Just when you thought there couldn't possibly be another GOTY blog...

10. Papers, Please

I have a confession to make. I haven't actually played the full version of this game yet, although I fully intend to. I played the beta when it was released and was just completely enamored with it. Just the very idea of a game where you work the border checkpoint of another country is so bizarre and intriguing, but the fact that this concept was somehow turned into a video game that's actually really fun and engaging proves the sheer genius of developer Lucas Pope. I can't wait to hop into the full version sometime soon.

9. BioShock: Infinite

BioShock Infinite was a disappointment to me, but not a big enough of one to keep it from my top 10 list. What it does well, it does VERY well. The art style is jaw-droppingly gorgeous and the city of Columbia is as fully realized as the original game's Rapture. Imagine if Disney World's Main Street was floating in the sky and was filled with even more magic and graphic violence than it already is, and that's Columbia. It's a fascinating place to wander around and it begs for every corner to be checked, even if there won't necessarily be something useful there.

There are two strong characters in Booker and Elizabeth, and watching them interact and their relationship unfold is really great. The story goes to some fascinating places and dabbles in some themes that aren't all that common in video games. The final 20 minutes totally fried my brain like a big ol' egg, and while I though the concept of the ending was way better than the execution, I loved how unexpected it was and the fact that it still made some sense. I just didn't really care for how so much information was presented to player all at once.

8.Warframe (PS4)

This is a weird one. I've never played any free-to-play games with any amount of commitment, but when I got my PS4, I thought I should give Warframe a good try. Good thing I did, because holy shit is this game great! I'm generally against the business models in FTP games, but I've played over 20 hours without spending a single penny and have been having a blast. This game is basically the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, except way faster-paced and in procedurally generated levels rather than confined arenas. It does take awhile to get new gear without spending money, but it's not impossible and has proven to be sufficiently rewarding.

Sadly, the framerate suffers significantly whenever the game is played with others, and there are a lot of systems and mechanics that the game doesn't explain to you at all, so I ended up playing for a good 9 hours or so without knowing how to craft or get new weapons without buying them, but once I figured everything out, it was wonderful.

7. Battlefield 4 (PS4)

It's pretty crazy that the game has been (still is?) broken for as long as it has, but despite that, I've been loving my time with BF4 on the PS4. I loved BF3 on the 360, but it's amazing to finally play a Battlefield game in all its proper 64-player glory. I don't appreciate all of the balance changes and such they've made (could vehicle weapons be anymore underpowered?), but the core action remains intact and is the best it's ever been. And hey, the campaign wasn't terrible, either! At least I actually finished it unlike BF3.

6. State of Decay

State of Decay is about as close as a game has gotten to my dream zombie-survival game. It has a piss-poor framerate and numerous unsightly, occasionally hilarious bugs, but it's so ambitious and offers so much content for its meager $20 asking price that it's somewhat forgivable. Running from big hordes, fortifying buildings, and smashing absurd amounts of zombie skulls provided some good times, while having to rescue the same handful of people from my group every 10 minutes did not. The perma-death of characters added an interesting element too, but was easily avoided once I learned to play super cautiously. State of Decay is a really cool and interesting experiment and I can't wait to see what else Undead Labs can do if this game is any indication of their talent.

5. DmC Devil May Cry

I love the original DMC games in all of their ridiculousness, never having finished the incredible DMC3 due to its punishing difficulty. This Ninja Theory reboot wasn't something I expected to love, but it stole my heart. The combat is as smooth as butter while being as deep as it needed to be. Mastering the on-the-fly switching of all of the weapons and their combos was total satisfaction, while the difficulty felt perfectly fine-tuned. Never quite too easy and never reaching the insurmountable heights of some of the older games. They even somehow made the platforming elements fun, something this series was never good at. There are a handful of brilliant set-pieces and boss battles to round everything out, so it's not really a bad thing when I wish there were more of them.

I also played this game four times in a row, something very few games have ever compelled me to do. I hope Ninja Theory gets another crack at this series because their first entry showed a ton of promise.

4. Grand Theft Auto V

It's nice to finally have a GTA game that I can say I truly and honestly love, besides the original at least. I really liked certain parts of GTA IV, parts that had very little to do with its dated combat and stiff driving controls. I never played enough of the GTA III trilogy to say one way or the other how I really feel about them, either. While GTA V does little to change their established formula, it still ends up getting so many things right. For one, while still not perfect, the driving and shooting are the best the series has seen. The game's main and supporting cast are brilliantly portrayed and superbly acted, with lovable psychopath Trevor probably being my favorite character of the year.

