Using a slight amount of logic, Luigi decides that reading the letter is the best course of action. Inside is what appears to be a ransom note, with the text made of individual letters cut out from newspapers and glued onto the paper.

It says, "We have kidnapped Mario. Bring 1 Million Coins to Bowser Castle, er, the empty gully near Bowser Castle and we will let him go.

"Momma-mia!" Luigi cried as he read the letter. "He's-a been-a kidnapped! I have-a to see-a the princess! She'll-a have-a the money!" And with that Luigi gathered a few supplies and departed for the castle in the hopes that the royal treasury could spare the money.

Proceed to X.

"It's-a just a joke-a," Luigi thought as he started spreading mushroom jelly onto the toast and took a bite. "AAAAIIIIEEEEE!" Luigi moaned as he started convulsing and fell to the floor. As he took his final breath, he looked at the jar, which had fallen onto the floor. The expiration date was three weeks ago.

Luigi Died.

"What do I do, what do I do, WHAT DO I DO?" In his frantic state, Luigi began running around the kitchen screaming at the top of his lungs until he bounced into the kitchen counter, which caused one of Mario's knives (which he kept hanging from a decorative knife holder) to fall down, piercing Luigi between the eyes.

Luigi Died.

"It's-a no use," Luigi mumbled as he dropped to the ground and entered a fetal position. As he cried, he realized that he might have been better off if he had actually gone back to bed, but instead he just lay there. As the days passed, he didn't budge, and eventually died from dehydration.

Luigi Died.

"No-a thanks-a," Luigi said as he kept on walking. "He's-a clearly-a Bowser," Luigi thought as he left the Koopa behind. But while he walked, Luigi couldn't help but ponder why Bowser was there doing that. In fact, he was so busy pondering this that he failed to notice the ambush that the Hammer Bros had set for him, and he wound up in a ditch on the side of of the road, bleeding profusely from the head, and all of his items and money stolen.

Luigi Died.

"Okay," Luigi said as he walked underneath the first block, and jumped, his fist smashing into the block. But to his surprise, instead of breaking, a large vine sprung forth from the block, and snaked its way up to the clouds.

"My my!" The Koopa declared. "We have a winner! Climb up, my boy, and see what awaits you in the clouds!" Though he hesitated at first, Luigi started climbing, and after an hour or so, he found himself in a majestic city above the clouds, filled with giant balloons, statues, and people zipping around on lines using little spinny machines in their hands.

"What-a...?" Luigi asked himself as he climbed onto a chunk of pavement in front of a building. There appeared to be some sort of fair going on, with all sorts of stands filled with foods, bits of entertainment, and other odd things.

Moosies Number X Game of the Year 2013: BioShock Infinite.

You may not remember this, but BioShock Infinite kind of took the internet by storm when it came out in early 2013. Sure, many people have soured on it in the months since then, but at the time, people were freaking out over this game. This was a game that people were holding up as the ultimate example of how games were art. An example of how games could have really good stories, that subverted what you expected, and blah blah blah.

I was really skeptical of that stuff before I played the game, partly because I didn't get a chance to play it right when it came out. Given everything that's happened this year, I don't remember exactly when I did play it (though I suppose I could check my Trophies and find out), but I do know that a fair amount of time passed. And unfortunately, in that time, I managed to get the game's big end twist spoiled for me. Not that I wanted to, or that I actively sought it out. Some jerk just posted it in the chat for a GB live stream one day (and I should say, it was a live stream with absolutely nothing to do with this game). And despite my best efforts to forget or ignore this spoiler, I couldn't. I played through the whole game with that in the back of my head, and I think it ended up ruining a lot of the story stuff in the game for me.

Granted, part of that is that I think it's a dumb twist. I'm not going to say what it is, because why bother, but I will say that I wouldn't have liked it even if I knew nothing about it beforehand. It's a dumb twist that would have been in a bad episode of The Next Generation (or a good episode of The Original Series (sick burn)). Sure, there was much, much more to the story that wasn't spoiled for me, and there were definitely moments in the story that I liked a whole lot. But I'm not lying when I say that having that spoiled for me brought this game down on my top ten list.

In fact, I almost didn't put this on my top ten list at all, but then I started thinking back to the actual game itself, and I remembered that I loved playing this game. That may sound weird, because the general opinion online seems to be that the game play is the worst part of the game. But for me, it was the game's saving grace. It's a really fun, tight shooter with a lot of imaginative powers. I mean, there's a power that lifts enemies off the ground and makes a horse noise! How can you not think that's fantastic? Honestly, it's been so long since the last time that I played the game that I don't really remember most of the actual powers, but I also remember that there was one that summoned an unkindness of ravens (or maybe it was a murder of crows) to attack enemies, and that there were a bunch of ways to combo the powers together to make them even more effective. And in this modern age where most shooters just have guns, having all these powers is rad. Sure, it's the third BioShock game, so it's not totally original, but it's not like we get a BioShock game every year. I would rather the video game market be flooded with imaginative games like this with powers than just straight up modern military shooters. It'll never happen, but that would be cool.

And while I may not have cared for the story, I do absolutely love the world that Ken Levine and his cronies created. It's a floating city where George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson are revered as GODS. Yes, GODS. And it's incredible. Sure, they may also hate Abe Lincoln, and be totally racist, but that's beside the point. The moment near the beginning of the game where Booker looks up and sees the Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson statues after being baptized was one of my favorite video game moments in the entire year.

If you haven't played this game, you totally should. It's a really fun shooter in a perfectly realized world.

Oh, and one more thing before I stop talking (writing) about this game. This game has made me realize that I may be the only person who doesn't know any Beach Boys songs. People kept talking about that song at the beginning, and how that was a cool moment because it was an olde timey version of the song. Maybe it's just that I was raised on real music (ie, rock), but if it hadn't been for the DOZENS of times that I saw people mention that on the internet like it was a super obvious thing that everyone should know, I wouldn't have known that, and the only time I would have thought anything funky was going on with the music was when Booker and Elizabeth encountered a portal with the original version of "Fortunate Son" playing through it, and Elizabeth said that no one had ever heard that song before. I thought that was pretty funny.

BioShock Infinite also wins:

• Secret Award for Best Use of The Founding Fathers.

• Revolver Ocelot Presents the Secret Award for Best Revolver.

Proceed to IX.

As Luigi jumped up and hit the block, a poison Shroom popped out, homed in on Luigi, and killed him, but slowly. As Luigi writhed in pain on the ground, the Koopa pulled off his mustache, and revealed that he is in fact Bowser. The last noise Luigi heard was the sound of Bowser's maniacal laughter.

Luigi Died.

"It's-a no use," Luigi mumbled as he dropped to the ground and entered a fetal position. As he cried, the Koopa gave a sigh of disgust, jumped up into the air, and crushed Luigi to death with his spiked shell.

Luigi Died.

Unfortunately, as he reached out to take a number, Luigi's fear overtook him, and he had a heart attack. As his carcass was dragged out of the way, he could hear some sort of commotion going on after a gruff, almost Pinkerton-ish looking man took a number, but Luigi was not long for this world, and he knew not what happened next.

Luigi Died.

After thinking, Luigi came to the conclusion that the man and this entire floating city was some sort of trick created by Bowser, so he pulled out a Fire Flower and tried to light the man on fire. However, Luigi was not the only one with the ability to throw fire here, and soon he was burned to a crisp, and his carcass was being dragged out of the way.

Luigi Died.

"AAAAAAAIIIEEEE!" Luigi screamed in terror as he ran in the opposite direction with his arms flailing about.

"What's his problem?" A man who looked like his name was Booker thought as he stepped up to take a number.

