Personal Top Games of 2013

[Werewolfkid]

Well the year is almost at a end and it is that time when people make lists of what they liked and what they hated. Since the first list I have seen on the Escapist is a negative list about the most disappointing games I wanted to do a positive list about our personal favorite games.

The rules of this list are simple, what are your personal favorite games you played this year. They can be new games that came out this year, older games you have only just played this year, or DLC for games that came out last year. You can put as many or as few games as want and they can be put in order or just be random. You can describe why you like those games or leave it to people's imagination.

My only wish for this forum is to keep things pleasant. It's the holidays and it would be nice if we could keep ourselves from attacking one another. These lists are always subjective and if you don't agree with someone's list please don't go out of your way to attack that person.

Anyway let's begin shall we.

Here is my list.

5. Amnesia A Machine For Pigs: This a game that I loved as much as the original Amnesia the Dark Descent, but for completely different reasons. What A Machine For Pigs lacks in it's gameplay it makes up for it's strange story and disturbing ideas. While it is far from perfect it serves as an example of what kind of horror stories game are capable of.

4. The Stanley Parable: A game, made for gamers, about video games, gamers being gamers, and how much freedom games can really give you. It is a game that will challenge you and will not challenge you. It is a game that makes you realize things about yourself. Or it's a game that is horrible and overrated. Regardless, it is a game and that is wonderful.

3. Dishonored's Knife of Dunwall and Brigmore Witches DLC: Most DLC these days is simply content that was taken out of the game and sold back later for a quick buck. Dishonored's DLC on the other hand gives us new levels to explore, a better balance of stealth and combat, a more interesting story, and characters you can actually give a crap about. It basically proves that DLC can be more then just bit sized content fillers, but games in their own right as well.

2. The Thief Series: I have heard great things about the Thief Series and now I know why. Great level design, interesting world, lots of player choice, and a great main character. I can't wait to play the fan game Thief 2X: Shadows of the Metal Age and the upcoming reboot. Just a damn fine series of games everyone should play.

1. BioShock Infinite: I love this game. Never before has a game given me so many ways to look at it, so many ways to try and understand it. Is the gameplay a little underwhelming. Yes. Is the story incomprehensible. Possilbly. But, I don't care. Every time I play this game I see something differntly, understand something a little bit more, and something else becomes more mysterious. People have been hating on this a lot lately, but I think that this game will go down in history as one of the most important games in gaming history. I love this game and no one is going to change my mind.

So tell me my fellow Escapists, what were your favorite games you played this year. What games gave you faith in humanity.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

1. Shin Megami Tensei IV: I love the battle system, I love the storyline, I really love the music and I love the demon fusion.

2. Fire Emblem Awakening: Amazing soundtrack and character building. I wish the strategy was bit more complex though.

3. Tomb Raider: This game really surprised me. I was expecting a crap Uncharted clone (and I already think that series is crap) but instead got a really good third person shooter with an interesting world to explore and very tight controls.

4. Tales of Xillia: Best battle system in any Tales game so far. Linking with your team members and chaining artes never stopped being fun. Pretty good story as well.

5. Assassins Creed IV: The sailing, battling and boarding other ships was unbelievably epic. I had so, so much fun with it. The on foot controls constantly piss me off though. And there was too many eavesdropping missions.

6. Dragons Crown: Most fun I've ever had in a sidescrolling beat-em up. And that artwork was drop dead gorgeous.

7. Bravely Default: A good fun old school JRPG.

8. XCOM Enemy Within: A great expansion to an already great game. I can play it for hours and hours it's just so addicting.

9. GTA V: Though I found the multiplayer to be incredibly disappointing, the singleplayer was still very, very fun. Far too short though, feels like half the length of older GTA games.

10. Dynasty Warriors 8: Just stupid mindless fun. The soundtrack is kickass and the battle systems is the best yet.

 

[Tom_green_day]

GTA V or The Last of Us. I don't care which is best, you pick. Anything else fades into obscurity beside them.
But if expansions counts, as people are suggesting with XCOM Enemy Within, I think the GOTY of Borderlands 2 will probably be up there too. I haven't played it but if it's more of the same, it's amazing.

