1. The Wonderful 101 ; Long has the character action genre stood true to core design tropes, flavoured with amendments and additions between games. Rarely is the genre overhauled, but that's exactly what The Wonderful 101 does. Discarding true solo avatar control for strategy-like squad and unit economy manipulation with the framework of real time combat results in a refreshingly original yet alarming deep combat system of multifaceted abilities and systems. A steep learning curve and weak tutorialisation act as a disappointingly effective roadblock for learning, but at the same time compliment a design that requires a little patience and investment to learn battle nuances truly original to the genre. The Wonderful 101 makes no sacrifices for accessibility and keeps the skill ceiling high, battle mechanics once grasped quickly evolving into something so much more. These mechanics are stretched across a lengthy campaign that rarely, if ever, resorts to encounter repetition and recycling of concepts, instead opting for relentlessly escalating scenarios and battles. The adventure rides a constant high, less peaks and valleys and more a none stop rocket launch into the stratosphere. Deliriously charming characters compliment a nonsensical plot that aims to surprise and humour from start to finish. I cannot think of another game this year that in play and presentation was so rewarding to invest in and learn, experience, and complete. It's the best game on the Wii U, Nintendo's most truly original published title in a long time, and a testament to Hideki Kamiya and his team at Platinum's commitment to not just retaining the studio's quality standard, but reinventing the genre they're so well known for.
2. Gone Home ; Devoid of puzzles, challenge, and other typically 'gamey' elements it neither needs nor feels stripped of, Gone Home accomplishes something most of us have long been asking for from the medium - believable, human characterisation and story telling. A classic story told far better than most would expect, Gone Home manages to create virtual identities of knowingly fictional people that still feel as real, honest, and believable as you and I. Gone are typical comic book-like caricatures and exaggerated identities that are so prevalent in the medium, Fullbright having masterfully written people who talk like people, write like people, sound like people, and most importantly live like people, as evident by the shockingly homely attention to detail in the house you slowly explore. Clever drip-feed narrative exposition through exploration combined with a high standard of character writing generates a genuine empathy for this fictional family, one living in a home that is not mine yet is so real and authentic that it could be. Is Gone Home an accomplishment in the combination of deeply involved interactive agency story telling? Not necessarily. But it does manage to bring a level of maturity and humanity to writing quality that the medium arguably has never seen before. And that alone deserves praise.
3. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance ; Salvaging Kojima Productions' fuckup is Platinum, making the Metal Gear ninja simulator I've long dreamed of without resorting to Metal Gear Solid 4's worn out Raiden melodrama and Gray Fox fan wank. Revengeance is distinct Metal Gear silliness dialled to 11, allowing you to live out totally insane cyborg ninja fantasies with total disregard for realism and physics. Through its buttrock soundtrack and over-the-top scenarios, including an infinitely quotable final boss, Revengeance seems totally self aware of its silliness and fully embraces it at every opportunity. Throwing a giant robot into the sky as RULES OF NATURE kicks in has a certain kind of energy to it, a life force, one that gleefully welcomes you with open arms. Length and a few balance issues need work, but Rising's samurai-like combat system, one reliant on force-against-force over traditional dodges and blocks, makes up for feelings of a title that was pushing to meet tight deadlines on a tighter budget. A game so great I'm looking forward to zandatsuing all over again in just a few days.
4. The Last of Us ; Naughty Dog's combination of cinematic story telling and agency driven scenarios, or at least the illusion of agency, is at its best in The Last of Us than it ever was in Uncharted. The team's hauntingly believable vision of an all-too-real post apocalyptic environment spends just as much time giving you control and freedom over your encounters and progression through levels as it does enthralling you in a dark, heart warming tale of the relationships between adults and children in a horrific survival situation neither should have have to deal with. At its best, The Last of Us throws you in tense stealth encounters reminiscent of Manhunt that challenge your economising and mastery of equipment and environment strategy to lure, bait, and murder. You are the hunter, and the hunted. Working against The Last of Us is a stupidly forgiving checkpointing system that almost totally eradicates the concept of "survival horror" for encounter-based stealth, regression of the brilliant marriage of believability and "video game" mechanics into purely video game fluff (looking at you, helmeted bad guys), and various AI/performance/pop-in quirks, all of which diminish the overall experience. Nevertheless, The Last of Us is enduring and focused, setting its sights on a particular vision and sticking through right up to its brilliant ending.