Meanwhile, Luigi was running so fast that he didn't even notice that he fell off the floating city, and began falling down to what he thought was his death. Not knowing what else to do on his descent, he started crying. And as he cried, he fell, and fell, and fell, and fell! But rather than meeting a squishy end, he landed safely on a bouncy mushroom, and then plopped down on the ground near a jaunty little fellow with a little lantern hanging off his nose.

"Oy there, little greeny boy!" The lantern nosed creature exclaimed through his thick accent as Luigi came to his senses. "I 'aven't seen anybody cry like that since ole Ollie boy, I 'aven't!"

"What-a?" Luigi mumbled as he stopped crying, and took a look around him. He was in the middle of a forest, and he could hear what sounded like waves crashing against a shore in the distance.

"You're a long way from home, aren't ya, greeny boy?"

"Y-yeah..."

Moosies Number IX Game of the Year 2013: Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch.

Easily the most striking thing about this game is the visuals. I'm not a fan of Studio Ghibli, and in fact, I've never even seen any of the movies that they've made (cue people telling me to watch some of their stuff). Or, rather, I would say that I wasn't a fan of their work, but I am now. Sure, all they did was character design stuff, and a few of the cut-scenes, but that stuff is all just so beautifully made that I couldn't not mention it here in my game of the year discussion.

But a good or interesting art style isn't enough to get me to play a game. Yes, it helps, but it's not enough. If it was, I would have played Killer is Dead, but that didn't happen (which is not to say that Killer is Dead is on the same level with Ni no Kuni, it's just a convenient example). And it really helped that this game's story, while not anything fantastic or mind blowing, was interesting and intriguing enough to keep me interested throughout. But the real star of the show is the voice acting, specifically that of Lord High Lord of the Fairies, Drippy. He's such a great character that I kinda feel bad using him in my weird Luigi fan-fiction here because it's been so long since I've played the game that I don't think I can accurately capture his speech patterns in text. Sure, I could have gone back and played some of the game again, or watched some stuff online, but I didn't. Too bad!

Oh yeah, Ni no Kuni's also a video game too. I guess I should talk about that part of it too, right? Hey, don't get the impression that I didn't like the game part of the game. I actually think the core combat is pretty fun. It's just not quite good enough to stay interesting and fun through all of the grinding in the game. At least against the enemies roaming about the game world. The bossies stayed interesting throughout, and some of them (especially toward the end) get pretty tough. It's not an easy game, but while losing is never fun, it was definitely nice that I had to actually think and be careful during a fair number of the fights in the game, instead of just blowing my way through it like so many other games.

And I think part of why I did enjoy the combat was that I haven't played a Pokemon game since Blue (well, technically I played some of Yellow, but that is LITERALLY the same game, just with Pikachu). I realize that reducing this game to just being Pokemon is completely dishonest, because this game is way deeper than Pokemon (sick burn), but the similarities are there. This is a game where you can capture monsters in the world, and make them fight for you. And guess what, if they level up enough, they can transform into more powerful versions of themselves! But that's where the similarities end. I mean, for one thing, you don't even have to use the monsters in battle, because the character you play as (Oliver by default, but you can switch to others (I did not very often)) has spells and attacks of his own. And with Oliver specifically, you have to do that fairly frequently, as those spells are pretty useful, especially once you unlock the really powerful super spells that do a lot of damage. And then there's the "action" component to the combat, where you can run around in an attempt to avoid attacks, which I enjoyed quite a lot.

Again, I just wish there wasn't so much grinding. But what I really wish is that there was more voice acting. As incredible as the voice acting in the game is, there just isn't enough of it. I'm not saying that the game should be fully voiced (though it should be fully voiced), but I do think that at least all the dialog relating to the main story should be voiced. However, it isn't. Sure, you still get the great writing for Drippy, but it's not the same without the voice. And the deeper you get into the game, the more of the dialog becomes text only. The voice acting does make a bit of a comeback toward the later parts of the game, but that doesn't stop the lack of voice acting from being a bummer. I'm not sure if full voice acting would have raised this game on my list here, but it certainly wouldn't have hurt.

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch also wins:

• Award for Best New Supporting Character (Lord High Lord of the Fairies: Drippy).

• Award for Best Artistic Design.

• Secret Award for Most British Japan Game.

Proceed to VIII.

"It's-a no use," Luigi mumbled as he dropped to the ground and entered a fetal position. As he cried, he was unaware of the commotion created by Booker DeWitt, and ended up being trampled by the crowd, and several police officers.

Luigi Died.

As he ran, the crab monster lazily opened an eye, looked at Luigi, and went back to sleep. But Luigi was too busy running in terror to notice that as he jumped through the portal and wound up ringside to a fight in a large arena. The place was packed, and the audience was holding up a large variety of signs with references to things that Luigi didn't understand. In the center of the arena was a large wrestling ring, inside of which an older man with shoes on his hands was fighting against a large creature that resembled a wolverine, or perhaps a skunk-bear.

"That's broken!" An obese and scummy looking man yelled. Unbeknownst to Luigi, who had thought he landed safely on something squishy, it turned out that he had landed on a combatant who was due to fight in the next match.

"OH MY GOD!" Ron Galaxy yelled from the announcers' table. "Have you ever seen diving like that?" As he commentated, the creature dived higher in the air than anyone had seen before, but it was for naught, because the man did a mid-air reversal and kicked the creature right in the head with one of his hands, knocking it out. "SO GODLIKE!"

"OW!" The man beneath Luigi moaned. "I forgot my neck pillow!"

"You'll have to fight in his place," the referee said as the creature was dragged out of the ring, and its opponent left for a bathroom break.

"I, I, I, I..." Luigi stammered when he realized the referee was talking to him.

"Them's the rules!" Ron Galaxy yelled as he walked over, picked Luigi up, and tossed him into the ring.

"AAAAAAAIIIE!" Luigi yelled as he flew through the air, and landed in the ring.

Moosies Number VIII Game of the Year 2013: Divekick.

Divekick didn't get onto this list for what it is alone. Part of why this game absolutely had to be on this list, and part of why it is one of my games of the year was all the hullabaloo surrounding it. I spent months watching Dave Lang and his cronies playing pre-release versions of the game live on the internet in their weekly show. I watched tournaments on the internet for this stupid game. I invited two of my friends over and got a pizza on launch day because I was so excited for this game, and I was heartbroken when it wasn't a PS4 launch game despite the fact that I'm pretty sure Dave Lang promised it would be. But then again, he's a dirty rotten liar, so I shouldn't be surprised at all, because that's the kind of thing he does. Make grand promises and then never fulfill them. Speaking of which, where's Divekick II, the FMV adventure game you promised, Dave Lang? I know these things take time, but come on, it's not Half-Life 3, Lang! You some sort of dump people or something, Turbo?

Okay, before I get too deep into stupid/obscure Dave Lang references, I should actually say something about the game itself. Actually, that's a pretty good segue, because a whole lot of the humor in this game is made up of dumb references to things that most people don't get. A lot of it is toward fighting games, a lot to the fighting game community, and I'm pretty sure a fair amount of it are dumb in-jokes that only Dave Lang and his cronies would get. But enough of the humor hits (like Kick yelling "SHARK TALE" some of the time when he gets knocked out) that I think it's a really funny game regardless.

Oh, and it's a really fun game too, and that's impressive. I mean, it's a two button fighting game. It's the kind of thing that could have gone horribly, horribly wrong in the wrong hands. And even despite being the wrong hands (Dave Lang), it still turned out well. There is still a part of me that wishes the game had maintained a little more of that simplicity and purity that was promised in the original pitch for the game, but I think it's probably a better fighting game because of the added depth. It's not something that you can just mash your way to success in (at least against competent players), and that's a good thing. It's the difference between a dumb little flash game and a legitimately good fighting (flash) game.

