Personal Top Games of 2013

[Strain42]

I honestly can't even remember too many new games I played this year...it was a pretty slow year for me in the game department, but lemme think. This is what I would say is my top 5 (with the first 4 in no particular order...)

Shin Megami Tensei IV - I haven't had much time to play it so I'm really not that far, but I am really enjoying it.

Pokemon Y - Because Pokemon, what's not to love? I had a lot of fun just playing it and geeking out with my friends.

Pacific Rim - The game itself really isn't that good. It's a very mediocre fighting games that actually has some pretty annoying control mechanics, but it turns out it's a LOT of fun for on the couch co-op with some Kaiju loving friends. The hours, laughs, and alcohol this game created makes it fit in my top games of the year.

Endless Boss Fight - An iOS game about a tiny robot endlessly beating up a much bigger robot until the bigger robot eventually wins may not sound like a lot of fun to you, but I personally enjoyed it a LOT. It made the incredibly long wait from announcement to release worth it. Endless runners are a very recurring theme on the iOS market, but I kinda hope to see more in this endless boss fight genre.

and finally...Strain42's number 1 game of 2013...

Spoiler

Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies

After being deprived of new Ace Attorney goodness for over 3 years, a week of being glued to my 3DS cracking the cases as quickly as I could was an amazing feeling that I had really missed. The characters were still fun, the dialogue was still wacky, everything about it was what I loved about the series. I think the game may have been dumbed down a bit in difficulty compared to other games, which is usually a bad thing but for this game it worked out really well in it's favor. Especially since it eliminated a lot of the "show everything to everyone and examine everything until hopefully something works." giving the game a greater sense of flow than the previous titles.

Luckily I won't have to wait another 3 years for more Ace Attorney goodness with Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright coming out next year, and hopefully that fan translation of Prosecutor's Path will get here sooner rather than later.

 

[Mikeyfell]

Runners up
Tomb Raider
Bioshock Infinite
The Last of Us

All perfectly serviceable games, great, but they're all cover based shooters.
And if you're going to make a cover based shooter it had damn well better be perfect.

Tomb Raider's story is really... lame
Bioshock Infinite's inventory is trash
and Last of Us has a ton of little tiny immersion breaking problems that make it really annoying to play

Moving on
Games I am recusing from being judged in the 2013 window
The Walking Dead Season 2
The Wolf Among Us

Mostly because next year I don't want to have to specify that "Only chapter's 2 through 5 are my game of the year

Actual favorite games of the year
Xcom: Enemy Within
Enemy Unknown was the best strategy game of last year and Enemy Within added 2 entirely new dimensions to gameplay.
Unfortunately it was pretty buggy (Which is why it's only 4th place

Tales of Xillia
I love the Tale's games and this one was no exception.
It wasn't the best in the series but it was certainly good enough for 2013

The Stanley Parable
I didn't even hear about this until the Jimquisition awards, but let's just say... Jim was right about it.

Spoiler: Paper's Please

It's probably the game with the best difficulty curve ever made, amazing mechanics, the visuals and sound design aren't so great they're very appropriate to the style and feel of the game. Playing a crossing guard who reads paperwork all day was the most fun I had all year.

 

[Chester Rabbit]

Some I?ll try and explain my reasoning behind if I feel confident enough in my ability to articulate my reasoning and the effect the game had on me.

Blood Dragon

Mass Effect 3 ? I bought this day one but wanted to do a full Mass Effect run so everything was fresh in my mind for when I got to ME3....sadly it took me until November to actually get around to doing that (November is sci-fi time for me) So lucky me I got to play it with almost all the DLC minus Citadel heheheh. PS I liked the ending.

Bioshock Infinite ? one heck of a story, beautiful art style that had me feeling as if I was in a Disney film, lovely characters and well I don?t know what you are all talking about (nor do I want to) I had an absolute blast with the gameplay.

Sonic Generations ? what a beautiful exhilarating game. Discovering this game was probably the most fun I have had in a long time with a video game. Such a shame I threw it aside like nothing when it first came out.

Rayman Legends

Jade Empire

Dishonored ? Talk about world building!

 

[Someone Depressing]

The director's cut of Deadly Premonition.

Come on, who didn't love the scene where a major characters gets

Spoiler

murdered both brutally and hilariously after having sex with a spiky pointy statue thing, while she babbles away in an unnintelligible tongue-less speak...

and everyone is remorseful, but the happy music starts playing because the

Spoiler

the cute dalmation who happens to be a nigh-indestructable force that almost destroys the entire world, in under a week, with almost no effort's freaking BOSS

enters the room. Yep, the corpse is still there. Still a dead woman.

