GOTY 2013
The Year of Feels™
List items
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This game showed me that I can still manage to enjoy an FPS if it's one made by Irrational Games and Ken Levine. It's not perfect by any means, but the characters in this game give me these warm fuzzies of comfort whenever I see them on screen. I can't get enough of them or the beautiful world of Columbia. Plus, that ending is really a doozy
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For a guy who doesn't handle scary very well and sucks at stealth games (*glares at Metal Gear Solid* ... *hugs Metal Gear Solid* ... *sets off an alarm*), I absolutely adored The Last of Us. From the storytelling to the desperately intense gameplay to the incredible graphics, it made the long PS3/360 generation worth it.
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Gone Home took every expectation I had for the game and dashed them to the floor, stomping on them a bit on the way. I went into the game with little to no knowledge of what was going to happen, and boy am I glad I did. It made for one of the most unique, touching games of the year.
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A Link Between Worlds brought back a feeling that I had lost in gaming. That feeling of sitting down and playing a handheld game with little to no story, but finishing it just because the mechanics drive you ever onwards. I used to be able to do this so much as a kid, between Castlevania and Metroid games on the GBA, but had lost that sense of joy and wonder in recent years. I'm glad to have rediscovered it in the first Zelda game that I've ever actually completed.
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Brothers is another one of those games that just pulls at your heartstrings, but does so in a completely different way from Gone Home. Interesting from both a storytelling and mechanics point of view, it's really a shame that Brothers hasn't gotten more attention in the press.
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Through clever mechanics and a feeling of ownership and creation, this lighthearted puzzle-platformer got me to shed tears over construction paper. Yeah, it's good.
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I'm not big on open world crime games, but leaping around the city in SRIV never got old. Really, I found it so much fun I ran around and got every collectible just for shits and giggles (which I never do). Add to that the hilarity in the writing and the game's "stealth" level, and I loved every minute.
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This game is brutal and heart-wrenching and incredibly fun for what is basically a study in red tape and bureaucracy. The story goes some crazy places and every decision is incredibly difficult. I always wound up going with my gut and making rash decisions on the fly, however, because the gameplay would always put me in a similar rushed state. Definitely one of the more fascinating games of 2013.
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Between making sure none of my characters died and the right ones hooked up with one another, this game kept my love of SRPGs burning strong. I still can't get over how beautiful the animated cutscenes were.
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For someone as steeped in games as I (along with most people on this site) am, I absolutely adored how this game lampooned the industry as a whole. There was always a response to anything I threw at the game, no matter how far off the beaten path I decided to go. Also, I could listen to that narrator read anything. Seriously, anything.
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