And, in a lot of ways, it's the fighting game that I understand the most about the fundamental mechanics. In all the years that I've been playing games, I've played a decent number of fighting games. Some not so good (cough, Dragon Ball Z, cough), but I've still played a fair amount of them. That doesn't mean that I've ever really understood them, or have been good at them. Divekick, however, is a game that I understand. Because of the simplicity in the execution of the moves, and the limited number of moves, I know what every character can do. I know what each of them can do to me, and when I lose, I know why I lost. That doesn't mean that I'll learn from my mistakes, and get better at the game, but at least I understand what's going on, and that's not something that I can say about any other decent fighting game that I've played. And that's impressive. So impressive that I'm surprised Dave Lang didn't find a way to screw it up, given the fact that he was involved.

I just wish I had stuck with it more, but at this point it's probably too late. It sounds like not many people are playing online, and I don't have friends over enough to make use of the local multiplayer. Oh well, I really enjoyed what I played of it, and I'll probably be dumb enough to re-buy the game on PS4, because I'm an idiot.

Divekick also wins:

• Award for Best Fighting Game.

• Award for Best Multiplayer.

• Secret Award for Best Game That Somehow Survived Being Worked On By Dave Lang.

Proceed to VII.

As Luigi creeps closer to the crab, he pulls out a hammer and gets ready to smash it down as hard as he can. However, as he reached the crab, his hand was shaking so much that it fell out as he raised it above his head. As one might expect, it hit Luigi's head, knocking him out instantly. Luckily, he slept through most of when the crab monster ate him. Most of it.

Luigi Died.

As he turned around to run back into the forest, Luigi tripped over his own feet, fell to the ground and hit his head on a rock. The next thing he knew, he was being dragged into the ocean by some sort of strange mer-men, who did their best to keep Luigi alive until they got him to their underwater lair, where he was roasted alive, and then feasted upon. Despite their best efforts and spices, it was not a well regarded feast.

Luigi Died.

"It's-a no use," Luigi mumbled as he dropped to the ground and entered a fetal position. As he cried, he eventually passed out, and was pecked to death by hungry seagulls, who found him to be quite bitter and sour, and they had terrible heartburn.

Luigi Died.

"OH MY GOD!" Ron Galaxy yelled as he stood up and the roar of the crowd was silenced. Against all the odds, Luigi's attack was successful, and he managed to knock out Kung Pao with one well placed kick. From there he went on to win the tournament, and become one of the world's top ranked divekickers. However, Mr. N (who had broken Luigi's fall and was thrown out of the tournament) was quite displeased by all of this. He created a scheme for revenge, one that took years to enact (due to his being a strict follower of ancient Klingon proverbs (at least when they were in his favor)), during which Luigi's fame only increased. But eventually, the plan came together, and Mr. N suffocated a drunken Luigi (found in bed with several drugged up prostitutes in various states of undress) with his neck pillow. However, Mr. N left the neck pillow behind, and was quickly convicted of murder. He spent the rest of his life rotting in prison, and being forced into prison divekick fights by the guards.

Luigi Died.

"AAAAAAAIIIE!" Luigi yelled as he dove into the portal, hoping for the best. After falling for yet another large distance, he landed in what appeared to be a giant mound of manure. "Ugh," he moaned as he climbed out and looked at himself. "I-a hate-a manure."

"Fell in manure, son?" Luigi looked around for the source of the question, and saw that it came from an elderly gunslinger sitting on a chair in front of a nearby saloon. It was only now that Luigi took a moment to examine his surroundings, and saw that he was in what appeared to be an olde western town. "That never happened to me, but it did happen to a friend of mine during a gunfight. It was, oh, I don't know, twenty or thirty years ago at this point. Me and Billy the Kid were breaking out of jail, and..." However interesting this man's story was, Luigi was suddenly reminded (randomly) that he was, at one point earlier in the day, on a quest to save his brother Mario, so he left the man rambling to himself and started searching for a way to remove the manure.

Moosies Number VII Game of the Year 2013: Call of Juarez: Gunslinger.

The Call of Juarez franchise was always one of those things that I was mildly interested in because I like westerns, and there's not really much in the way of good western games. But given the track record of the actual game part of the Juarez games (especially that one that wasn't a western), I never actually played any of them. At least until this newest one. Granted, the $15 price point certainly helped, but I got way more out of this "budget" game that I did other, full priced games that I played this year. Well, I didn't pay full price for those other games, due to smart use of sales (and someone that randomly gave me Dead Space 3 for free), but that's irrelevant. This game might not have the production values of something like Call of Duty, but it has something that bigger games like that often don't: heart.

I know that sounds clichéd, because it is, but hey, ask anyone that's read my novel: I am a MASTER of clichés. On paper, this game should probably be terrible. It's from the people that made the lackluster Call of Juarez games, it's sort of cell-shaded, and it's a budget title. Instead we got a tight shooter with a great sense of style. Take the narration, for example. No, it's not super dynamic like Bastion (though there are a few moments where it changes slightly based on what you do), but it spices up the action. Running through the streets of a dusty western town gunning down thugs is fun, but the narration adds that little something extra needed to...zest it up. Okay, I'll stop trying to explain it because I feel like I'm rambling now.

Of course I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the parts where the narrator changes what he's saying mid-level, which then changes some aspect of the action. For example, there's one part where he changes from saying that Apaches were attacking him to saying that cowboys were attacking him Apache style. Though, a lot of the time when this happens it's to give you a way out of an "arena" after killing a set number of enemies. He'd say something like, "And then suddenly I saw a way out that had somehow remained unseen to me," and then a big rock would fly up into the air and reveal the path forward. Kind of neat, but also a little transparent in the fact that it exists solely as a way to explain killing a bunch of guys and then letting you move forward without doing anything crazy or having a cut-scene.

But even if the game didn't have any of the narration or style, it'd still be a pretty good shooter. The shooting itself is tight and fun, and on top of it the game has leveling and a variety of upgrades and abilities to change things up. Some of them are really simply, like being able to mash the reload button to load bullets into a revolver faster, but the later ones get kind of crazy. There's one that lets you stop time and just mash the shoot button (R1 for me, playing on PS3) to get hell of head shots. The game even has a New Game Plus to let you keep leveling and get all of the upgrades.

The game's not perfect, mind you. There are definitely moments where the budget production values are pretty evident, and I didn't really care for the game's quick-draw mini-game. It's not terrible, and there are certainly times when the game uses the concept of the stand-off/quick-draw really well. There's one where you literally can't draw fast enough to win, and just have to dodge. My favorite though, was the one that is a recreation of the stand-off from the end of The Good The Bad and The Ugly. I mean, it is EXACTLY that stand-off, even to the point where it's set in a circular part of a large graveyard. But like I said, I didn't really care for the mechanics of the quick-draw, so the normal ones weren't so great.

And the game has some boss-fight type encounters that I also didn't enjoy. But they didn't hurt the experience as a whole, because almost everything else about the game was great. It's a really fun game that doesn't overstay its welcome, and was more than fun enough for me to not only beat it once, but to then New Game Plus it on a higher difficulty and play through it all again.

I wish more games were like this. I like playing shooters, but I don't like paying $60 for a short campaign and a multiplayer mode that I barely touch (speaking of which, I should probably play more of Killzone Shadow Fall online to get my money's worth). But $15 for a fun campaign and no online? That's a great deal. Hell, I'd even be willing to pay $20 for such a game if the campaign was good enough. Either way, this game is rad, and you should play it if you haven't.

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger also wins:

• Award for Best Shooting.

• Secret Award for Best Narration.

Proceed to VI.