Los Santos is a massive and richly detailed world that is quite an accomplishment itself. Popping on a good pair of headphones and listening to all the ambient city noises while driving around was strangely one of my favorite gaming moments this year. The story was compelling thanks to the characters, but sadly the heist sequences were few and far between and didn't make good use of the mechanics they laid out near the beginning of the game. That's maybe my biggest complaint about what is otherwise a near-masterpiece of a game. Unless of course we're talking about GTA Online, which turned out to be a major dud. But it's really a separate entity so I can't hold it against GTA V.

3. Saints Row 4

Saints Row has basically become the antithesis of GTA in the scope of open-world action games. Where GTA tries to craft a realistic world where the player must abide by certain rules, Saints Row throws all that in the trash and takes a huge steaming shit on it. Saints Row IV is the the most ludicrous and absurd entry in the franchise thus far, and that's precisely what I love about it. It's so fucking dumb and it embraces its stupidity to the fullest extent.

The introduction of superpowers like throwing fireballs and running at superhuman speeds, rending cars useless, makes the gameplay a blast. This is one of,if not the best playing game you'll find in this genre. Traversing the world is so fluid and fast that it encouraged me to find every last one of those collectibles, which is not something many games can pull of. Combat is chaotic and almost too easy in many cases, but who cares when you have dubstep guns, giant purple dildo bats, and nuclear explosion-inducing stomp attacks?

I've come to care about its insane cast of characters in a way I never thought possible. The glorious return of Johnny Gat is just one of many highlights. And Keith fucking David! Oh man, he is perfect in this game. The badassness of my cartoonish Jason Statham-like version of the Boss (with the cokney voice, obviously) can't be overlooked, either. And the game's filthy sense of humor is so endearing that I hardly think of it as being dirty in any way. It's just genuinely funny. In fact, this is the funniest game I've ever played. Props for making me laugh hard enough that I had to put my controller down for a minute or two. Most movies don't even get that out of me. Saints Row IV is a video game-ass video game and only cares about the player having fun. Volition are geniuses at this stuff, and wherever they decide to take this series, I'm already on board.

2. Metro: Last Light

Toning things down from open world mayhem, let's take it to post-apocalyptic Russia in 2034. Metro 2033 is game I loved to death no matter its rough spotst. The bleak atmosphere was spot-on and immersed me like few games have. Metro: Last Light was one of my most anticipated games of the year, and it delivered on nearly every front. It retains that same atmosphere, but polishes the gunplay and stealth mechanics so that you can move seamlessly between silent throat-slitting and guns blazing action without much trouble. Guns feel weighty and impactful, and enemies actually get hit when you shoot them! 4A Games really took all the criticisms of 2033 to heart and made sure they did everything possible to rectify them. Except for the enemy AI...it's still not great.

The best parts of the game are the one's involving the horrifying mutated creatures and the tension that fighting them, or not fighting them in some cases, brings. Driving a custom car down the track through a tunnel alone while being chased by nosalises, or the heart-pounding boat trip through the underground swamp come to mind. These and all of the other set-pieces are wonderfully executed. It's unfortunate that the story gets kind of silly in the final act, and it doesn't quite wrap up how I was hoping. In the end, though, Metro Last Light provided me a stunning, unforgettable experience that many more people should allow themselves to have.

1. The Last of Us

And here we are, my number one game of the year. The Last of Us is literally the reason I bought I PS3 in the first place, so I'm especially glad it turned out to great so I didn't spend all that money for nothing. It accomplishes so much and falters so little that the game seems to be the result of some sort of divine intervention. But nope, it's just the fucking masters over at Naughty Dog, perfecting their craft.

The game admittedly didn't click with me immediately, but a few hours in, I came to love the gameplay. The stealth mechanics don't always work, but I find that it's more fun when everything goes tits up and you're forced to fight your way out. The combat has a frantic sense of urgency and desperation not quite like anything else out there. This is in part due to the amazing animation work. Not just in the combat, but in the general gameplay of walking around, and the cutscenes which contain the most convincing facial animation I've seen. This is aided by the impeccable performances from Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson, who play Joel and Ellie respectively.

Both of them are the crutch of TLOU's story, and it simply wouldn't work without one nor the other. I feel comfortable saying that not only does this game have the best story in zombie-related anything, but one of the best told stories I've experienced in years. It's consistently dark and grim and it never loosens its death grip on you. It's a deeply personal tale and it wants you to feel everything the characters do, and it works, damn it! In an industry where games are constantly set up for sequels and treated as products rather than try and maintain any kind of artistic integrity, the ending of The Last of Us is both incredibly risky and very satisfying, because it actually was in service to the tone of the rest of the game and the behaviors of the characters. It's hard not to appreciate it for that at the very least. This game feels complete in every way. Other developers should take many things away from this game and Naughty Dog. Particularly, if you're going to make a big budget AAA game, THIS is how you fucking do it.