It was sadly predictable that Jeff would put COD on top of his list. Now I can only hope he did not pressure the other guys to put it in the top 3 of the Giantbomb list. We'll see soon enough.

I will never get his fascination with the bro-military games, they feel repulsive to me, but thankfully there's only one COD game per year.

Surprised there's no FH2 and Wolfenstein on the list.

Those are all great games. Never played the WWE thing. I think it's safe to say Jeff's opinion is correct.

Yeah, considering I never heard Jeff praise AW, or Shadow of Mordor that much, it seems it was a disappointing year for him.

That's a lot of first person shooters to have on a list without Wolfenstein. Thumbs down.

I think its pretty obvious that shadows of Morder will win. So far its been number 1 or close to and we didn't even had Brad who was basically drooling over the game. Not to mention it already won a couple GOTY rewards.

Anyway, Bayonetta 2 is a huge surprise for me since i never got the indication he was even interested in it. Maybe the crew convinced him to try and he liked it.

@bill_p: Did you listen to the recent GOTY deliberation? Prior to also agreeing to Watch_Dogs as being the most disappointing, he had a very impassioned case for Destiny with most of the guys agreeing with Jeff and Brad was also agreeing with Jeff's major points of the game. After hearing that, I was really sure that Jeff was incredibly disappointed with the game since he could see certain mechanics the game that was really polished (e.g. the shooting, the art style) and could have been the GOTY if only it was able to live up to its potential by having more meaningful content, having the progression not be incredibly tedious and the story telling aspect have been more well integrated, etc. He was really bummed out with the game since it could have been really, reeeeally great.

I think Doctor Tracksuit influenced the list only so far as to mention the bane of games that is WWE Super Card.

This list just goes to show how weird this year has been. So many games should have been on that list but they came out broken or were extremely underwhelming. Nice list. I still need to play Jazzpunk.

Agreed, and i did't even pick the game up until the x-mas sale. It took me maybe fours to complete the campaign on hardened which is filled with scripted events that you have no control over. The story is just stupid and exo suits in the campaign are meaningless because you shoot everything that moves then run forward. As far as the multiplayer is concerned i have prestiged twice already and i suck at CoD mp, i will never be elite player. Now i am perfectly fine that Jeff gave it his game of the year, but people saying its good game in comparison to the rest of this year is way crazy.

Didn't expect to see Advanced Warfare on this list, much less at the top. I had as much fun playing it as past Call of Duty games, but it completely slipped my mind when I was thinking about the best of the best for this year.

I cant think of anything else than when Alberto got punched and kicked to shit byt Mirko Cro-Cop Filipovic while wearing a Luchador-mask. Wow. And also, this is my first comment on Giant Bomb. Wow.

Dr Tracksuit's Top 10 list will just be WWE SuperCard in every slot.

ALSO Super Mega Baseball SHOULD BE ON ALL THESE LIST! I MADE A GIANT BOMB SQUAD!

@giantlizardking: Yeah, we'll have to agree to disagree I guess, since the only game you specifically listed out that even shows up on my top ten radar would be XCOM. Most major AAA studios are entirely ignorable these days and have been for the past few years, while indie games and new studios are the life of the industry. With some help from established japanese companies like Atlus and Nintendo, who have always been great but are doing especially well in terms of quality lately.

I don't disagree it's not great game, I just wonder how it was his favorite... but at this point his tastes are so narrow I feel like he's going to love the series no matter what.

I played that fucking nba card game because of your stories on the podcast, also because I have problems. That thing makes supercard look like a god damn revelation. It's set up like an actual game. Meaning you have to play at least 4!!!! quarters, with overtime coming up way too often.

On top of that, you have 6 (maybe 8, it's been awhile) stats instead of four. This means instead of hitting the biggest number like the scholar that you are, you have to do simple math. Maybe that sounds like a gameplay upgrade, but it just means you memorize whatever card is best for one of the few stat combos.

If you wanted to know, Kyle Singler is your pick for offensive playmaker over some nondescript version of John Paxson.

I did fully max out a pro Danny Gr3333n that was all shiny, so 2/5.

@sinjunb said:

First of all, that's being purposefully reductive and completely undersells how much that game has done to push forward that series, which is no small task given that it's being controlled by the world's largest publisher who is keen on pumping them out as fast as possible with as little change as possible. Choosing Advanced Warfare doesn't send a message that innovation doesn't matter; it sends precisely the opposite message. That game does a ton more than adding a double jump.

Second of all, you mention in another comment that you don't like multiplayer. Cool. Jeff has already said on numerous occasions "don't buy Advanced Warfare if you don't like multiplayer; it's not worth it." Your argument is not new and is completely tangential to why Jeff picked it. The multiplayer in that game is really, really good.

Lastly, I don't understand why everyone has such a chip on their shoulder about Call of Duty. If you don't want to play it, if you feel like it's over saturating the market, then whatever, fine, don't play it. But a lot of people like it. Personally, I have only ever played the Modern Warfare games and now Advanced Warfare, so I have years in between each game to recharge, and then each game feels as fresh and new as any other sequel. No one is forcing anyone to play Call of Duty every year, and usually the games have little to do with each other story-wise anyway. If you're burned out on it, just skip a year or two.

Advanced Warfare was an awesome game, and I think it's great that Jeff picked it as his number one.

@jeff, i really believe you would like The Evil Within, it has a bunch of weird psycho/trippy touches that i think you would be really into. the atmosphere, where the plot takes you(not really for the intricacies but the experience like your opinion on infinite), and soundtrack are what makes this game. only game i think was decent this year.

But if he doesn't see Resi 4 as an effective shooter, what's the point?

because it feels just like a normal third person shooter, the only thing atypical about the gameplay from other shooters is that it's more tactical like dead space which jeff enjoyed.

it doesn't make you stop and shoot or feel cumbersome like how resident evil games were intentionally done to be.

Call of Duty has become a world wide eSport. There's a championship every year that consists of the worlds greatest teams, as well as season and playoffs held by MLG in the COD Pro League with drafts as well as a minor league controlled by UMG. If you don't like competitive multiplayer and esports aka LoL, Dota, Counter Strike, etc. then you probably don't like COD.

Advanced Warfare was designed with competitive play in mind in the same sense as Black Ops II. They both have league play with MLG settings as well as clan support. Ghosts was a let down and most fronts, but SludgeHammer and TreyArch are 100% in support of MLG and the competitive scene. If you're not into competitive shooters that's perfectly fine, it's not your thing, but to say the games aren't good is pretty ignorant considering Advanced Warfare is a fantastic well balanced multiplayer shooter with incredible competitive support.

I totally called it. And I'm glad. Really does actually make this year seem kinda cool - every staff list had a different set of games, and Jeff Gerstmann picked a Call of Duty game as his favourite of the year. That's something I couldn't have imagined at the start of 2014, and I'm really glad that it turned out that way. Advanced Warfare really is something special.

Oh, while we're here - I like WWE Supercard. Perhaps more so because I haven't spent any money on it, which as Jeff pointed out only serves to put you in a position where your opponents are harder to beat than before. I've just about maxed out my current roster, and I'll continue to pick it up here and there. I only wish it was a little faster on the initial load (especially if you jump out of the game and then re-open it, which requires it to take a few seconds to work out what it's doing).

Kevin Spacey

Wow, don't you sound like a fun guy.

Don't be a dick is a rule here, and you're being the biggest small dick here.