In his attempt to climb the ropes again, Luigi only ended up lying on the floor of the ring, and was kicked in the face by Kung Pao. However, unlike professional divekickers, Luigi had never trained to survive a divekick to the head, and was sent into a deep coma that lasted for years. Nine years, to be exact. And when he awoke, he found that the hospital he was in was under attack by a large group of soldiers, and Luigi was swiftly and mercifully killed by a bullet to the head.

Luigi Died.

"It's-a no use," Luigi mumbled as he dropped to the ground and entered a fetal position. As he cried, Kung Pao took pity on him and refused to continue the fight.

"Kill him!" Someone yelled from the crowd.

"Finish the jabroni off!" Ron Galaxy yelled as he stroked his mustache. However, Kung Pao would not attack, and soon enough the god of divekicking decided that too much time had passed. As his giant foot descended to squish the fighters, Luigi glanced up just long enough to see the big toe right before it killed him. Unlike professional divekickers, Luigi was unable to survive judgment, and suffered a quick, albeit smelly, end.

Luigi Died.

While Luigi may be one of the best jumpers around, he was unaware of how quick Sam's reflexes were with a pistol, and Luigi was hit with a head shot before he even hit the top of his jump.

Luigi Died.

Much like with Option A, this ended very swiftly, only with a slit through instead of a bullet to the brain.

Luigi Died.

"Good," Sam said as they shook hands. "Now follow me." Sam crouched down and started sneaking off, and Luigi had to scramble to keep up, but luckily the glowing green lights in Sam's sneaking suit made him easy to follow, though for some reason enemy guards (er, other people) didn't seem to notice them.

Moosies Number VI Game of the Year 2013: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist.

I like stealth games, and I'm not afraid to admit it. I find the thrill of having to find my way through an environment without alerting the enemies to be unlike anything else in video games. Sure, I'm not GREAT at stealth games, and almost always wind up alerting the enemies at some point, but that doesn't diminish all the times when I do make my way through without being seen or heard (even if that means I knocked everyone out and hid them behind stuff).

And in terms of pure mechanics, I think Splinter Cell: Blacklist is my favorite stealth game of all time. For one thing, the controls and feel of this game are super tight, and that's not something that can be said of most stealth games. There's often good reasons for that, as those games intentionally try to use less than great controls to artificially make it more difficult, or make you feel weaker than the enemies (at least that's what I assume). This game, however, is all about making you (well, Sam Fisher) feel like an unstoppable bad-ass. Not in the Call of Duty sense of being able to shoot your way through hundreds of enemies. It's more of a, "These enemies are all helpless before my sneakiness and superior gear" type of thing.

I suppose you could actually play this game gunning your way through the whole thing, because modern game design dictates that big budget games have to appeal to as many people as possible to make a profit, but the true Splinter Cell experience is in sneaking your way through unseen, and in my way of playing, without killing anyone. And this is one of the best things I can say about this game, but unlike every other stealth game that I've played, this game doesn't make non-lethal play-styles feel gimped compared to playing the game using lethal methods. If anything, I think it might actually be a little MORE effective and easy that going in lethal, but I don't have the necessary evidence to back up such a claim.

But I can say that I was able to play through the entire game and get no kills on my first attempt. Well, what I really did was get the Trophy for beating the game with no kills as Sam Fisher in the story missions. That sounds like a really specific Trophy, and that's because it IS a really specific Trophy. For whatever reason (cough, appealing to everyone, cough), there are several times throughout the campaign where control switches to someone else, and the only option to proceed is to kill. Several of these involve operating some sort of aerial drone, but there's one level where the game literally turns into a first person shooter a couple of times. I'm not joking, the game actually goes into the first person perspective, and you have to shoot up some dudes to proceed. And as you might expect, suddenly turning a third person stealth game into a first person shooter isn't great. Thankfully it's only a couple of small parts of one level that were in first person, but it was also easily the low point of what is an otherwise really good game.

There is a story in this game, but it's not really anything special. If you've played one Tom Clancy game (or seen one of his movies (or read one of his books)), then you have a pretty good idea of the type of story that this is. Not that that's a bad thing, because it's perfectly fine for what it is, and I still don't want to be badmouthing it after Tom Clancy passed away (mainly because like I said, it's not bad). But I am really glad that this was the final game released under the Tom Clancy brand before he passed away. I realize that he hasn't had any direct (or indirect) involvement in any of the games for years, but it's still good to see his name being used well. And also good to see the Splinter Cell brand being used well. I haven't been the biggest fan of the series over the years (it's only the second that I've finished, the other being Double Agent (and only the third that I've actually played, the other being Chaos Theory)), but it's always been something that I really wanted to get into, and have admired from a distance.

It's a fantastic game, and I couldn't think of a better way to close off discussing this game, so there's that!

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist also wins:

• Award for Best Stealthing.

• Secret Award for Best Use of Not Abiding by The Bill of Rights In the Name of Liberty.

Proceed to V.

"It's-a no use," Luigi mumbled as he dropped to the ground and entered a fetal position. As he cried, Sam realized that he had made a mistake in trying to enlist Luigi for help. Though he briefly considered silencing Luigi (permanently) to keep word of his being here from spreading, he decided to just slink off into the night, and try to figure out what was happening on his own. Meanwhile, a cow meandered over to Luigi, and dumped some fresh manure onto Luigi's head, causing him to suffocate.

Luigi Died.

Before Luigi knew what was happening, Sam was trying to grapple Kenway and use him as a human shield. Luigi tried to help, but in trying to help, he only got Sam and him on the ground with more guns pointed at them. Later that day a plank was fashioned together from a spare board in one of the lower decks, and the dynamic duo were being forced off it at sword point.

"Thanks a lot, Luigi," Sam grumbled as he was pushed off into the murky deep.

"AAAAAAAIIIE!" Luigi screamed as he was pushed off, and promptly eaten by a shark.

Luigi Died.

While Luigi stayed there, frozen in place, Sam managed to get into a position where he had Captain Kenway held with a knife to his throat, and a gun in Sam's other hand pointed out at the other pirates.

"Hahaha!" Kenway said, as he started laughing. "I like the cut of your jib! Boys, put away your guns." The crew did as he asked, and went back about their business. "You can let go now."

"What do you think, Luigi?" Sam asked, not letting go.

"I, uh... Let-a him go?" Luigi stammered, finally breaking out of his fear petrification.

"Okay," Sam said as he slowly let go of Kenway and walked back, though he did not holster his gun or sheath his knife.

"You still never answered my questions," Kenway said as he pulled a bottle of rum out from a hidden pouch in his clothes and took a swig. All the while his smile never left his face.

"My friend Luigi and I," Sam said, putting his weapons away. "Are a little lost."

"Ha, you can say that again!"

Moosies Number V Game of the Year 2013: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.

Since you've now suffered, er, read through about half of this idiocy, I felt like it was time for a short break. So instead of me actually writing about ACIV, I shall instead embed this instructional video on the benefits of being a pirate. Eh... At least that was the plan... Didn't seem to work... Uh...LINK!

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag Also Wins:

• Super Secret Award for Best Collectibles.

• Secret Award for Best Use of Incentivizing Killing Animals for Profit.

Proceed to IV.

As one might expect, the only result of this was Luigi promptly being eaten by sharks. Oddly enough, those sharks were then eaten by bigger sharks, that were then eaten by a giant squid. That squid later went on to be killed by some fisherman, who were going to eat it, but didn't when their ship sank, and along with it the squid.

Luigi Died.

"It's-a no use," Luigi mumbled as he dropped to the ground and entered a fetal position. As he cried, Sam was able to escape the ship, but Luigi just lay there, crying. One might think that the pirates would do something to move him, but instead they just left him there, and he died a slow, painful death due largely to the elements.

