AnvilNext engine to sing without limitations. The pacing is not quite as tight as Tomb Raider or Far Cry 3, but if you're looking for a big impressive open world game, this is the one to get.
-
Okay I know, this is an 11th slot and I've put a really broken janky game here. But this game must be mentioned for being everything I want out of a space game. They've been fixing it up constantly, and very soon it will have the capacity to steal huge chunks of my life. It's like the X series but really fun to play for once.
Load Comments