What awesome games did you play in 2013?

[Gollgagh]

Guild Wars 2

I have over 2600 hours logged and yet no legendaries to my name.

This game has good bones and could go in some really cool directions, but the developers have been doing fuckall with it; so much wasted potential.

[nOkbient]

Oh man! Too many to list!

As for oldies, I beat the SNES trifecta all in a row (Super Mario World, Super Metroid, and Link to the Past). Then I beat the first 4 Castlevanias. That was...hard, but very satisfying!

I've been getting into Pokemon X after I got it for Xmas. Haven't played one since the GBA, so it's fun to get hooked into it again! Not very far in it yet though.

Finally started to play Oddworld on the PS1. Really frustrating but extremely good. Mad I didn't play it sooner.

I bought a couple PC games this year! Starbound, Super Meat Boy, and Don't Starve. All of them are fantastic, and Starbound is showing extreme potential despite still being in beta.

So much more I'm forgetting, but 2013 was a pretty damn good year for gaming!

[Unstable Hamster]

Had a good year =D

Steam: Speedrunners, Risk of Rain (Both great 4 player games!), DMC, Hotline Miami, D&D:SoM, DIVEKICK, Battlefield 4 (Not steam I know), Gunpoint, Bioshock Infinite, Jet Set Radio.

PS3: Anarchy Reigns, MGR: Revengance, Dynasty Warriors 8, Tales of Xillia and Tales of Vesperia (Both JP, beat Xillia before it came out over in US =D), Killer is Dead, Dragon's Crown, Blazblue: Chronophantasm.

Vita: Soul Sacrifice, Muramasa, Uncharted, Gravity Rush, Persona 4: golden.

Wii U: Super Mario 3D, Wonderful 101, Sonic Lost world, Game & Wario.

3DS: Animal Crossing: NL, Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, Rune Factory 4, LoZ: LBW, Pokemon X, Project X Zone, Tales of the Abyss, Zero Escape: Virtues Last Reward.

Edit: Just read the post about adding reason's. I'll restructure this to be more about why and what I liked soon.

Edited January 9, 2014 by Unstable Hamster

[Sixto]

tomb raider, ffxiv, last of us, killzone ps4, assassin's creed 4, ni no kuni, rayman origins, rayman legends, dragon's dogma, gears of war 3, guacamelee, persona 4 golden, dust, dishonored, windwaker hd, pikmin 3, super mario bros u, last remnant, and probably a few others i cant remember. all super wonderful games

[Kizyr]

My list may be a little different from most. In 2013 I actually made great progress in cutting down my game backlog, tackling some stuff I'd neglected for over a decade. ...so, you may notice that nothing on this list was released last year.

Metroid (NES/US)

Yep, I've never played Metroid before, so I got to experience it for the first time. I did play through and beat it, no mods or cheats, although I used a strategy guide's map to find my way around (hey I don't have that much free time). I gotta say, the best thing about the original Metroid is how completely scary they made metroids when you first encountered one -- 4x the size of any other creature, moving through walls, and unable to be killed by normal means...

Policenauts (SAT/JP)

Policenauts has been on my shelf for 6 years, and I just now got around to it. The game and storyline are fantastic -- I actually enjoyed it even more than Snatcher (perhaps because the storyline was able to go in a different direction and didn't have to stick too close to a Blade Runner-style plot).

Bioshock (X360/US)

I'm not big on FPSs, but... well, the storytelling in Bioshock is simply so amazing. I can't gush about it any more for fear of inadvertently diminishing the experience for anyone else who hasn't yet played it.

Mass Effect Trilogy (X360/US)

I'd held off on playing this until I had the entire trilogy, and I knew I'd have enough time. My first love has always been Sci-Fi, so I knew once I started that this would be all I'd be doing for... months. ...I was right. I put over 500 hours collectively into the trilogy plus the DLC, playing through as three completely different character archetypes, reading every scrap of codex and planet information, etc., and loving every minute. ...and I actually like the ending.

Grandia (SAT/JP)

I started this after Mass Effect, and am about 3/4 of the way through the game now. It took a couple hours to really warm up to the story, but by now I really like it -- not as much as, say, Lunar, but it's definitely in the same vein (plenty of the same folks did work on it).

I think that's all of it. I did briefly start Tales of Destiny but... quit pretty early in the game to move onto Mass Effect. The story just wasn't doing it for me. (And I loved Tales of Phantasia, so it was a little surprising. I may just skip ahead to Eternia.) KF

[jane]

Tomb Raider. What a big word in the sexism debate. Incidentally I was the first person in Australia to finish it. I know, right, god I am amazing (just let me have this OK).

Shadowrun Returns. <3

The Last Of Us. Still recovering.

BioShock Infinite. See above.