Luigi Died.

Sam, being a master of stealth, was able to easily slip past the enemies and get to the portals. As luck would have it, most of the Magikoopas and other minions were drunk enough that Luigi was also able to slip by without them noticing. The duo soon found themselves before an array of portals, all of which were leading to other worlds.

"But which one to go through?" Sam pondered. "None of them look like your world."

"But-a..." Luigi said, looking over his shoulder at the enemies to make sure they weren't looking.

"How-a do-a you know-a-"

"Never mind that," Sam said as he looked at the portals carefully. "This one looks the most promising," he said as he pointed to a portal that appeared to lead to an early 21^st Century city. "You coming?"

"I-a guess-a so..."

"Okay then. On three. One...Two...Three!" They jumped through the portal and wound up in a war torn city, with gunshots and explosions audible in the distance, but there was no one around.

"We're-a gonna die!" Luigi cried as he heard a loud, artificial sounding roar from behind a nearby building. Suddenly, a giant Bowser robot crashed its way through the building, and was about to set its sights on Luigi and Sam, but then a mysterious ninja-like figure jumped off another building and landed between the intrepid duo and the Bowser robot.

"Raiden?" Sam exclaimed at the cyborg ninja entered a combative stance.

"Get ready for JACK THE RIPPER!" Raiden yelled as he leaped into the air toward the Bowser robot. Luigi, of course, was cowering in fear behind Sam's legs.

Moosies Number IV Game of the Year 2013: Metal Gear Rising: REVENGEANCE.

I am a Metal Gear fanatic. I probably didn't have to explicitly state that, because if you keep up with the nonsense I put on the internet, you're probably well versed in my obsession with that series. And despite the rocky path this game took through its development, I stayed confident that it would turn out to be a good game. But it turned out that I was wrong, it didn't end up a good game.

It ended up a FANTASTIC game. The game doesn't really give me my Metal Gear fix like the Metal Gear Solid games do, but instead it's a rad action game that is totally nuts from start to finish. I mean, in this game, you cut a Metal Gear Ray in half within the first twenty minutes(ish) of the game, and there's a boss (spoiler) that is a dude whose ENTIRE BODY is made of nanomachines. And I can't forget to mention that Raiden's faithful companion in the game is a talking robot wolf.

And then there's the music! Here's a little sample for you to listen to. Part of why I love the game's music is certainly the absurdity and over-the-topness of most of it, but it's also in how it's used. For most of the songs in the game, it'll loop through certain parts of the song until you get to a specific part of the fight, at which point it'll kick into something else, like the lyrics, or a sick guitar solo. It's just so crazy that I can't help but love it, and it's definitely one of my favorite parts of the game. Let me put it this way, of all the games that came out this year, this is the only one that I would routinely listen to some of the songs on the soundtrack while I was doing other stuff on my computer. Sure, it's probably not actually the "best" music of the year, but it's certainly my favorite music of the year.

But all that nonsense isn't what got me to play and replay this game...four or five times throughout the year. It's the game play, of course, that kept me coming back. One of the smartest things that Kojima and company ever did was give this game to Platinum, because they can do what (seemingly) no one else can these days. And by that I mean create these insane action games with the tightest possible controls, outrageous scenarios, and crazy mechanics on top of all that.

The combat in REVENGEANCE is based around three core mechanics. The first is attacking, which is really simple. The second is parrying, which is definitely tougher. Rather than having a straight up block button, instead you have to push in the direction of the incoming attack and hit the light attack button. If you time it well enough, you'll knock the enemy off balance, and open them up for the third mechanic, which is Blade Mode. This is the part where the game goes into slow motion, and you can cut the enemy into pieces in an attempt to steal the enemy's energy thingy and use it to restore health.

And that may actually be my favorite part of the entire game. Not so much that you can cut enemies into (literally) hundreds of pieces. No, it's that where Raiden's sword hits the enemy is where the enemy actually gets cut. I can't think of any other game that has real, one to one cutting action like that. Take Dead Space, for example. Sure, the game is built around dismembering enemies, but if you pay attention, the limbs always come off from predetermined spots. While that doesn't actually impact the game play at all, it's still disappointing, which makes REVENGEANCE such a delight to me.

I could keep going on and on about this game, and easily go back through and play it yet again. But there's a few more things I'd like to mention. Even though you never really have to, the game has tons of dialog hidden with characters that you can call up on the Codec, and I think it's great that they kept that feature in from the main Metal Gear Solid games. On higher difficulties (specifically very hard and REVENGEANCE difficulties) the game changes enemy placements, in addition to the normal damage taken changes. For example, the very first fight in the game on hard and lower is against three dudes with machetes. On very hard and higher, there's also a Gekko along with them, and all the enemies are way more aggressive. Of course, New Game Plus-ing it makes a lot of the game easier to deal with on higher difficulties, aside from the first area of the game, which doesn't let you use any of that stuff. There's kind of a story reason for that, but it still made that first act WAY harder than it would have otherwise.

It's a super rad game, and about the only negative thing I have to say is that it's short. Well, that makes it easier to replay, but it probably could have been a bit longer. But then again, even at its current length, there's still some backtracking type stuff, and that was a bummer, but not too much of a bummer.

Metal Gear Rising: REVENGEANCE also wins:

• Award for Best Melee Combat.

• Award for Best Use of Blood and/or Gore.

• Award for "Best" Music.

• Secret Award for Best Use of The Konami Code.

Proceed to III.

While Luigi may have thought that they would be merciful, he could not have been more wrong, and he was swiftly killed by a magic missile.

Luigi Died.

Unfortunately for Luigi, the landing had been quite rough, and there was a large hole in the bottom of the rowboat. Luigi didn't realize this until he was halfway back to the ship, at which point the rowboat sank, and he was eaten by various sea critters, who then spent days trying to get the sour taste out of their mouths.

Luigi Died.

"It's-a no use," Luigi mumbled as he dropped to the ground and entered a fetal position. As he cried, Sam realized that dragging this cowardly Italian man around was a poor idea, and put Luigi out of his misery with a (silenced) bullet to the brain.

Luigi Died.

In Luigi's earnest attempt to escape with his allies, he ended up bumping into Raiden, who tripped and dropped his sword...Right onto Luigi, who soon died from blood loss.

Luigi Died.

"AAAAAAAIIIE!" Luigi screamed as he lifted up the cardboard box to reveal the corpse of Solid Snake, who had decided to return to his natural habitat before he died. However, seeing an old friend (again, from Super Smash Bros. Brawl) dead and rotting caused Luigi to have a heart attack.

Luigi Died.

"Luigi!" Raiden yelled as Luigi jumped into the sewer.

"Just shut up and follow him," Sam called back as he jumped into the sewer as well. Raiden followed suit, and found themselves staring at the barrel of a laser rifle held by someone handsome that they all recognized.

"Keith David?!" The intrepid trio cried.

"Luigi?" Keith David replied as he stopped aiming at them. "What are you doing here?"

"It's a long-a story," Luigi sighed.

"I take it you and goggles there came from other worlds like I did?"

"Yes," Sam replied.

"I figured as much. I did as well, and it was right after I helped the President defeat the Zin...Never mind about them," he added at the confused looks on their faces. "If I could get back to my world, we could use the power of the Saints to stop Bowser, but I haven't the slightest idea about how to get back."

"We're-a doomed," Luigi moaned as he plopped down on the ground and started moping.

