MERCH!
Giant Bomb - a website about video games and the people that make them

Best of 2013

The very best experiences I had in video games in the year of 2013, year of our lord. If you want a top 10, stop looking at them past number 10...

Showing 1-10 of 25 items

Gone Home

1. Gone Home

Mature and real storytelling through innovative uses of the medium that is video games, it's a reason I play games and a shining example of the types of experiences I'm looking for when playing them.

The Last of Us

2. The Last of Us

Bolder with it's direction than it has any right to be. Constantly in wonder of the composition of art on screen at almost every second during the 20 or so hours of this game. That's easily the biggest reason for my enjoyment of this game, being forced to say "What the fuck!" as a visceral primal response with regards to how the heck a human being can create such a feast for the eyes and heart.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

3. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

Beautifully short and brave

Journey

4. Journey

I played it this year, but frankly if I'd played it 10 years ago it would still be here because I think I'd still be playing it every year.

Grand Theft Auto V

5. Grand Theft Auto V

Kentucky Route Zero

6. Kentucky Route Zero

Visually stark and interesting

State of Decay

7. State of Decay

Feels like an 'Assassin's Creed 1' class of game for how technically un polished it is versus how technically ambitious it is

Beyond: Two Souls

8. Beyond: Two Souls

Remember Me

9. Remember Me

This game does NOT stick the landing of most of its' greatest ideas, but it does have almost a completely full slate of great ideas that cover it's audio and visual make up along with it's mechanical wellbeing. It's lovely atmosphere and locations turn into VIDEO GAME levels at the end, it's score starts out with a bang then fades away seemingly afraid to keep pushing it's core sound into it's impied direction and it's mechanics have great promise of evolving customizations with the player in control but actually fail to do anything past their tutorial/introduction and instead the game is left with a combo system of 1 short, 1 medium and 1 long combo that sometimes you fiddle with which buttons proc which type of attack (dmg, health, combo multiplier, cooldown reduction). Also the combat starts at 80% of batman arkham asylum but doesn't take it up on it's own offer to be fun, instead enemies have no limits to their attacks and instead you're often bombarded by 3-5 enemies attacking at staggered intervals which cause you to be stun-locked often... frustrating. Boy do I adore the games initial jumping off points though, fuckn' bangin soundtrack too.

Tomb Raider

10. Tomb Raider

Over the past year I've really discovered that the type of game I really dig tends to be the third person action adventure game that focuses on characters to some capacity, this game does a decent job of that.

of 3