 

[The Madman]

This has been year of the free-to-play for me with the quadruple threat of Warthunder, Path of Exile, Mechwarrior: Online, and Hearthstone all taking up my time at one point or another over the course of the year. Tribes: Ascend was also really good for a time but that's sort of fallen to the side, much as I suspect Mechwarrior will as well should the devs not change things up soon. Team Deathmatch, even in giant stompy mechs, can only hold my attention for so long.

Otherwise I've been throwing a ton of time in strategy games this year. I finally picked up all the expansions for Civilization 5 and with those it really is a brilliant strategy title. Not sure it's my favourite Civ game, I've thrown a lot of time into Civ 4 especially if we're also counting the amazing Fall From Heaven 2 mod, but Civ 5 is an honourable addition to the serious. Meanwhile speaking of expansions I also just picked up Enemy Within for XCOM and that's damned good as well, fixing a lot of the problems I had with the base game and making it even more enjoyable.

Then there's Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes which has proven to be a very fun fantasy strategy title and Warlock: Masters of the Arcane which also fills that same sort of fantasy 4x niche. Both are a lot of fun and it's great to see some diversity in the genre lately after for so many years it had fallen silent.

Also finally got around to playing and beating Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance this year. Good game!

And lastly we've got the shooty stuff. Didn't play many of those this year, not counting the F2P titles listed above, but both Saints Row 4 and Metro: Last Light were fantastic if both for entirely different reasons.

So to summarize and in no real order, the good games I've played this year are:

-WarThunder
-Path of Exile
-Mechwarrior: Online
-Hearthstone
-Civilization 5 + expansions
-XCOM: Enemy Within
-Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes
-Warlock: Masters of the Arcane
-Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
-Saints Row 4
-Metro: Last Light

Overall been a pretty good year for gaming and next year looks to be even better with several titles I've really been looking forward to coming out. Good time to be gaming!

Those would be my 'games of the year'

 

[The Wykydtron]

Well since not much caught my interest this year I have to go for Persona 4 Arena. Before you jump to reply, yes it DID come out this year because Atlus can't find Europe on a map.

In my opinion it has the most solid fighting mechanics I have ever seen and I think people who've played a few 2D fighters would agree with me. I'm not going into the characters or story here I mean the very framework that the game is based on. The All Out Attacks, the autocombos, the GTFO moves, the Bursts etc are all balanced so newcomers can get to grips with the game while the good people can get all their swaggy stuff going without feeling limited. I especially like the Awakening system, I assume ArkSys caught on that comeback mechanics are the new big thing in fighting games since UMVC3 unleashed the pile of bullshit that is X-Factor and that shit is so cool to watch sure but the "press button, begin effortless comeback" mechanic is fucking ludicrous.

So ArkSys went for a passive limit break type thing where you start the game with your best super locked until you go below a certain amount of health then you get that super and enough SP to immediately use it. This creates a situation where you might actually want to be lower health so you can be a little ***** and cancel a surprise fullscreen Swift Strike into Cross Slash for tons of damage get all your cards on the table.

The character list is decently balanced, though there are a few clear winners up in the high tiers and Elisabeth is fuckin' shit but overall anyone can beat anyone else if you can play your character well.

Also Yosuke's story mode is amazing, Labrys is certainly likable despite being the only new member of the cast and Shadow Labrys is ridiculously fun. Seriously one of her win animations is her laughing while her "Persona" destroys the stage.

I'm hearing good things about Fire Emblem Awakening and I wouldn't be surprised if I add that to my list if I get it for Christmas.

Sadly all the bigger games this year like TLOU and Bioshock Infinite weren't my kind of thing. The entire universe of Last of Us disagrees with my entire soul and Infinite was just generally incoherent as a story and had shitty gunplay. It's pretty fun playing Spot the Inconsistencies to be honest.