"Perhaps not," Keith David said heroically as he looked majestically off in the distance. "How many times have you and your brother defeated Bowser? More than I can count. Mario may not be here, but between the rest of us, we can do this. We can stand up to Bowser's attacks and defeat him once and for all! Not for us, but for every person he's ever stepped on. Every minion he's sent out to die for his stupid schemes. We're not fighting for revenge...We're fighting for justice!" No one seemed inspired by this speech. "Besides, there's one piece of information I have: Where Bowser's New Lair is. If we can get there, we can stop him. You in?"

Moosies Number III Game of the Year 2013: Saints Row IV.

At the end of the first mission in Saints Row IV, the Boss of the Saints is climbing up a giant missile flying through the air whilst Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" plays and the rest of the Saints call the Boss on the radio and tell him how much they'll miss him. When I was trying to figure out the correct placement for this game on my top ten, this moment kept popping into my head, and every time it did, I knew it deserved that higher slot. That moment was, no IS, without a doubt, not only my favorite video game moment of the year, it's one of my favorite video game moments of all time. For me, at least. I know I have a friend that I got into "friendly discussions" about this moment at least twice in the year, with him completely opposed to my (clearly correct) position. But hey, he doesn't like Aerosmith, so he's not a real American .

This game is just so ridiculous, insane, and hilarious in so many ways that I came really, REALLY close to making this my game of the year. Though, as you may have noticed, this is Number III, so clearly there were other games that I liked more, but still, this game is rad. I mean, you play as the President of The United States (in my case, a cockney President) that gets abducted by aliens (along with Vice President Keith David), and then you get all sorts of crazy powers to use in a Matrix style simulation against the oppressive Zin Empire. Everything about the game, from the dialog, to the voice acting, to the scenarios is just so spot on and hilarious that it was a non-stop joy. I loved almost every second that I played this brilliant, incredible mess of a game.

But there's the rub. As amazing and incredible as this game is, it's also a complete mess. At some point over the last year I started calling it a "mess-terpiece." The fact that it's the same city (with a few small changes) from Saints Row the Third is a total bummer. Steelport was an all right city, but not great enough that it deserved a second game set in it. But even worse were the technical issues with the game. Granted, I realize that PC master race jerks would start their whining here, but shut up. The game wasn't broken, and I didn't have a ton of issues, but the fact that there are issues in this game that (frankly) doesn't even look that great was also a total bummer. I understand why these two issues are in the game (lack of time), but that doesn't excuse them. If Volition had been given the time and money to make this a proper next (well, now current) gen game with a new city, this could have been one of my favorite games of all time. But as it is, I think it's a game that is, in many ways, a lot better than Saints Row the Third, but is also worse in a number of ways.

That said, nothing can diminish running up the side of a building, jumping off, and then punching into the ground so hard that a nuclear explosion goes off, all while my mix tape of nothing but classical music and "What is Love?" is playing in the background. I had, for a while, been just listening to the classical station in the game. But while listening to Emperor Zinyak do dramatic readings of classic texts was funny at first (and another of the things that makes me REALLY love this game), it got old due to the readings being repeated too often.

It also doesn't diminish being able to light a car on fire with a fireball, pick it up with telekinesis and then throw it at enemies. Oh, and did I mention that it can be upgraded telekinesis that adds lightning to the object as well? Because that's also rad.

So...yeah. Saints Row IV is a game with some of the highest highs that I've ever experienced in a video game, but also some pretty low lows. But I've harped on those enough, so I'll just move on.

Saints Row IV also wins:

• Award for Funniest Game.

• Michael Bay Award for Most Ridiculous Game.

• Secret Award for Best Moment ("I Don't Want to Missile Thing").

Proceed to II.

"It's-a no use," Luigi mumbled as he dropped to the ground and entered a fetal position. As he cried, Sam and Raiden abandoned him, and he was abducted by Bowser's minions in the spaceship. I would describe what happens next, but Nintendo said that "anal probing" wouldn't be allowed in Australia, so I'm afraid that I can't. Also he died.

Luigi Died.

Realizing that Sam was not long for this world, Luigi just kept climbing, and soon caught up to Keith David. The two were now in the middle of an empty street, with a large portal in front of them.

"He didn't make it, did he?" Keith David asked. All Luigi could reply with was to shake his head, and shred a few tears for his fallen friend. "We all have to make sacrifices in times of need."

Moosies Number II Game of the Year 2013: The Last of Us.

There was a point, a few weeks ago, when I thought this game was going to wind up rather low on this list, because it had been months since I played it, and I was in the hospital on morphine. Okay, that was mostly a joke, because the doses they gave me weren't actually high enough to affect my reasoning skills (they were just as bad as usual). But, because of the late start I got on writing this stuff up, I listened to all of Giant Bomb's coverage of this game, and it reminded me that I actually kind of absolutely loved this game. I know at this point you don't need me heaping praise onto this game, because I'm sure that you've already seen plenty of other people heaping praise onto it, so I'll keep my praise of the story and acting short (because that's what people usually talk about, but I should stress that I really loved those parts of the game, because they're really well done (well, I mean the writing more than the actual story itself, because the story itself is a bit clichéd, but like I said, I'm the master of clichés)).

Instead, I'll talk about this game's masterful use of something that I, generally speaking, absolutely hate. I'm talking about zombies. I think they're stupid, the only zombie movies I like are either comedies (Shaun of the Dead) or parodies (Planet Terror), and my eight year quest to beat Dead Rising (which I completed last year (yay)) has kind of put me off from ever playing a dumb zombie game ever again (at least until I make my millions from my novels and buy an Xbox One and need something to play on it that isn't that weird Swery game).

The point I was trying to make before I started rambling was that this is a zombie stealth game. Sure, you spend large portions of the game sneaking past normal dudes (and those are also great because I like stealth games), but I think that using stealth as a mechanic for circumventing (or defeating) zombies was a great mechanic. And to be honest, it's a mechanic that I think is much better than just slaughtering your way through thousands of mindless zombies in Dead Rising (again, at least until I make my millions and make that bank breaking $499 purchase).

Part of why I like the stealthing against zombies in this game is that it's different than most stealthing in games (and different than the against people stealthing in the game). Okay, I'll try to use "stealthing" less. Anyway, the clickers and bloaters in the game are blind, which takes the focus off avoiding line of sight and moves it onto not making sound. Or, conversely, using objects in the environment to lure the enemies away. And it gets real tense in a way that I thought was incredible.

Tense is maybe the best way to describe the game as a whole. While I never actually played the game on hard, listening to Giant Bomb's (mainly Brad's) words on the game made me want to go back and replay it on hard. I haven't, yet, because I'm still "recovering" from being in the hospital (by which I mean watching The Next Generation and Arrested Development on Netflix all day), and I might want to ease myself back into video games on something easier first. I've already beaten The Last of Us twice, too, yet I still kinda want to go through it again.

I got off topic again. Tense-ness. This game recreates how I feel being in the post-apocalypse would be better than any other game I can think of. Of course, that's partly due to how easy it is to be super overpowered in Fallout 3, but I think it's mostly because of great game design. Then again, I think Joel can carry way too many weapons in his backpack, and maybe playing on hard would help make that desperation and tension be more apparent through the whole game. Or not, I don't know.

I feel like this rambling mess hasn't actually captured how I feel about this game. Or maybe this rambling mess is supposed to be symbolic of the mess that is society and the confusing nature of Joel's emotional state throughout The Last of Us as he goes from being a man that is in it only for himself to a man that makes an incredible sacrifice for a person he cares for more than anything (or anyone) else.

And if you believe that, I have a bridge for sale...

Oh, and the game has was may be Nolan North's best performance since his role as Steven Heck in Game of the Generation Alpha Protocol. Okay, I lied, Alpha Protocol isn't Game of the Generation, but I wasn't lying about Nolan North's performance.

The Last of Us also wins:

• Award for Best Overall Acting.

