thatfrood

1. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

"Shadow of Mordor would earn a place as one of the best games of the year purely based on what it steals: Batman-style combat and Assassin's Creed traversal combine to form a package that, on its own, would be pretty fun to play. But throw in the Nemesis system- one of the most captivating and interesting ideas I've ever seen in a game- and you get this year's best game, hands down. Few games with purely scripted characters manage to have enemies as compelling and worthy of your hatred as Mordor does." - @nophilip

"I've played close to 20 hours of this and have barely completed 30% of the main quest line. That's a great sign the game is just fun to play, even separate from the narrative, which DOES seem very good. I've had a huge amount of fun already, and I'm not even half-way through. No other game this year hit me like this." - @hashbrowns

2. Dragon Age: Inquisition

"This sets the new standard for Bioware gameplay and storytelling. Featuring a staggeringly detailed and enormous world, with what feels like near infinite content. Fun combat, great voice-acting, and a story that held my attention for 60+ hours, made this one of the best RPG's in recent memory. Makes me very excited for the next Mass Effect." - @ghosthouse

"Top of the tree without a doubt is the latest RPG from Bioware. However, it wasn't as automatic as I assumed it would be. It took a while to get going and for the longest time I felt woefully underpowered playing as a mage. Some of the systems are not explained well at all and the first few hours can feel flat. HOWEVER, as I kept at it, waiting for it to get good, it crept up on me - I was hooked without even knowing it. Not since Mass Effect 2 have I stayed up till the wee hours just to see a quest conclude...and then roll right into the next one. Finding the party which worked for me, getting stronger gradually and just exploring the world, peppered with genuinely tough choices to make, won me over. I am 50 hours in and reckon there's still more than half the game to go and whole areas I haven't even been to yet. It can be a little overwhelming, but the sheer volume of quests to perform actually allows me to just forget about the ones I don't care about. Yes, it's janky as hell, but I have come to expect this from Bioware and it doesn't bug me as much as it should. Enjoying this so much, I don't want it to end." - @yodasdarkside

3. Dark Souls II

"Just amazing in almost every way. I didn't really care for the original Dark Souls, but this one somehow grabbed me and didn't let go. One of the few games that I actually wanted more of after completing. I cannot wait for Scholar of the First Sin (which releases on my birthday, conveniently enough!)" - @steadying

"Is it as good as Dark Souls? Not quite, but very little is. Is it better than any other game released this year? Absolutely." - @enemylandlord

4. South Park: The Stick of Truth

"Absolutely nailed the look and feel of the show. Writing is fantastic and I was laughing throughout, the RPG elements were also well done and didn't feel tacked on. This is definitely the bar that has to be met when it comes to using licenses as means for video games." - @joe423

"I'm still shocked that this game, based on a cartoon series I find intermittently funny and cloying, is my favorite experience of 2014. The pitch-perfect parodies and nods to games like Skyrim and Call of Duty, the clever writing, the absolute bevy of references hidden across the world, and the best moment of the year - Canada - all packed into one amazingly entertaining role-playing game. It's hard for a game to be so on point for its entire duration, especially one from a studio with such a bad history of lukewarm game endings, but South Park: The Stick of Truth somehow pulls it all off." - @ocelotfox

5. Wolfenstein: The New Order

"Never in a million years did I think a Wolfenstein game released in 2014 would be my favorite game of the year. Partly down to the fact 2014 wasn't a vintage year for me and partly down to the fact that Wolfenstein was one of the best paced FPS games I've ever played make this my favorite game of the year." - @yesiamaduck

"One of the most fun FPSs I've played in years. The shooting is a mix of old and new school, and killing Nazis is a strange nostalgia trip that feels like a breath of fresh air compared to the modern warfare equivalents that are out." - @butano

6. Transistor

"I already fell in love with the music, atmosphere and art of Transistor, before it was released. On top of that I was really impressed by the combat and different synergies and had fun playing around with it, even after playing through the game." - @khazo

"I love how the gameplay mechanics reinforce the themes of interconnection. Each of your functions is a person, and in different positions they're capable of different things, but always tinged with their innate them-ness. Horizontal progression and total versatility is constantly available. The death punishment is pretty clever, because it forces players to try new combinations as they limp through areas, rewarding mechanical exploration. Enemies evolve in attack varieties and abilities, and the limiter system allows you to tailor the experience to that perfect level of difficulty frission. The art, not even so much the art, but the color palette. Everything is diffused and neon but the colors are incredible and alive and vivid. This weird electronic lo-fi fuzz jazz ballad stuff blows my mind. Logan Cunningham coming out of my PS4 controller." - @brodehouse