 

[WoW Killer]

Most played this year has been Borderlands 2 by a long margin, but that's last years game so I won't count it. The DLCs have been astronomically good though. Every time I thought I was done with that game they brought out something new and suddenly I was hooked again. The pacing of the DLC has been fantastic.

I've also watched a lot of Hearthstone. Haven't played it yet, but I've watched it a lot. What that means is, I've got a fair grasp of the mechanics and the balance and stuff like that, but I've not got much idea on the business model and how long it takes a non-paying player to get legendaries etc. What I gather from my time watching it is that mechanically this is an incredibly good card game. I mean I like a bit of MTG, but this is like really good. I remember the first video I watched I was shaking my head at all the simplifications they had made compared to MTG. But the longer I watched the more I realised why these simplifications had been made. It's not dumbed down at all, what they've basically done is removed a lot of the RNG from the other card games. It's the most strategic VG card game I've seen to date.

Stuff I've played that's come out this year:

Tomb Raider: While most of this year has been about the big AAA narrative-heavy works, and this is no exception, I really liked the gameplay elements of Tomb Raider. I felt like it was a very tight 3rd person shooter, probably the best I've seen, and the story elements were this magnificent bonus. Very well done game, and I'm glad it happened. Can't wait for the sequel.

Cube World: Talk about good gameplay. This thing is only in alpha stages and it's hot. It got hyped up to fuckery and then back down again because the single guy developing the thing wasn't quite ready for all that hype. But look at it for what it is. It's the best gameplay I've ever seen in an alpha. It's the best gameplay I've ever seen in an MMO, whether alpha or full release. Ignore the haters, when this gets released for real it's going to be bigger than Minecraft.

Smite: Played the shit out of this game the first half of the year. I kinda stopped playing because I wasn't confident about the changes they were making to the jungle, but regardless, I think this is the future of MOBAs. The way so much emphasis is put on the skill shots, that means you can simplify the meta and still end up with a deeper game. Let me say that again: Smite is simpler than other MOBAs, and yet deeper.

 

[Windcaler]

We should really do these lists after the year is over, that way everything gets a fair shot. Anyway, my top 5

5. Injustice: Gods among us: Its rare that a fighting game comes out that I really like, I havea hard time playing any fighting game that isnt Marvel vs capcom. However Injustice brought out a much more visceral experience with old characters from the DC universe that we know and love. My favorite part was how it turned a lot of the old super hero tropes on their head like presenting Aquaman to be a nigh unstoppable immortal badass. The story was also really good and had great closure
4. Zeno Clash 2: My favorite (read: Only) first person brawler returned this year. Zeno clash as a brawler was always really good but what really drew me in to the first one was the unique and strange world surrounding it. A world that I desperately wanted to explore and get to know better. My wish was granted with Zeno Clash 2. It even had some meaningful things to say in its story. It was everything I wanted out of a sequel and more
3. Far cry 3: Blood Dragon: An extremely silly, over the top, comedy piece made from pure 80s cheese and its amazing! Ive heard all the jokes, done all the missions, explored the world to its fullest but blood dragon just keeps pulling me back in. The best part was they just reused FC3 assets to make a spin off and put a price on it representing that. We didnt get charged $60 for a game where 90% of the work was already done, unlike call of duty
2. Metro Last light: I loved the first metro for being one of the most immersive games Ive ever played and having a convincing world. It even got me to read the book which was unprecedented. Metro Last light, went the extra mile and fleshed out the world, put in a risk/reward mechanic with the exploration, and was just everything I wanted out of a Metro sequel.
1. Shadowrun Returns: I helped kickstart Shadowrun originally because I miss actual RPGs with actual roleplaying in them. Many games claim to be RPGs but arent because theres no ability to roleplay which annoys me. However Shadowrun is an RPG to its core, you can play your character however you like in and out of combat. When I finally got the game I was very pleased with it. It may be linear in parts and may badly need a save system but its still a real RPG and I love RPGs.