5. Call of Juarez: Gunslinger ; Gunslinger is what happens when a publisher reduces the funding for a particular franchise and forces an inherently creative team to work within limitations of manpower, time, and money. You end up with a game that finds creative ways to work around production limitations and provide the similarly exciting and intriguing experience as we've come to know from blockbusters. Gunslinger spends no time on gameplay fluff, dedicating itself entirely to ultra fast and immeasurably satisfying kinda run-and-gun but also kinda stop-and-pop arcade shooting that encourages players to shoot fast, accurate, and stylishly. Booming gunfire, glorious hit feedback, and the occasional perfectly timed gimmick like bullet time and bullet dodging make every encounter feel like its own little Western climax. Major props to the story team. Combining drunken reminiscing of fragmented memories with dynamically altering on-screen events was a simple stroke of genius that goes a long way in giving Gunslinger its own special identity.
6. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds ; Though it makes maybe too many concessions to the tighter components 3D The Legend of Zelda games have become loved for, such as combined item puzzle solving and a proper difficulty curve, A Link Between Worlds is probably the first big step Nintendo has taken in a very long time to drastically influence the pacing and structure of a Zelda game to give the search a fresh breath of life. And it works. A snappy pacing has you rapidly moving in and out of dungeons and through the overworld(s) with rarely a moment of down time. Fragmented dungeon pacing makes them feel almost like an extension of the overworld itself, rather than checkpointed stopgaps on a new leg of the journey, both the dungeons and overworld making heavy use of simple puzzle solving to keep you stimulated and thinking. Room to grow, but great steps in the right direction from the Zelda teams.
7. Tearaway ; Tearaway is what you'd get if instead of building a logistical, function based operating system for your new hardware you built a game exclusively as a means of utilising that hardware in all respects. Media Molecule's dedication to breaking the forth wall and making the act of playing, recognition of the player and their virtual interaction a part of the game design and presentation itself is perhaps the best the medium has seen, if not close to. Tearaway knows what it is - a charming, silly adventure of papercraft characters and baddies in a papercraft world that lives inside your Vita and you,
you are the manipulator, controller, and god. As an expression of self aware interactive entertainment and what we can accomplish when we embrace the strengths and limitations of physical, peripheral tools we
require to interact with these virtual worlds, Tearaway is about as good as the medium gets.
8. BioShock Infinite ; Mistakes were made in narrative and gameplay, but as a complete package it would be stupid for me to deny how totally hooked I was by the world of Columbia, the adventure of Booker and Elizabeth, the visual identity and presentation, the pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo, and exciting combat encounters that lead you through the game. Though it's almost totally absent of anything that has come to define the 'Shock series in level/RPG design, Infinite manages to stand pretty strong as an exciting, linear first person shooter. It's not hard to find a comfortable combination of powers and weapons that have you unleashing satisfying combos and chewing through opponents, and that alone is a huge step up over the weak, bullet-sponge encounters of BioShock. It's a violent, exciting shooter with some wonderfully memorable moments in story and encounters.
9. Guacamelee! ; Keep it simple, stupid. Though it's a bit meme heavy from time to time, Guacamelee! embraces the Metroidvania and
keeps it fucking simple. It locks in the melee-focused combat and skill system, simplistic power-ups and abilities, and constructs a tightly designed explorative dual world around them. I wasn't expecting the game to reinvent the genre, but instead just do a really fucking good job of it, and Guacamelee! does exactly that. Enjoyable combat system, responsive controls, and a great sense of pacing that keeps momentum throughout. Legitimately humorous and stylish for most part. Love the luchador theme, visual identity, and audio production.
10. Super Mario 3D World ; It's hard to go past EAD Tokyo's creative spirit and understanding of the platforming genre, and here they once again live up to their famed reputation. When it hits its strides, 3D World embraces mostly everything that is great about the recent crop of 3D Mario games - every new level introduces some new gimmick or quirk, mechanics and challenges rarely outstay their welcome, and the entire design seems totally dedicated to providing you with a sense of satisfying platforming and fun. What prevents this being higher on my list are several design choices EAD made that I don't agree with, the biggest complaints being a button to run, diminishing of Mario's moveset, and digital, angular-like level design that could almost perfectly fit a D-Pad and seem massively regressive for what should be a posterchild for analogue control. The consistent strengths of what I imagine a 3D platformer to be, as embodied by Super Mario Galaxy 2, are too infrequent and sidelined in 3D World for me to sing too much praise. It's an excellent game. But it is not the 3D Mario I really want or adore, and a weaker game to Super Mario Galaxy 2 in almost every respect.