Rerolled Games of the Year - 2013

Man0warr_sl said:

Do you guys that didn't like Ni no Kuni not like Ghibli stories/themes? I agree the combat and AI wasn't top notch but visuals/story/music (basically what Ghibli was in charge of) were all A+ which was enough to drag the gameplay up for me. However if you don't like Ghibli then it was probably disappointing compared to the hype.

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The gameplay was so mediocre and slow paced that it bogged the game. I hated the combat too.

an accordion_sl said:

The gameplay was so mediocre and slow paced that it bogged the game. I hated the combat too.

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Agreed - very pretty and high production quality but it wasnt for me.

That aside i'd have to say The Last of Us as my GOTY - My RPG would be DD : Dark Arisen by leap years - not the prettiest but i spent more hours in that than most MMOs

The Last of Us was fantastic and my pick.

Tales of Xillia is nowhere close to game of the year but I put in a shit-ton of hours into it.

1. Fire Emblem: Awakening - just OMG this game, by far my best of 2013. Fire Emblem is the reason I still have my GBA and why I got a Wiiu after tossing my Wii(well Fire Emblem and The Last Story). It is also why I have a 3DS and if it was the only game I ever played/enjoyed on the 3ds it would be well worth it.

2. Assassin's Creed IV - I really have never enjoyed the games in this series. This game is so far ahead of its predecessors its absurd. Pirates alone makes a game fun but they really nailed the feeling and flavor here. I could take down ships/forts/large fishies forever and still enjoy it. The DLC for this game makes most other games DLC disapointing, disjointed and generally lacking. I hope Ubi realizes what is going on here and releases a full Pirate game on it's own sans Assassin's Creed involvement. The marriage was great but releasing a standalone pirate game is the next logical step and one that should be amazing.

3. Saints Row 4 - A thoroughly enjoyable game. I was smiling nonstop while I played this fantastic open world riot of a game.

4. GTA 5 - just a solid, mesmirizing experience. I was invested in these three characters pretty heavily. This game actually lived up to everything I wanted it to be which is hard to do.

5. The Last of Us/Dragon's Crown - I couldn't choose here. I enjoyed playing Dragon's Crown much more than The Last of Us. The Last of Us sucked me in despite not necessarily enjoying multiple aspects of the game. Dragon's Crown was fun and a great upgrade to traditional beat em ups with the RPG aspects etc. The Last of Us was mesmerizing at times and horribly droll at others. The one thing both these games shared for me is that I couldn't put em down until completed though.

I don't really care about release dates, but here's what I played and loved:

1) Dota 2 - the only game that made me go to bed at 6am. Responsible for some of the most satisfying moments in gaming for me this year.

2) Shadow Warrior - It doesn't happen often that I buy a game on a whim and finish it 2 days later after blowing through it in 2 sittings. Best shooter of the year for me and proof that 90s shooters are still valid genre. Best fps melee combat since Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. Well balanced weapons, great level design and story that is actually deceptively good. Shame about the boss fights though.

3) Brutal Doom - I'm serious, the only game where a shotgun blast made me giggle uncontrollably, probably because I just wiped a whole hallway full of enemies. Overpowered weapons, fast action, no cover and blood and guts everywhere. The moment when a cyberdemon stomped me into the ground is probably my favorite "death" of the year.

4) Guildwars 2 - Probably the most casual MMO on the market right now, best played for a few days per week or even less, very well designed world and some of the locations should be in galleries. +1 for jumping puzzles, content that doesn't rely on killing anything.

5) Dishonored DLC

Stinker of the year: Don't Starve - I loved Mark of the Ninja, so I was really disappointed to find a Minecraft/Terraria clone that was governed by moon logic. Couple of cheap deaths later and I simply didn't want to play it anymore.

Easily DOTA2 this year (and last), can't remember playing anything else worth mentioning.

#1 Last of us #2 GTAV.

