1. Cartlife ; I'm not entirely sure whether this game should be eligible as I have not been able to find when it actually released. The only information I have been able to find is threads for Cartlife v1.4 & 1.5 which are dated 2012. In any case, Cartlife is at heart an economic simulator as you attempt to manage your 'cart' to retail success. But more than that it is closer to a 'real life' simulator. You are managing the life of your character, whether in the form of east european immigrant Andus, single mother Michelle or Vinny. Few games have ever quite encapsulated the real pressures of life as well as Cartlife. Starting up the game I was concerned only with the basics of running the cart and simple profit calculations, but it takes only a day for the real game to hit you. Basics like telling the time cannot be done without a watch, you have no idea of where things are in this new town, how to buy lunch, how to get food at all. Complicated notions of business are banished for the basics. I began to look forward to the lunch break, shutting my cart and perhaps taking a ride downtown to speak with Vinny; or the small talk with my landlord's wife when she would collect the paper. It's a game which sums up better than anything else the simple pleasures and the very real challenges of just living a life.
2. Hotline Miami ; The insane, drug- fueled, ultraviolent murder simulator takes 2nd. The game has loftier ambitions than being purely an action game, attempting to ask questions about the violence you are commiting, violence in video games and the reality of the story itself. It doesn't quite succeed, but its done well enough to string the levels together and provide some thought-provoking moments. Of course, even without that thread this would still be a fine game, doing the action so well whilst providing an outstanding OST to play along to. A simple top down game with basically 2 button combat offers great depth and intelligence in its action, with a wide variety of different level layouts, different weapons, different masks and interesting AI. The controls are near perfect, the game brutally difficult but never frustrating thanks to its instant restart system. All in all, a thoroughly entertaining action game with a great atmosphere and storyline to add the icing on the cake.
3. Binary Domain ; The Yakuza games are some of my favourite, so its no surprise that I was enthralled by Nagoshi's 3rd person, futuristic, robot shooter. A good example, perhaps, of the differences between Japanese and Western shooters. Binary Domain emphasis storyline and characters, with a variety of original gameplay ideas but sometimes at the expense of 'polish'. The controls were generally pretty poor, a number of the ideas didn't really work (like the voice commands) and the PC port I played was a bit of a mess, but compared to a by-the-numbers Western game that has more polish I'll take a Binary Domain every time. The characters were generally outstanding, the interactions and story choices a nice addition and the story itself showed some interesting ideas and overall theme, though like Hotline Miami it didn't execute them perfectly. As for the game itself, once used to the controls there was a great 'shoot parts of the robot' mechanic and excellent bosses, easily the best of any shooter I have played. A game I would heartily recommend to any fans of original ideas and good stories. A good comparison would be Nier, which also emphasized originality and storytelling at the expense of the polish of say God of War.
3. Spec Ops: The Line ;
4. Mark of the Ninja ;
5. Orcs Must Die 2 ;
6. Sleeping Dogs ; The final game on my list, in many ways makes it to 4th position because these are the only new games I have played this year, but Sleeping Dogs is still a fine game. It is perhaps a nice example of what I referred to above, the by-the-numbers Western game which emphasis polish over originality. There are a few good additions to the open world game genre, but generally this is a title that I would best describe as competent. The combat is good, driving fine, mission design pretty interesting and storyline decent, but nothing really exceptional or original. Certainly I would say it is better than the hugely disappointing GTA4 or the derivative, stupid Saints Row series, but not much more.
7. Thirty Flights of Loving ;