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I'm probably more surprised by my number one pick than anyone else; I would never have guessed that a MOBA could be my game of the year! However, when you consider how Blizzard has approached the genre, it's perhaps not so surprising after all: HotS basically strips away all of the impenetrable and senseless holdovers which have been perpetuated by more archaic iterations of Dota, including League and Dota 2.
However, I think what cemented the game as my number one, are the characters. Each hero feels powerful in their own right and I'm consistently surprised by how much I enjoy discovering their ins and outs.
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D4 is the most humorous game I've played since Deadly Premonition - what a coincidence. As with that game, director Swery paints a wonderfully bizzare caricature of American culture.
Now, is the gameplay fun? Not so much, but it doesn't get in the way of enjoying the experience. While that may sound damning, the mechanics are simply there to let you interface with Swery's fascinating universe and the outlandish characters that inhabit it.
If nothing else D4 is entirely unique. Though the continuation of this episodic series seems tentative; I'm just really happy this thing exists, even in its unfinished state.
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Rogue Legacy might easily have been my game of the year at some point. Though it's certainly a great game, its the circumstances under which I played it that make it stand out in my mind; Rogue Legacy kept me busy and entertained during a pretty difficult time this year, and for that reason alone I'm grateful for its existance.
Also, the game's format is just perfect for a handheld console: Rogue Legacy is a glistening oasis in the barren wasteland of the Vita ecosystem.
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I'm not sure who this game is for.
The changes that were made to this edition of Dark Souls 2 aren't extensive enough to warrant revisiting Drangleic if you're already familiar with the game's first release - in fact, the DLC content wasn't even retouched in the slightest!
On the other hand, the changes they did make generally serve to make the game harder - as if the punishing difficulty wasn't the main barrier to entry for most newcomers.
Still, we're talking about Dark Souls 2 here; even if this particular re-release does little to improve upon the original, it's still a remarkable game in its own right.
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Charnel House is - in a similar way to Gone Home - the type of game you're likely to finish in a single sitting. Not because it's short - though it is - but rather because it's so entirely engrossing.
Furthermore, the puzzles in this point and click adventure are so accessible they do practically nothing to impede your progress along the way - and I'm perfectly fine with that.
In fact, the main obstacle to overcoming Charnel House is the atmospheric dread the game is somehow able to dispense despite its pixelated appearance.
Had the game had a more satisfying conclusion I might have rated it even higher; I'm hoping the developers deliver on their promise of continuing the series.
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Gravity Rush is ostensibly a great game that is consistently getting in its own way. It does so by focusing heavily on the less enjoyable aspects of the game - the combat in particular.
The free-flowing movement system generally works quite well - once you get the hang of it, until then you're kind of just crashing from place to place - however, its inadequacies start showing under duress, especially as the difficulty ramps up in the latter parts of the game.
That being said, it's just so fucking charming - I absolutely love the main character Kat, and the pseudo-Parisian steampunk skyworld the developers created for her; the game is at its best when you're simply gliding across its expansive districts, obsessively hunting down shiny collectibles.
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