• Award for Best Story.

• Nolan North Presents The Secret Award for Best Troy Baker Performance (Joel).

• Troy Baker Presents The Secret Award for Best Nolan North Performance (David).

• Secret Award For Best Female Character And Acting Performance From A Lady Because Society Is Sexist And Actually I Just Ginned This Up Because I Realized That I Had Already Given Best New Supporting Character To Drippy And I Felt Bad Because Ellie Is Also A Really Good Character Award Achievement Award (Ellie, Ashley Johnson).

Proceed to I.

Realizing that now was the time for Luigi to finally prove that he too could be a true hero, Luigi let go of the ladder in an attempt to attack the clicker and free Sam...but it ended with the clicker killing not only Sam, but Luigi as well. After a few minutes, Keith David realized that neither of the two had made it, so he went on without them.

Luigi Died.

This strategy might have worked, if it weren't for the fact that Luigi was very tired, and could not hold on to the ladder for very long. When he fell, he landed right on his head, breaking his neck and making him easy prey for the clicker.

Luigi Died.

"It's-a no use," Luigi mumbled as he dropped to the ground and entered a fetal position. As he cried, the clicker actually thought he was another zombie, and left him alone. But that was not helpful later in the day when a torrential rainfall caused the sewers to flood, the complications of which proved fatal for poor Luigi.

Luigi Died.

As he ran down the mountain, Luigi heard a strange growling noise, but before he could look around and see the source, he was killed by a cougar, who that ate him. It was displeased with its meal.

Luigi Died.

However, Luigi did not know the slightest thing about driving trucks, so all he did was undo the parking break, which caused the truck to slowly start rolling down the mountain. At a certain point the truck flipped over and crashed down, crushing Luigi into a small, squishy pulp.

Luigi Died.

"Oh, you think a little PEA SHOOTER like that can stop me?" Bowser said.

"I'm Keith David, of course I can stop you!" Keith David replied, somehow sounding even more majestic than before. "Wait, what's that sound?" In the distance, he could here what sounded like a helicopter flying toward them. He, Bowser, and Luigi all turned to see a small helicopter with "Trevor Phillips Enterprises" painted on the side flying toward them.

"It was ENTERPRISES!" Trevor yelled into a microphone on his copter than played his voice out of a megaphone on the outside that was loud enough to be heard over the propellers.

"You fool, you'll kill us all!"

"AHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Trevor yelled as he gleefully flew the helicopter toward Keith David. Or, at least what he thought was Keith David, because he had consumed large amounts of various drugs on the flight over, and thought that Bowser was Keith David.

"NOOOOO!" Bowser roared right before Trevor's helicopter crashed into the airship, causing both to explode, which sent (a now very badly burned) Bowser flying toward Keith David. He landed shell side down, and soon had Keith David's gun pointed at his head.

"I'll be accepting your surrender now," Keith David smiled.

"GRR! All my schemes, foiled again! Damn you Keith David!" Meanwhile, Luigi let out a sigh of relief, as the day had finally been saved...

OR HAD IT?

Moosies Number I Game of the Year 2013: Grand Theft Auto V.

Grand Theft Auto V is one of those games where, when it was announced, I got really excited for it. But that was back in, what, late 2011? Yeah, 2011 is when that first trailer was put up. Well, in the time between then and the release of the game, I didn't really keep up with it, so I wasn't mad excited for it or anything. Especially not after I tried to go back and play GTA IV again, and only got maybe halfway into it. Granted, I really liked GTA IV back in the day, but by modern standards, everything that isn't the voice acting in the game is pretty terrible (especially the driving). But in retrospect, I think that trying to play GTA IV only helped drive home how much of an achievement GTA V is.

GTA V is, without a doubt, one of my favorite games of the generation. While no one aspect of the game (aside from the acting and the open world, but more on those later) is any better than any other game that I played this year, it's the ambition that really sets this game apart. It's the scale, it's the incredibly high level of quality that permeates almost every aspect of the game that makes it so special to me. Sure, the game has some glitches here and there, but of course it does, all big open world games do. That's just the nature of how these things work.

But from the very first moment I started playing the game, and it opened with that bank heist, I knew I loved this game. It's a fairly tense mission that manages to both set up the back story between two of the protagonists, and also be a really good tutorial for the game's mechanics. It's things like, "Hey, drive carefully, the cops haven't cased this car yet" that are simply brilliant. It sounds like something that fits, and it also explains a new mechanic without breaking the fourth wall.

And that brings me to the various changes from the previous game. For one thing, and this only applies to the PS3 version, but you can aim and shoot with L1 and R1 instead of L2 and R2, which made me extremely happy. But then there's actual game mechanics like avoiding the cops. In GTA IV, so long as you were in the glowing cop circle on the mini-map, the cops knew where you were. In terms of game play, it wasn't terrible, but it didn't make logical sense, and in a game that was trying to be at least somewhat realistic, it was out of place. Now, in GTA V, if you break line of sight with the cops, it turns into a stealth game with cop vision cones on the mini-map. And if you manage to get into another car while out of sight, the cops won't magically know that you're in the new car. While this might sound like it makes it easier, it doesn't, because the cops seem a lot more persistent than in GTA IV, though I still think not as much as real cops would be. And I'm fine with that, because it's still a video game.

And then there's the trio of protagonists, which was another brilliant move. Not only does it get rid of the old GTA trope of playing as a dude that does everything (well, it sort of does), but I think RockStar should be applauded for managing to make THREE really likable protagonists. A lot of games can't even make one likable protagonist, but this game managed to have three of them. Well, I can see how people might not like Trevor (but they're pansies), and Franklin is definitely not used as well as he should have been, but I still think it's a pretty good accomplishment.

Personally, Trevor is one of my favorite video game characters of all time. No, I won't argue against him being a terrible person (because he is), but that's part of why I find him so endearing. He's a murdering, drug dealing, drug taking, (possible) cannibalizing, psychopathic, scooter-loving sociopath. But that's what makes him so memorable. You want to hate him, because of all the vile things he does, but he's just so well acted (props to Steven Ogg), and so well written that you can't help but just laugh along with him as he does his dirty deeds. Most of the time, at least. No, I'm not talking about the torture scene, I actually quite liked that, I'm talking about one of the side missions where Trevor does some bad stuff with free sex from a real estate agent's wife as payment. That made me a little uncomfortable. A little.

And I haven't even gotten to the heists yet, or the missions design in general. Sure, the game has plenty of "drive to this place" type stuff that isn't great, but there's also a mission where you fly a small plane into the back of a bigger plane. There's a mission where you have to sneak into a big base to steal what you think is a deadly bio-weapon, but turns out to be something less deadly (at least if you hear the radio report after that mission that reveals what it really was). But my favorite mission in the entire game was the small town bank heist. You don't get nearly as many options as you do for some of the other heists, but what happens in that mission is so crazy and nuts that it might not be as good as climbing a missile while Aerosmith plays, but it's certainly a close second.

But the other heists, the ones where you have to do a lot of prep-work beforehand, are great. It's not perfect, and I feel like some of them (specifically the ones where you need to hide the getaway car) could have been clearer about where the job was going down. I had one where I hid the car way farther away than I would have otherwise, but luckily it didn't affect the outcome at all.

Another of my favorite moments in the game was doing some of the prep work for the first heist (the jewelry store job). I had to steal a van and some exterminator outfits, so I drove up to the place after sunset. There weren't a ton of people there, but there were a few. I tried walking up, all nonchalant (as Michael), but the guys there told me to beat it after Michael asked about needing some exterminator work done. So, instead, I sneaked around the back, knocked a dude out, and drove away, with them none the wiser. Granted, that may sound kind of dull and boring, but I thought it was super cool at the time. I analyzed the situation, surveyed the area, and went about my task the best way I thought I could, and it totally worked. In some ways, it's that kind of thing that has me excited for stuff like MGSV. Having more freedom in what I have for options is great.