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen. Gave it five minutes the first time around and completely wrote it off. Something compelled me to go back. Glad I did. Man. I was/am obsessed. And my pawn is such a hottie.

-

This year is the year of the old school JRPG, though. It's taken me 14 years to get Chrono Cross happening, and I am going to murder it with love.

[Doulifée]

I think that's all of it. I did briefly start Tales of Destiny but... quit pretty early in the game to move onto Mass Effect. The story just wasn't doing it for me. (And I loved Tales of Phantasia, so it was a little surprising. I may just skip ahead to Eternia.) KF

I highly recommend eternia, so much stuff to do there, with two world and the wonderful tales combat system.

Gone Home: played it at night in an empty house with headphones on. Loved it. Probably not game of the year material, but it was so cool feeling such an intact story, atmosphere, 90s-setting. Not for everyone, but worth it if you even suspect it's for you.

Mass Effect: as much as I loved KOTOR, I decided it was time to catch up on this trilogy. Finished 1, and 2 is now in the mail. The shooting and cover mechanics were a little annoying, and the occasional geometry or button glitches really bugged me, but the universe was great. I loved reading the codex and trying to get all the information from conversations. Honestly, paragon Shepherd seemed like an airhead no matter which choices were available. Not something I would replay, but I hear ME:2 improved a lot of the weak spots of 1, so we'll see.

Gone home, i played it in the same circonstances as you. At home late in the dark, curious and interesting experience. I need to replay it at one point or another i think.

The mass effect trilogy, a nice experience indeed. Sci-fan as i am i was suck into that universe, Abusive precursor that work on a time scale far above what humanity can manage, and that wonderful music for the galactic map.

Other highlights include:

- A Link Between Worlds (I seriously teared up at the title screen when I first turned it on)

Damn i forgot LBW in my list. Nice revisit of the Lttp map, the music are back in full force (i was playing late when switching to Lorule, then the dark world music kick in..i was like: No way i'm going to bed now), i enjoy quite a bit the use of the 3D and the various dungeons.

[Patrick Burns]

The mass effect trilogy, a nice experience indeed. Sci-fan as i am i was suck into that universe, Abusive precursor that work on a time scale far above what humanity can manage, and that wonderful music for the galactic map.

Yes -- after beating the game I looked for remixes and was very pleased to find this one by Hy Bound: http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02157/. Scanning for minerals and elements and reading about the planets would have been so lifeless without that BGM.

[The Damned]

Borderlands 2 (Steam, PC)

Although it was released in September 2012, Borderlands 2 has been something I've thoroughly enjoyed last year. I got it during the Steam Winter Sale after it came out, but only got around to playing it during the next spring.

Almost 700 hours later, I've:

• gotten most of the legendary guns and gear
  
• looted and been rewarded billions in cash
  
• hit the level 50 cap
  
• hit the level 61 cap
  
• hit the level 72 cap
  
• completed the Over Power missions (effectively level 80)
  
• incinerated, corroded, electrocuted, exploded, punctured, slashed and smashed thousands of skags, robots and pyschos
  
• shoot that bastard Handsome Jack in the face with more bullets and rockets than some small nations
  
• attended Tiny Tina's tea party enough time to know the dialog by heart
  
• watched the sun rise and set over The Dust's rocky horizons a dozen times each
  
• watched the old characters Roland, Lilith, Brick and Mordecai suffer and fight back along with me
  
• rescue and be rescued by... I don't even know how many teammates. Hundreds?
  
• laughed at the stupidest things, cry a bit inside at the worst things, and pushed on through the crappiest of them
  
• and still managed to find time to see the sights and meet the locals, only 21% of which ended up being shot by me and/or my teammates (you may be asking, "which were you shooting, the sights or the locals?" Answer: yes!)
  

My time on Pandora this year has been pretty good. The small amount of shitty players ruining the fun and fuck ups from Steam being down/computer needing a new video card have been such a minority, I can honestly say it's been pretty much all good.

I have good hopes for Borderlands 3, if it ever comes out.

The Walking Dead, Season 2 (Steam, PC)

Clementine is the only fictional child I have ever cared about. Period.

And the shit she has to go through in Season 2 makes all the shit from Season 1 seem like a cakewalk. I have actually cringed over some the things that have happened to her so far. I mean, that whole stitching her own arm scene. Fuck. Every stifled scream and moan of pain was almost enough to make me pause the game. I felt bad for making her do it, even though she doesn't actually exist. The empathy I have for that character is probably more than I have for some actual people.

FTL (Steam, PC)

It's FLT. Come on, what else is there to say? Shields, boarding parties, the fucking random bullshit that makes and then breaks your best plans.

Would buy an Android version for my tablet.