God, DP was so rife with uncanny valley and bad music choices. I love it.

Also, Papers Please, because it's oddly engaging and beautiful is a soul-crushing, meniacal way. Like your entire life is a bleak, empty existence, to the point where stamping pieces of paper is a desolate, grey world, is fun.

Spoiler

Stamp *heehee* ...Stamp *heehee* ...Stamp *heehee* *ahem* ...Next. Papers please.

 

[teh_gunslinger]

Papers, Please because it's just the most interesting thing I've played in ages.

Gone Home, because it made me remember the infinite hubris of being a teenager, something I've forgotten in the last decade and a half since I was a teenager.

Crusader Kings 2 because it's always my most played game.

Kentucky Route Zero because... well, because it's weirdly unsettling. And bears.

Rising Storm because it's the best online shooter out there.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

I still haven't played a bunch of games that are likely contenders for top 5 for games that released this year so the list is just Bioshock ∞ and Tomb Raider.

For games I played this year I add Far Cry 3 and Uncharted 3.

 

[Pink Gregory]

Bioshock Infinite (yeah, fuck you, I loved it and don't care what the critics/you think) - Silly swashbuckling adventure with an incredible soundtrack.

Papers, Please - Bought on a whim, played it all night. There's that originality you're all looking for.

Metal Gear Rising Revengeance - Oh god my senses are bleeding. Made me pay more attention to Platinum games, even though I was already in the Bayonetta party. Still trying to figure out how to make the Wonderful 101 go.

Civilization V (and expansions, I suppose) - Moved up to this last year from Civ IV, but played it mostly this year. I mainly like it for doing away with those blasted unit stacks.

Prison Architect - Yeah, it's been out as early access alpha for a while; but just imagine - Theme Hospital, but it's a prison. Also there's something very endearing to me about watching what look like a cluster of Zero Punctuation sprites floating about.

Pretty much the only games that came out in 2013 that I've actually played this year.

 

[stromjob]

5. Saints Row IV - Enjoyed more than GTA V, which says something. No game made me laugh more this year and the open world plus superpowers makes you feel like a god.

4. Gone Home - Very pleasantly surprised. I love games with a good story and it delivers big time.

3. Path of Exile - The first of my top 3, I remember telling my friend it was worth $60 then reminding him it was free. Literally everything mistake Diablo III was, this game fixed. Plus the complication in talents made it so that everyone's experience was different.

2. Last of Us - Any explanation needed? I don't even own a PS3, so I borrowed this game at my friend's house and refused to leave.

1. Bioshock Infinite - Still to this day I think about the story. While everyone talks about the ending, this entire game is simply mind-blowing. There is no character that people like or dislike simply because, all of them have in depth stories that make wonderful contributions.

Honorable Mentions (In this Order)

1) The Stanley Parable - If Gone Home didn't come out, this probably would have replaced it
2) Far Cry Blood Dragon - The best DLC I have ever played yet
3) Assassins Creed IV Black Flag - A decent game to reboot a dying franchise. Revelations and AC3 made me think the franchise was dead.

 

[duwenbasden]

1. Fallout New Vegas. The adventures of the Grade-A Mobsters continues.
2. Fallout 3.
3. Saints Row 4, because it's fun.
4. Skyrim. Solstheim is big.
5. The Stanley Parable. It's subtle.
6. Starbound/Terraria. Build all the things, and I like to build things.
7. Starcraft HOTS, because Starcraft that's why.

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

In no Particular order;

-Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon
-The Last of Us
-Bioshock Infinite
-Kingdom Hearts 1.5 ReMIX
-Metal Gear Rising Revengeance
-Pokemon X/Y
-Shadowrun Returns
-Starcraft II Heart of the Swarm
-Assassin's Creed 4
-Call of Duty Ghost
-Dead Rising 3
-Killzone Shadowfall
-Contrast
& Resogun

 

[briankoontz]

I enjoyed these 2013 titles most of all:

#1: Rogue Legacy

#2: Kingdom Rush: Frontiers

#3: Hammerwatch

#4: The Stanley Parable

#5: Out of the Park Baseball 14

#6: Cursed Treasure 2

#7: Gone Home

#8: The Song of Saya