@zeik: You quote my comment then say that people are claiming Dan's choices are wrong. In my opinion it's a lackluster list of games of 2014, which is not a comment on how right or wrong the list is. It's just a disappointing list. We know what kind of cheap thrills most of these games offer, and it's sad that Dan didn't find anything better.

Solid list dude!

Glad you gave GZ some recognition. Besides the who's who of metal gear that was MGS4, this is setting up maybe the most character heavy game in the series, plus the fact that a bunch of the allegiances between them are pretty wonky. It'll be fascinating to see big boss, for lack of a better term, grow up.

I think this is a perfectly valid list of cool games for this year, but I'm in the "Mordor is overrated" camp. I think it's a great, very well executed central mechanic rolled into a very pedestrian game. Entire chunks of that game worked a lot better when they were in Batman. Mordor has to come up with alternatives for traversal and doesn't quite pull it off, for instance, and its story and mission structure are outright bad. I even suspect the Nemesis system would have worked better with Batman villains than Orcs. At least there you'd get a reason why the same ones keep popping up over and over again.

In general this feels like a feature someone proposed for the non-Rocksteady Batman, didn't get picked up and then got blown up into a different game to fill a spot. Origins would probably have been much better with the Nemesis system in there... but that doesn't mean Mordor is the best game this year.

I think what sold me on how much Batman there is on this game is the damage output of archers. I was getting killed by them a bunch and wondering why the hell they were so OP... until I noticed that they are basically the guys with guns from Batman, so they're balanced like guns, while the sword guys are balanced like unarmed melee or bat-wielding thugs. So in Mordor arrows are way deadlier than swords because that's how Batman likes it.

Don't get me wrong, I played through it and enjoyed it, but there's a lot in there that felt shaky. I definitely look forward to seeing what both Monolith and other devs do with the really good ideas that are also in there in the future.

Farcry 4? Huh.. Did not see that one coming. Things are looking rather bleak for Bayonetta.

I enjoyed Mordor but I'm kind of surprised it seems ready to be crowned GOTY. The nemesis system is a super cool idea but I don't see how it carries all of the other kind of ho hum stuff about the story, setting and combat.

Its really too bad Tropical Freeze didn't make this list.... OH WELL!

What have you got against Mega Man, Dan? He's fine. A little strange at first (he has those ranged normal tilt attacks instead of standard melee ones), but the range on his smash attacks is fun and I generally like the way he plays. The character I've been really struggling to grasp is Wii Fit Trainer, who I really want to like but so rarely feels like I'm actually doing anything useful with.

Also surprised after all the podcast chatter that DK didn't actually make it onto this list. But still a great list, and yet more proof that I find Dan's writing style incredibly easy and compelling to read.