Other honorable mentions go to
Thomas was alone
Dragons crown
Beyond two souls
Path of exile
Battlefield 4

 

[Elfgore]

State of Decay- Best zombie game I have ever played, that has actual gameplay. (the walking dead doesn't count for this). Open-world with countless hours of enjoyment.

Total War: Rome 2- This game made my most let down of the year list as well, but it still is a really good game. The launch really pissed me off, but now at patch eight and with the aid of the amazing mod community the game is awesome. I've now sunk 54 hours into a game, I first hated.

Assassins Creed: Black Flag- Bets game in the series since two. Might even top two. Love the ship combat and love the exploration. The story took a good turn as well by focusing more on history and not the terrible modern story.

 

[Fireaxe]

No particular order.

Eador: Masters of the Broken World. TBT and TBS are among my favourite genres, and Eador does both really well -- it was a bit buggy at release but most of the bugs are gone and it plays really nicely.

Path of Exile. Hack and Slasher that brought back good memories of Diablo II, only downside was that it also preserved a few of the dodgy design choices of Diablo II (and the hardcore mode is practically designed so you have to alt+f4 out of the game).

Civilization V: Brave New World. Added onto an already solid game in such a way that was enjoyable and changed the game enough to feel like a real expansion pack instead of expensive DLC, the rebalancing of certain Civs also helped.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution & Deus Ex. Missed these when they came out but picked Human Revolution up this year and really enjoyed it -- enough so that I picked up the original Deus Ex and thoroughly enjoyed that too. Perhaps I'm a bit late to the party, but quality games are pretty much timeless.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Tomb Raider - Fun action adventure, shame about the lack of personality.

Ratchet and Clank: Into the Nexus - A return to form, and a finally fully utilized jetpack mechanic. Even Clank gameplay that's actually fun.

Rayman: Legends - Great platforming action wrapped in lovable quirky designs.

Assassin's Creed 4 - Kinda down on this one right now due to it overstaying it's welcome and having a very lackluster ending (like every AC game), but I can't deny that all the plundering was a ton of fun while it lasted. And the game sure looked nice on the PS4.

The Last of Us - What else is there to say? It's The Last of Us.

 

[GundamSentinel]

In no particular order:

Assassin's Creed IV. Roaming the oceans and firing broadsides at everything that moves was a lot of fun, even if the rest of the game was pretty standard (if fluid and often fun) Assassin's Creed fare.

GTA V. What's there to say; a new GTA game and a damn good one too. I can't be bothered with GTA Online, but the singleplayer was amazing.

Tomb Raider. Uncomplicated, fun adventure game.

Starcraft II - Heart of the Swarm. IMO not as great as Wings of Liberty, but still a great game well worth the money.

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. Very typical JRPG, but in its style and execution laid its strengths. No denying the beauty of the world created by Ghibli and the music of Joe Hisaishi.

Bioshock Infinite. I was a bit late to the party on this one (only got it two weeks ago), but it was a damn fun shooter with a good approach to storytelling, even if the story itself wasn't that amazing (the old quantum mechanics standby? Really?).

Total War: Rome II. Yes, it was a buggy mess at release, but I still had tons of fun with it. Go Seleucids!

The Last of Us. Showing David Cage how you do proper feelings. Truly a great game.

Saints Row IV. In true Saints Row style, a game that doesn't give a fuck and loves it. So did I.

The Stanley Parable. I didn't expect myself to like this game as much as I did, but it was amazing. A genuinely funny game that gives food for thought. Really liked it.