7. Shovel Knight

"Shovel Knight is everything I wish more games were. It's not just an ode to classic platforming games of the NES and SNES era; it's a celebration of what made those games so impactful. If Shovel Knight had come out back then, it would likely be up there next to Mega Man or Mario, with tons of sequels down the road. Shovel Knight isn't just well-constructed, it also drips with craft and charm. It's clear the developers loved the game they were making, and they wanted you to fall in love, as well. I would recommend to anyone who has ever enjoyed platformers to pick up this game, don your shovel, and enjoy the best indie game I've played in years and my personal favorite game of 2014." - @truthtellah

"this is the number one game on this list because it's the number one game of 2014 not just on my list but on everyones list. people who have this as a number other than one on their list are deluded and should be sent to camps where they are taught how to shovel properly. like holes. not the book but the movie w/ shia labeouf" - @haygen

8. Bayonetta 2

"I love a good character action game. Recent years have been so kind to the genre, and it seems like they just get better and better. One or two a year is just right, and somehow these amazing games just keep on coming. It turns out there weren't a lot of them in 2014, but the big one... oh boy. This game is just a perfect collection of over-the-top, insane, fast, slick, responsive, fun, beautiful sequences, and like a lot of the games on my list, it's just FUN. This is one of the best games of its genre, period. Patrick Klepek said that Bayonetta 2 gave him "Asura's Wrath feelings." Yes. I want more of that. Give me all the Asura's Wrath feelings, Japan. Make the WiiU my Asura's Wrath feelings machine." - @austinmorgan

"Arguably the only downgrade made in the transition from Bayonetta 1 to 2 is that I don't hear Fly Me to the Moon ever. [At least not that I remember.] Everything else--from a story that feels more personal and [uh, sort of] makes more sense, to an even more prominent willingness to change up the moment-to-moment gameplay--is an improvement over the original, and the game still preserves the accessible and highly satisfying action mechanics that made the first so special for me." - @tizzzzzz

9. Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

"Sometimes I think about how I should have played more games in 2014. I look at Steam or my list of Trophies and question how many games or much time have I spent playing games this year. Then I remember how much I played Hearthstone, and then think "Oh yeah, that's right. I spent most of my time playing Hearthstone." - @clagnaught

"At this point I have put probably somewhere around 1000 hours into this game, and I am still having a blast and looking forward to playing more with the new cards in Goblins vs Gnomes. Not sure if I can come up with any higher praise than that. If you haven't tried this game yet, please give it a shot, I have not had this much fun with a game in a long, long, time." - @mrck

11. Mario Kart 8

"Its not a revolution as much as a rejuvenation. It brought me back to a series that had kinda fallen out of grace in the last few years. It doesn't do that much new, but it does everything a Mario Kart game should do, extremely well. From the fully orchestrated soundtrack to the frenetic 60 fps display of old and new tracks alike. What makes it so good, however, is that the gameplay loop behind it all is endlessly satisfying and hundreds of hours later still brings a smile to my face." - @atwa

"There's an old saying: "Your first Mario Kart is your favourite." Indeed, for a long time, Mario Kart 64 was my favourite. But then this game came out. I spent a lot of time playing this game with my wife, and I think she spent an even longer time playing it than me! There's a great sense of speed, the tracks are varied and fun, and the online play, for me, was pretty much flawless. Mario Kart 64 will always be near and dear to me, but Mario Kart 8 surpasses it." - @bleshoo

10. Diablo III: Reaper of Souls

"What a difference 12 months makes. This time last year, Diablo 3 was a decent game with some fairly serious flaws. There was not a whole lot to do in the end game and the the drop rates necessitated by the auction house made it nearly impossible to find high-quality items. Patch 2.0 and the Reaper of Souls expansion, released together February and March radically overhauled Diablo 3 and made it something incredible. I've got 500 hours on this game and although regular Diablo play eventually had to make way for other games, I'm still poring through patch notes every time it updates and I'll be way back in next spring and summer." - @asky314159

"No game has had a turn-around like Diablo 3 with this expansion. Diablo 3 was a solid game with many problems, and Reaper of Souls does an admirable job of turning the ship around and setting the stage for more improvements to come. It added much-needed end-game content and a form of competition by way of Rift leader boards and Seasons, not to mention overhauls of many game systems for the better. Diablo 3 is in a very good position right now and stands to become even better with subsequent updates and expansions - but Blizzard really needs to quicken the pace on this to truly deliver." - @benjo_t