To The Moon (Steam, PC)

Short, sweet, a little sad. A throwback to the old SNES games, but with far more story and less game. Maybe one of the few "indie" style games I liked enough to play to the end.

Link's Awakening DX (GameBoy, 3DS)

This one is kind of cheating, seeing how I play it pretty much one a year, but I still love it.

Edited January 11, 2014 by The Damned

[Brandon Strader]

To The Moon (Steam, PC)

Short, sweet, a little sad. A throwback to the old SNES games, but with far more story and less game. Maybe one of the few "indie" style games I liked enough to play to the end.

And it was so worth it

[Kizyr]

I highly recommend eternia, so much stuff to do there, with two world and the wonderful tales combat system.

Duly noted! I think I'll make that one next on my backlog after Grandia is done. (And now that I have a Japanese PS1, I don't have to fiddle with emulators anymore.)

I wonder if anyone else was disappointed with, Tales of Destiny, or if I just gave up on it too quickly.

The mass effect trilogy, a nice experience indeed. Sci-fan as i am i was suck into that universe, Abusive precursor that work on a time scale far above what humanity can manage, and that wonderful music for the galactic map.

I'm surprised so many people (myself included) didn't get around to finishing the entire Mass Effect trilogy until last year. I'd just assumed I was late in the game. KF

[RoeTaKa]

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen. Gave it five minutes the first time around and completely wrote it off. Something compelled me to go back. Glad I did. Man. I was/am obsessed. And my pawn is such a hottie.

I wanted this game when it came out in 2012 and then I forgot about it - thought the demo was great. Bought it a couple of days after Christmas so it counts for 2013! I have been playing it every day since new years day, it is amazing. The sequel to this game is going to be absolutely incredible.

[jane]

I wanted this game when it came out in 2012 and then I forgot about it - thought the demo was great. Bought it a couple of days after Christmas so it counts for 2013! I have been playing it every day since new years day, it is amazing. The sequel to this game is going to be absolutely incredible.

Just finished it properly last night. What a super-Japanesey ending. Loved it. I thought the online ideals were so progressive and didn't get the props they deserved from the media. Lot of love and thought went into this whole thing.

Hopefully they'll tune up the aesthetics so the sequel sticks out a bit more (it'll have Inquisition and Dark Souls II to contend with just like the first one got drowned by Skyrim and the first Dark Souls). I'd also like to see some kinda personality development in your pawn. That'd be awesome. Make 'em a real unique thing somehow.

[Cecilff2]

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

A great game. I enjoyed the control two characters aspect of it, and the last sequence was really, really well done gameplay-wise forcing you to deal with the loss that had just occured. One hand becoming seemingly useless because of it. It told the story very well despite there being no actual decipherable language to the words being spoken. And the music is absolutely wonderful as are the environments you travel through.

Risk of Rain

This game is cruel, but mostly fair. Again another game with a

. Roguelike-ish, with a diverse cast of very different playstyle characters. Beating it is difficult(Unless you're playing as the seriously OP huntress), but very rewarding. Good controls and gameplay, and an interesting difficulty mechanic where the game gets harder depending on how long your run has gone(At 4 minutes you go from very easy to easy and so on up to insane difficulty. The last three difficulties being called I SEE YOU, I'M COMING FOR YOU, and HAHAHAHA at which point bosses and elite units tend to be the only things that spawn)

Payday 2

I loved the first despite being mainly an arcade shooter. This one adds a lot of new mechanics into the game. I wish it had some bigger heists like the original, but they've been adding new heists in now and then. Great soundtrack and a lot of customization possible.

Antichamber

Great new puzzle game. Though despite their "solutions might not make sense" you tend to catch on to it fairly quickly.(Though I did get stuck at one point where you need an item to pass because it seemed pretty much like there was a set pattern to the blocks disappearing and reappearing) Enjoyable nonetheless.

Yume Nikki Gensou

Platformer starring Madotsuki from the Yume Nikki game. Seems really basic at first, but eventually picks up and you'll start forming your own combos and special attacks based on the ones given to you. The game has some

too, often mixing parts of Yume Nikki's tracks into it.

The Ur Quan Masters HD

All the goodness of the original, higher definition art. And it fixed so many issues the original had.(You no longer waste planet resources if you're like 1 unit from full and pick up a giant resource blob. I still wish quasispace had a map to realspace function though)

Miasmata

It's a game about being a plague ridden scientist alone on an island of murdered people attempting to find the cure. There's a bit of a momentum system to the walking, and if you get moving too fast down a slope, your disease ridden body won't be able to handle it and you'll go tumbling dropping whatever you had and probably excaserbate your fever. Or you tumble into the ocean and can't summon the strength to swim back in time. Basically you go around collecting local plantlife, doing research on it, and attempting to create an antidote for this disease you have. You also have to create your own map, using actual cartography(Find landmarks, draw lines of sight from known ones and triangulate your position) and it is VERY easy to get lost if you aren't keeping it up to date. Along the way you'll find journals, maps, and notes(and corpses) of the island's previous researchers. There's a bit of a spoiler that I feel is best found on your own in game. The graphics for this game are amazing.