Bioshock Infinite. I'll go ahead and disagree with the common sentiment that the game has an incredible story/atmosphere saddled with pedestrian gameplay. The atmosphere is without rival, the story was really cool, and I thought the gameplay itself managed the same level of quality. If I had an accusation to level at the game as pertains to its gameplay, it'd be that it was constrained by its genre - FPS. Few are the games that manage -- via innovations in gameplay, originality of narrative, authenticity of character, grandeur in vision, whatever -- to recalibrate (for the better and for all time hence) players' expectations regarding their preferred medium. Half-Life 1 and 2 did it; Mario 64 did it; Demon's and Dark Souls did it; Bioshock 1 did it. Bioshok Infinite didn't. But I'll be damned if it isn't representative of gaming at its current apex.


Runner up would be Tomb Raider. Still haven't played The Last of Us.


If it had come out this year, my other runner up would be Hotline Miami. I played it this year, though, so it gets an honorable mention

Bioshock Infinite was great, but it's been a while since I felt like the game was so disjointed from the story. It needed Dishonored/Deus Ex gameplay, not Half Life. Hell, even Portal would be much better. You have this awesome world, but the only way you actually interact with it is shooting anything that moves in the face. Elizabeth was the greatest sidekick since Alyx, I give it that and the ending genuinely surprised me, but the shooting was merely average. It didn't even pull off the Spec Ops twist where you are bad guy by shooting everything.

The very few 2013 games I played this year were all indies or short games. The highlights wereKentucky Road Zero's film making genius and narrative explorations (even if I can't say I really like the game),Proteus' organic and musical minimalism (even if it challenges the limit of what we call 'video game') and of course the absolute brilliance ofPapers, Please!, not because of the solid visual design, not because of the often hilarious historico-political satire, not because it's the only game with moral dilemma that are actual dilemmas, but because of what it does to you when you play it, because of how the system insidiously turns you into a misanthropic asshole. An amazing feat only possible with video games.


I intend to finish Blood Dragon and play Brothers: A tale of two sons before the end of the year, but I fear Gone Home, The Swapper and Antichamber can't run on my venerable PC.

Path of exile with ease, I guess.
But like Dota2, the super long availability, makes it hard to even call it this year.

I also have to add in. my game backlog is so large. very few games I actually played this year, even came out this year.
Or are not in beta still themselves.
No consoles either. so what was the competition? saints row 4, Bioshock?
SR4 was good, but not close to goty. Bioshock as well. great for the most part. but not quite GOTY.
Last of us. I am fucking sick to death of zombies. and in general games of this type. I don't like the "gameplay" in this type of game at all.

Most other games, I didn't even consider worth buying new in the first place. I kindof doubt there was much of a zomg this is shockingly good. A Bastion or Portal level great game, that is shockingly good, generally gets noted.
Stanley parable is kindof that or gone home I suppose. neither would be GOTY for me.

Consoles have a few tempting games.
Ni no Kuni looks great.
I hear amazing things about wonderful 101.
Love disgaea's though, no way those would ever be GOTY material, I'm sure.

meant that as two separate statements. Zombies in fucking everything. games, games, games, tv, movies, books, comics. everything. Why game devs keep going back to zombies all the fucking time I will never understand.
Its like spiders, rats, wolves and bears. do these assholes know there are more animals out there then those 4?

For gameplay, I meant these shitty corridor narratives. Bioshock is guilty of the same shit of course. Tombraiders, uncharted, etc. You might have noted I complain about that in the bioshock thread. and want that to be a metriodvania. If you want to tell a story, write a fucking book. Don't make me play through your shitty idea of gameplay and cutscenes to experience it. Halflife2 at least understood to be a game first. same with portal. they are games before they are windowdressed with narratives.

Caliane_sl said:

Why game devs keep going back to zombies all the fucking time I will never understand.

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Because it is a good pretext for poor AI and poor path finding.

Plus, unless you play Last of Us on some retarded easy setting, 95% of your kills will be done with stealth rather than guns. I pretty much only ever shot something when I knew for a fact that it was the last thing in an area.

It's nothing at all like Bioshock Infinite's corridor shooter gameplay.

Not to mention, there's also a long stretch where you play as Ellie, which I personally thought was the best part of the game.

And the ending was absolutely perfect. I was very worried in the last hour that they were going to fuck it up with some Hollywood style ending, but they didn't.

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Yeah, I was talking about the whole sequence leading up to the end

I'm also glad that whatever the DLC coming up is about, and any sequel down the road, will not feature Joel and Ellie at all. Their story is done and should definitely be left that way.