After nearly a whole year, 2013 is over. With the founding of the site I’ve been able to play more games this year than I have in recent memory. And how does 2013 stack up? Personally, I feel it was kind of mixed. I played some titles this year that I really love, and I think we’re going in some new and very exciting directions both in the way we play games and the quality and depth of content. At the same time I have to admit that coming up with five titles for this article left me scratching my head a little. Part of this is because I didn’t get to play everything that came out this year, but at the same time while I played a some truly wonderful games, I played a lot that were pretty forgettable. I had a lot of mixed feelings about titles this year, and in fact, I can honestly say that I didn’t expect to have very high opinions of the first four games on my list. Maybe it had to do with the looming next-gen releases, or maybe I’m just a jerk. Regardless, in the end I was able to come up with five titles that really impressed and amused me this year, and here they are.
5. The Cat Lady (PC)
Since I started reviewing games there have been times that have had me playing titles that I never would have before. Sometimes there are titles where my own best judgement would tell me to steer clear of them. The Cat Lady was one of these titles and I’m glad to be able to tell you how wrong I was. The story revolves around a depressed, middle-aged woman who lives with a lot of cats and decides to take her own life, and admittedly I went into this one with pretty low expectations. What I got was dark, disturbed and gruesome, but also surprisingly compelling, honest and original. The Cat Lady could have easily been a cliche with its macabre themes, but instead it tells a mature story that is really engaging and delivers a touching and satisfying narrative that deserves recognition.
Not being a developer myself I can only imagine the landscape for independents who want to create something unique and entertaining but also have to pay their bills. Making a game like this must have been a risky venture, but the end result is something that I really feel takes advantage of the creative freedoms in a way that only an indie developer can. It’s not perfect, but it shows what can be done when a studio wants to make something more than another platformer and gives me hope for the kind of quality content indie developers can create.
4. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (PS3, PC)
This may seem like a odd choice, and I will agree that it is. If you were to boil down what the worst parts of Metal Gear Solid‘s tragic downward spiral from a smart, cool stealth-action title about the dangers of nuclear proliferation into a neurotic, rambling mess of nanomachines and Illuminati conspiracies I’m pretty sure that everyone would include Raiden somewhere on that list. So what does Revengeance, a game that embraces all of that vapid bullet-time and New World Order machinations have that makes it one of the best games of the year? Its absolute distillation of pure, mindless fun.
Sometimes a game can just be a game and doesn’t need a deep narrative or lots of substance to make it good. Revengeance has you slice helicopters in half with a ninja sword, karate kick giant robots to pieces and hopscotch over a barrage of missiles and dammit, it’s all a lot of fun. Yeah, the story is stupid and Raiden is just as unlikable as ever, but sometimes it’s good to have a game where you can just switch your brain off and play. Ten-year-old me would have believed this to be the absolute zenith of gaming, and even now I’m not so stodgy that I can’t get a kick out of ludicrously over-the-top action.
3. Tomb Raider (XBox, PS3, PC)
I’ve never been very enthusiastic about Tomb Raider. While I haven’t played every game in the series, the ones I have tried never felt like they offered much that I wanted. So when I started to hear the buzz about this year’s semi-reboot of the series I was still expecting the title to be lost on me. Instead I found that the franchise had stepped up and become a highly-refined action/adventure game that delivers a well-balanced mix of exciting gunplay, open world exploration and some tightly scripted action scenes.
Whereas Revengeance was good, vapid fun, Tomb Raider serves up the same great quality of big action in a setting that’s more in-depth and defined. Sure, it’s a pretty thin story, but it was still solid in a Hollywood blockbuster kind of a way that was a great gaming experience. Combine that with capturing some of the best elements of games like Uncharted and you’ve got a very solid entry and a surprisingly good and original reboot that leaves me very interested to see where the franchise will go from here.
2. The Last of Us (PS3)
I never want to play another zombie apocalypse game again. The whole concept is tired and overdone and I’m sick of it. But if The Last of Us is the last one I play then it’s a hell of a title to go out on. Given my attitude it’s probably not a surprise that I wasn’t especially enthusiastic about this one either, but The Last of Us isn’t just a zombie game, it’s an experience that exceeds its genre. It’s daring and personal and touching and took a setting that I can no longer be enthusiastic for and made me care until the end. While big developers are slowly coming around to the rewards of deeper and more thoughtful narratives in games, The Last of Us dives in headfirst and presents a title that shows us how great a medium video games can be.
While the narrative is easily the best part of the game, what I really like about it is how organic it feels. The development of Joel and Ellie’s bond feels believable and honest and lacks the contrivance I see in similar stories. The writing is also done in a way that tugs at your heartstrings without going for a lot of low-hanging fruit. The Last of Us never gives you a puppy just so it can kill it later, but when bad things happen they are shocking and upsetting. The game struck chords in me that I wasn’t even aware were there and more than once I felt some sincerely uncomfortable feelings when I asked myself “What if I were in that situation?” The gameplay never really excited me that much, which is why this it didn’t take my number one spot, but The Last of Us is still an amazing work, one that will stay with me for a long time.
1. Grand Theft Auto V
What can I say? This one’s a winner. Rockstar has apparently learned from their mistakes with GTA IV and brought us a title that returns to form in the most exciting and entertaining iteration of the series to date. Like the other editors I had my doubts about a game that gives you three protagonists instead of one, but there’s no denying that GTA V is three times the fun with Michael’s hot-headed antics, Franklin’s suave street smarts and Trevor’s off-the-wall insanity. Everything about GTA V feels like a real refinement of what we’ve come to love about the series, with plenty of exploration, tons of action and just enough tongue-in-cheek writing to make an enjoyable social commentary that’s still accessible to anyone who just wants to jack cars and blow stuff up. And then there are the heists, which give just the right amount of choice and open-ended outcomes to make it feel like I really had a hand in pulling them off successfully.
Even the game’s story, which doesn’t have the deep tragedy or human drama of some of my other choices, feels so well thought out and satisfying. Our three protagonists are bad people, killing and robbing to get ahead, and yet in the scope of the world of San Andreas they’re also identifiable and sympathetic in a twisted kind of way. GTA V fuses this with its solid, action-packed gameplay and presents a package that’s delivers on every level. There were some great games in 2013, but for my money this one’s definitely the best.