I'm still playing through Shadow Warrior (2013), but I'm liking what I've seen so far.

[Argle]

Antichamber will definitely be on my 2014 list. Who would think a world of puzzles and weird geometry could have such an effect on you.

[Argitoth]

...I miss

Edit: Woops

Killing Floor

Starcraft 2

Tried to play Battlefield 4 on my older computer... failed... miserably... I own a legit copy, just not a legit videocard.

Edited January 19, 2014 by Argitoth

[Melbu Frahma]

Terraria, FTL, Don't Starve, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II.

Of them all, I think FTL and Terraria are probably tied for favorite - FTL fulfills one of my lifelong dreams as a starship commander, but Terraria has so much variety and personalization to it. And both have so much replayability.

[DarkDjinn]

These are in no particular order...

Ni No Kuni - PS3

I've historically been a fan of turn-based RPG's and that's what I was expecting. I was wrong though, and the battle system was a bit frustrating at first, mostly because I actually have to pay attention while playing this. After I got used to it, it was amazing and I played it every chance I got. My kids are still humming the world map and battle themes every day randomly and driving my wife crazy. Anybody that can recommend something similar to this - please do, I'll buy it immediately.

Dark Souls - PS3

Hard. Spooky. And I love games in which grinding makes it easier. Didn't beat it, but had lots of fun playing this last year. Looking forward to the sequel this year and I think I'll make a concerted effort to see it through to the end.

Super Mario Galaxy - Wii

Behind the curve, as usual. I never can afford games when they first come out, but this was a fun game that made use of the Wii's motion controller. I avoided playing Wii games because I just hated the motion controller aspect but this was a lot of fun and a good addition to the Mario lineup.

[Esperado]

Mirrors edge was probably my favorite game this year. It's also the only game I beat, but nevertheless good !

[Brandon Strader]

Mirror's Edge is an AMAZING game. I think I've beat it twice or 3 times and I'm ready to beat it another few times on PC now that I have it again. It helps that it's super short and super fun. Once you learn the controls, it is SO FLUID and amazing. And visually, it's a stunner.

[about:blank]

A Link Between Worlds

I was floored by how smooth this game is. There were plenty of nods to "A Link to the Past" that had me grinning throughout. My only gripe is that it ended too soon, but that's probably because the whole experience was so enjoyable.

Wolfenstein 3D

I finally played this all the way through last year. Given the context of the game, and how it was like the first FPS, it's pretty revolutionary. But I gotta say it was kinda bland compared to Doom. Still a great game, and it felt pretty satisfying killing mecha-Hitler.

Morrowind

I dumped countless hours into this game (and still didn't finish it). I eventually had to stop myself because I wasn't getting any work done. I played the other Elder Scrolls games a bit last year, but mostly Morrowind.

Mother

As a fan of Earthbound, it was really interesting going back and playing the (maybe official) English translation of its predecessor. It's certainly not as polished as Earthbound, but it was refreshing to play a NES RPG that didn't involve swords, dragons, and castles.

I played a few others, but these are definitely the highlights.

[Esperado]

Mirror's Edge is an AMAZING game. I think I've beat it twice or 3 times and I'm ready to beat it another few times on PC now that I have it again. It helps that it's super short and super fun. Once you learn the controls, it is SO FLUID and amazing. And visually, it's a stunner.

if they ever decide what to do with the second one, i hope they dont make it easier to run. they really nailed the control system. Its just difficult enough that you feel accomplished when you pull off something nice, but not so difficult that youre pulling out your hair to get through each obstacle.

[MinnieMoog]

if they ever decide what to do with the second one, i hope they dont make it easier to run. they really nailed the control system. Its just difficult enough that you feel accomplished when you pull off something nice, but not so difficult that youre pulling out your hair to get through each obstacle.

Quite agreed. I recall a friend of mine and I randomly saw the game in a Walmart bin one day, and we (even more randomly) decided to buy it. Our expectations were a bit blown by the excellent control scheme and super smooth engine. I wasn't particularly impressed by the story or gun fighting. But the quick platforming and fast paced sections were brilliant.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Tomb Raider, Metal Gear Rising, Pandora's Tower, Link Between Worlds and the new Fire Emblem.

[Frederic Petitpas]

Haven't really played much last year but I played an old one and it was quite immerse; STALKER Shadows of Chernobyl with the "hi-res" mod.