by jjrage
My list for the Giant Bomb Community Game of the Year! Below you'll find my personal top ten, as well as ten more games that I felt deserved an honorable mention.
Showing 1-10 of 20 items
If you were to make a list of the ten best PS3 exclusives, it's entirely possible that Naughty Dog will have made four of them, and The Last of Us is arguably the best. At it's core, The Last of Us is a survival horror game. While the combat is visceral and exciting, it's not exactly the place you want to be. Resources are scarce and the enemies of the world (both human and infected) are not to be taken lightly. But what really sets the game apart is it's characters and story. Joel and Ellie are two of the most compelling and dynamic characters I've ever seen in a game. They both see significant growth through the duration of a story that pulls no punches. And that story - The Last of Us is just absolutely relentless. It will drag you through the mud from it's gutwrenching opening to it's satisfying conclusion, and it looks damn good doing it. Proof positive that games as a medium can hang with Hollywood blockbusters and bestselling novels.
I really don't care if this game leans hard on the nostalgia glasses of Nintendo kids like me - A Link Between Worlds is fucking awesome. If you don't own a 3DS, go buy one and play this game right now.
In the short time you spend with Gone Home, you will feel a sense of tension and dread that many horror games can't even accomplish. I find it hard to talk about why I love Gone Home so much simply because I don't want to ruin it for people that have yet to play it. I will say this: there aren't many games that have resonated with me on an emotional level quite like Gone Home did. It's proof that the "interactive fiction" genre doesn't need the quick-time events and contextual gameplay of games like The Walking Dead and Heavy Rain to tell a good story.
Say what you will about aging gameplay mechanics, Irrational still knows how to make a damn good video game. The flying city of Columbia is every bit as beautiful and mysterious and terrifying as it's underwater counterpart from the original Bioshock, and it's inhabitants are far more complex. Also killing dudes with the skyhook is pretty cool.
Papers, Please is one of those games that is nearly impossible to make sound fun. I tried explaining the premise of this game to multiple people over the past month, and many of those times I was met with looks of bewilderment. Somehow, someway, Lucas Pope turned the worst job ever into a thrilling, challenging, and oftentimes hilarious puzzle game.
Cleverly written and designed, I liked Gunpoint far more than I ever expected. And there wasn't much in games this year more satisfying than dive tackling a guard out of a window to the street below and punching him in the face for as long as you see fit.
Despite that fact that I wasn't overly fond of the character-switching format, the basic GTA formula still works. Rockstar has proven time and time again that they know how to craft one hell of an open world game. It's just unfortunate that the online mode is such a mess.
Beautiful, heart-wrenching, wonderfully inventive. Real talk: Don't play this game when you're already sad. I made the mistake of playing through the entirety of Brothers on the day I had to put my cat down and it was a horrible mistake.
HONORABLE MENTION: I do not care about Devil May Cry. I didn't play the first two games, I didn't finish the 3rd or 4th, and I don't give a shit about Dante or his goddamn hair. DmC is really fun and has some of the best boss fights I have ever experienced in a game. And that's all that matters to me.
HONORABLE MENTION: It's rare that a game can elicit genuine laughter out of me, but that's what The Stanley Parable accomplishes here as it shines a bright light on the nature of game design and the illusion of choice. It's especially worth playing if you're currently (or planning on) working in game development.