 

[Mr Mystery Guest]

The Last of Us
DMC Devil May Cry
Bioshock Infinite
Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag (Would be first place if it wasn't for being dragged out of the action to potter around some French hipsters office)
GTA V

Honorable mentions to Tomb Raider and Outlast. I actually got away with not playing any terrible games this year. I really enjoyed Walking Dead Survival Instinct and caught the flu when Aliens Colonial Marines was released otherwise i would have bought that. The game I had least fun with was Remember Me but it is not terrible and should be given a chance if picked up cheap.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

In alphabetical order:

Grim Dawn: It's still in Alpha, but everything points towards it being a worthy spiritual successor to Titan Quest and one of the better ARPG's out there with its multiclassing skill tree. Now if only Crate could have put out the second act before the Christmas break...

Mark of the Ninja: I'm a little late to the party with this one but I wish I wasn't. Between the excellent 2D stealth gameplay and the simple yet compelling story its one that I'll going to replay repeatedly.

Metro: Last Light: The atmosphere, the weapons, the environments, even the

Spoiler

, Metro was a an amazing ride and would be the main contender for my GOTY.

Papers Please: Such a simple concept and game, yet it gave me such a amazing time.

Saints Row 4: There are games that are thought provoking and insightful. This isn't one of them. Playing the the President of the United States with superpowers against an Alien Overlord who quotes classical literature, this game is that insane fun you either love or loathe.

 

[Eve Charm]

1. Monaco what's yours is mine. The most fun Multiplayer I've had in a long while and everytime I boot it up it's different depending on the other players. Do you have pros that can clean the maps out in a minute. Do you have noobs that run around setting off all the alarms and guards while others just sneak around and collect things, or do you have to carry everyone. With workshops and create a maps never gonna run out of content.

Dragon's crown, A new IP Hack and slash rpg that ended up being really good

Dead rising 3 cause it's the closet thing to a next gen rpg there is and damn that skinner box leveling up becoming stronger to murder more zombies.

After that let me just give some credit where credit is due Saint's row 4, Mario 3d world, Disgaea D2, Army of two cartel, Pikmin 3. I wasn't looking for greatness out of any of these just a good addition to the series that don't come out every damn year, and they were.

 

[SteveTR]

I really hate deciding the places, so I'll just list the games in no particular order.

Super Metroid
Tomb Raider 3
Papers, Please
Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
Super Mario 3D Land
Saints Row 4
Katawa Shoujo
Gone Home
Europa Universalis IV
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

 

[Artina89]

Mine would probably be:

Papers please: I just found it to be quite fun and addictive

Deadly premonition: The director's cut, after ages of only being able to play Deadly premonition when I went to see my friend with an Xbox360, it finally came out on the Playstation 3. I have played that game so many times my dad actually now whistles one of the themes almost constantly, much to his annoyance.


Pokemon X and Y: I haven't had this much fun with Pokemon for ages, at least since Pokemon Soulsilver. I think it definitely helped that in addition to your original starter Pokemon, you got to choose between Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle.

Legend of Zelda: A link between worlds another bout of nostalgia for me, since this was very reminiscent of A link to the Past

Dishonored I like that every time that you played the game, no two playthroughs were quite the same, there was a lot of variety there that I rather liked

Persona 4: Arena: I really enjoy Persona and in Persona 4: Arena I finally found a fighting game I played through and actually enjoyed, along with Blazblue: continuum shift which I also got around to playing this year.

Luigi's mansion 2: I prefer playing as Luigi over Mario any day of the week and this is a fun game. I lost count of how many times I have almost missed my stop when I was going to work because I was busy fighting the bosses in this game.

 

[AldUK]

Also in no particular order, 5 games I really loved this year;

The Last of Us. - I haven't even played this. I don't own a PS3 so I couldn't, but I loved the pre-launch trailers and decided I'd try and catch a let's play on Twitch. I managed to catch JP McDaniel playing from the beginning all the way through in one very long, very epic playthrough. Loved every second and cried when it was over. Truly a huge achievement in gaming.

State of Decay. - An absolutely brilliant open-world zombie game originally from Xbox and now on PC via Steam, this game blew me away in how fun it was to play. My only complaints are that some of the random missions get repetitive and the map could definitely be bigger. However, it's a fantastic start and I can't wait to see where they take this franchise. Sadly seems a little overlooked compared to Dead Rising 3 and DayZ.