Of course, most of the game doesn't allow that much freedom in what you can do, but conversely, this game has one of the best (if not the best) open worlds I've ever explored in any video game. Between Los Santos, the mountains, and the desert, there's a lot of variety in the environments, and the world actually feels big. A lot of the time, these games that are supposed to be "so big" end up feeling small to me, especially when I try to figure out how big the world actually is and then compare it to real world places. And granted, if you do that with GTA V, it doesn't stack up to real cities, but it still manages to feel like a big, living, real world. There's an incredible level of detail in almost every facet of the world, in every nook and cranny, in every little, unimportant thing. It's stuff like having the radio stations change when you enter certain parts of the world, and having one of them have a crazy man going on about some of the funniest conspiracy theories that I've ever heard.

This game is incredible. It's no wonder that it took five-ish years to make, because it's such a huge, awe-inspiring masterpiece of a game. I just wish that more people had the diligence to make it through the whole game, because I know that a lot of people get burned out mid-way through these games, and never actually finish them. And that's too bad for them, because while this game definitely has some low points, I think the highs are really high, and that it's easily RockStar's best game to date.

Oh, and the user selectable beards for the main characters are pretty great.

Grand Theft Auto V also wins:

• Abe Lincoln Award for Best Use of Facial Hair.

• Award for Best New Protagonist (Trevor Phillips).

• Nolan North Presents The Troy Baker Award for Best Non-Troy Baker and Non-Nolan North Actor of the Year. (Steven Ogg as Trevor Phillips).

• Secret Award for Best Open World.

• Secret Award for Best Criming.

• Secret Award for Best Needlessly Dumb Mini-Game (Mopping Mini-Game).

• Lamar Davis.

Proceed?

"It's-a no use," Luigi mumbled as he dropped to the ground and entered a fetal position. As he cried, Keith David did his best to defeat Bowser, but Luigi was hit by a stray Bullet Bill.

Luigi Died.

While his intentions were good, Luigi didn't know the first thing about using a sword, and his poor sword fighting only got him and Solaire killed faster.

Luigi Died.

This would have been a good idea if a small hammer and a fire flower were effective against Lord Gwyn, but of course they weren't, and Luigi was swiftly felled by the giant fire sword.

Luigi Died.

This might have been a good idea, if it weren't for the black knights that Solaire mentioned earlier. Luigi made it about one hundred feet outside of the structure when one of the knights ran up from behind, and killed poor Luigi in one hit.

Luigi Died.

"It's-a no use," Luigi mumbled as he dropped to the ground and entered a fetal position. As he cried, Solaire continued to fight, but he could only last for so long, and was eventually defeated. After felling his foe, Lord Gwyn turned toward Luigi, and slowly walked over.

"Do not be afraid," Gwyn said as he raised his sword above Luigi. "It will not be as painful as you-" But the next thing Luigi heard was the sound of the sword falling into the ground, and Gwyn's body slumping down after it. Luigi decided to break out of his fetal position, and looked behind him to see an old friend holding up a silenced pistol.

"Kept you waiting, huh?" Sam Fisher said with a grin as he holstered his gun.

"But-a, how-a did-a you-" Luigi started to say as he stood up.

"At the last second, Raiden saved me, and then I went about the task of catching up to you. Raiden had too much to take care of in his world to come, and Keith David is still making sure Bowser is taken care of. I have no idea where we are though."

"I'm-a just-a glad-a you're-a okay," Luigi said, feeling better.

"Me too. So, now what?" Sam asked. Luigi shrugged.

Moosies Retro Video Game of the Year 2013: Dark Souls.

Grand Theft Auto V may be one of the best games of the generation, but Dark Souls is one of my favorite games of all time. It was a game that I went into with a lot of trepidation, and definitely not one that I rushed out to go play. I didn't buy it until late in 2012, in fact, it was exactly one day after Dark Souls II was announced. But given my college-ing at the time, I didn't have a chance to really get into it until early 2013 (you know, last year). But even before then, back to when the game was released, Dark Souls was a game that fascinated me. Sure, I was fascinated from a distance, watching other people play it, both on Giant Bomb, and in the form of completely insane speed runs.

But even after seeing all that, after literally having watched people play that game from start to finish (again, in like hour long speed runs or something), this game still captivated me. I was completely drawn into the world and lore of Lordran. I was driven to complete my quest, and complete it I did. I'm not saying that to brag, because I'm of the belief that the game isn't as hard as most people think it is. I'm not saying it's easy, because I still think it's a pretty hard game, but that's the point. Dark Souls is a game that rewards hard work, more so than almost any other game that I've played.

But it also punishes carelessness. And that, perhaps, is the right word to describe this game. Punishing. Die twice, and your last blood stain, and any souls/humanity left with it are gone. Forever. Lost to time, like tears in the rain. Attack a shopkeeper, and he'll fight you any time to get near, unless you pay a fee. A fee that, I should add, only gets higher as your soul level increases. Kill an NPC, and that person is gone, forever. And you had better hope that it was worth it. Spend hours putting points into a skill only to realize that you should have been putting them into something else, and you're screwed, because Dark Souls doesn't know the meaning of the word"respec."

While I love the razor sharp and lightning fast combat of games like REVENGEANCE, I also love the deliberate combat of Dark Souls. Not slow, deliberate. There's a difference. You can play Dark Souls as fast and loose as you want, and there are certainly plenty of very fast weapons. But every time you attack, you leave yourself open. Attack at the wrong moment, and you could get overwhelmed, and die on the spot. And that makes almost every fight tense. Well, at least until you're going through an area for the 40^th time and are mad overpowered and killing everything in one hit.

But there's always another area, with bigger and stronger monsters and enemies to fight. Well, not literally, because even with the DLC (which is great), the game is finite in scope, but you get what I mean. You can leave one area feeling confident that you can succeed, only to be swiftly felled in the next, because you took a wrong turn and wound up in Blight Town instead of the forest. Sure, it may have been the frame rate in Blight Town that got you killed, but the point I was trying to get to was how much I love the world of Dark Souls. The way everything is interconnected shows a level of...level design rarely seen in other games. Any time I turned around a corner, unlocked some weird door, and realized I was about twenty feet away from some area I had been in hours earlier, I chuckled at how brilliant the level design is. Well, maybe brilliant is giving it a bit too much credit, but it's at least really clever.

I praised a lot of other games in this giant mess of a GOTY thing for their storytelling, but mainly for the quality of the acting and directing. Dark Souls, however, is not content with telling its story through cut-scenes like all the other games. Well, not counting the intro cut-scene, but after that, the game makes you dig for the story. And there's a lot of story in the game, it's just that most people miss it. Really, it's not so much a story as it is a mythology of what has happened in this land over the many centuries that it's existed. And I can't take credit for calling it a mythology, because I definitely saw someone else use that on the internet, but I think it's apt.

Dark Souls is more than just a game. If I had a larger vocabulary, and was more artistic, I could probably then follow that up with something profound, but I can't, so I won't. But I will say that it's one of those games that I think everyone should play. It achieves its goals so well (aside from technical issues) that I'm more worried about Dark Souls II than excited. Can lighting strike twice (thrice if you count Demon's Souls, which I've never played, but people seem to like)? I hope so, but I'm not sure. Will it be one of the games of the generation like Dark Souls? Maybe, maybe not. Who knows. But even if it's not, Dark Souls the first remains one of my favorites of all time, and the Moosies Retro Video Game of the Year 2013.

Praise the sun.