Starcraft 2; Heart of the Swarm. - What can I say? I am a SC2 fanboy through and through. I try and catch every tournament I can on Twitch, I watch player streams all the time and I just love the entire eSports scene around this game. Day9, Tastetosis, Apollo and InControl are all brilliant personalities that I never would of known about if not for SC2 and I really believe that HotS added a great deal more depth to the game. It's not even technically an expansion, since Blizzard was always quite clear that SC2 would be released in 3 parts, one for each race.

Assassin's Creed IV; Black Flag. - I have not played any previous AC game. It just never appealed to me in the slightest from everything I saw about them. However, as a direct result of the Escapist community singing it's praises and because pirates are fucking cool, I decided to give this one a try. Wowzers it's fun. Seriously epic sea battles, huge open cities to clamber around and collect shinies and a solid story. I was not expecting a great deal from this game, but it's really made me now want to take a closer look at the earlier entries.

The Walking Dead: Season 2. - I know a lot of people haven't played the first episode yet, so I'll try and stay spoiler free. Even though there is only one episode available right now, Telltale are showing all the signs that the 2nd season will be as fantastic and gut-wrenchingly emotional as the 1st season was. The game looks gorgeous using limited graphics, the voice acting is stellar across the board and the writing is fantastic. Add in true adrenaline-rushing action scenes and you're on to a winner. I can't wait for more.

Honourable mentions; Baldur's Gate Enhanced, Magic 2014 and Shadowrun Returns

 

[The_Scrivener]

5.Dragon's Crown
4.Tomb Raider
3.Papers Please
2.The Last of Us
1.Bioshock Infinite

 

[DustyDrB]

I didn't many games (see my #1 game for reasons why)

1. Dota 2 (officially released this year. If Minecraft got away with that distinction, then so does Dota 2): So basically, it ate my life. It has almost turned me into a mono-gamer. God, I love it. It's more than a game. It's part of my daily routine, it's a big thing that I'm glad to be a part of (The International 3 was just magical), it's a daily challenge to improve and learn.

2. The Legend of Zelda - A Link Between Worlds: In many ways, it is Zelda going back to its roots. In others, it's a pretty big deviation from the formula. The biggest thing about this game (and I'm borrowing on this point from Giant Bomb's Vinny Caravella) is that it's a Zelda game that doesn't treat you like this is your first Zelda game. It's pretty refreshing to just play and figure things out for yourself. Fun mechanics, dungeons that don't overstay their welcome, fantastic soundtrack, and nostalgic in all the right ways.

3. BioShock Infinite: Hey guys, I'm not really that big of a shooter fan (I play TF2 and I occasionally run around healing people in Planetside 2. That pretty much covers it). So all that huss and fuss about Infinite being a bad shooter? Don't give a shit. I had fun. God, that world. That. World. How god damn mesmerizing is Columbia? Infinite was just enrapturing (HA) all the way through for me. The musical moments in the game will stick with me as some of my favorite moments in gaming ("Fortunate Son" and "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" in particular). And I got to make crows happen. That was pretty cool too.

4. Volgarr the Viking: Volgarr evokes memories of me playing those unforgiving games of my childhood. Back then, I didn't mind that death meant starting the entire game over. The fun was in refining your grasp of the mechanics, and Volgarr gets that. It's incredibly simple, but just a fun game to pick up when you have some free time to just see how far you can go on this run.

5. Shadowrun Returns: The SNES Shadowrun game is still one of my all-time favorites, so nostalgia is a big component of this being on my list. But it's a personal list, so nostalgia is allowed to be a positive. The combat plays out like a simpler version of last year's XCOM: Enemy Unknown, but it's enjoyable enough. The big joy of Shadowrun Returns is the world itself. It's always just been an intriguing premise to me, and Returns is full of interesting characters and some surprisingly well-written dialogue.