2013 was a good year for video games and it was hard to narrow down our lists this year. The Escapist editors agonized and deliberated for what felt like an eternity over which games were naughty and which ones deserved to make the cut. What were the best games of 2013? Was BioShock Infinite too over-the-top in its imagery? Was Pokemon too niche? Was Aliens: Colonial Marines bad enough to be good? That’s crazy talk, but this is the kind of thing we talk about after 5 and half pots of coffee.
Rather than just name a single Game of the Year, we decided to split the many great games of 2013 into genres and pick a winner from five nominees. In this article, we announce the nominees in the following categories, and next week we’ll announce the winners along with our nominees for the best overall Game of 2013. Then in the first week of January, we’ll announce our Game of the Year before we start looking ahead to the games of 2014.
Without further ado, here are the nominees for The Escapist Awards in the following genres:
Best Shooter of 2013
Best Platformer of 2013
Best RPG of 2013
Best Strategy Game of 2013
Best Action-Adventure Game of 2013
Best Adventure Game of 2013
Best Horror Game of 2013
Click next to see the next list, or click on your favorite genre to see why we picked those games.
The Escapist Award Nominees for Best Shooter of 2013
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Battlefield 4
Killzone Shadow Fall
Metro: Last Light
BioShock Infinite
Justin says: Love it or hate it, shooters have largely become the marquee genre for video gaming. It’s where the vast majority of multi-million dollar budgets, big developers, and the greater bulk of attention are being directed to. Everyone is vying for that “Killer App”, especially as we transition into the next console cycle as chasing after being the next Halo or Call of Duty has quite the lucrative appeal. While this does lead to a certain degree of stagnation, it also requires that to be truly noticeable in the space you need to fight your way to the top by playing to your title’s strengths. Some of these nominations pulled at our competitive nature, while others were looking to immerse us in a new world, but these are our picks for best shooters of 2013.
Any discussion of shooters just can’t ignore the now yearly release of Call of Duty. This time around we’re back in the hands of Infinity Ward for Call of Duty: Ghosts. The singleplayer campaign felt a bit paint-by-numbers for the series, with Riley the dog stealing the show for lack of much else of interest going on. We’d be kidding ourselves to say that singleplayer is as much of a main focus for this franchise anymore, though, and Call of Duty: Ghosts goes for the kitchen-sink approach by throwing a ton of improvements and new modes into the multiplayer experience. If you’re a Call of Duty fan, it’s not a hard sell.
Call of Duty‘s partner in crime so-to-speak has been the Battlefield series. Whereas Call of Duty‘s focus has narrowed and refined to fast paced shooting with tightly constructed maps to funnel the action, Battlefield 4 has big open maps that emphasize working together with your team, destructible environments and using the game’s vehicles. This freedom leads to some of the most amazing moments in any shooter, an aspect that EA picked up on this year tagging the game with the marketing “Only in Battlefield. The game has been plagued with some launch issues, but once those are smoothed out it still offers the best big map shooter on the market.
In many ways Call of Duty and Battlefield have become synonymous with the Xbox and PC respectively, but Killzone has been Sony’s response on the PlayStation. Killzone: Shadow Fall is Guerilla Games’ latest entry in the franchise, and it’s our first taste of a shooter developed exclusively for a next-gen console, the PS4. Picking up 30 years after the events of the previous game, Shadow Fall throws you back in the mix against everyone’s favorite space Nazi antagonist’s the Helghast. Shadow Fall is rife with graphics fueled by new, enhanced system power and makes use of lots of the bells and whistles the new console and controller offer, like the DualShock 4 touchpad. It will be a taste of many things to come.
Setting themselves apart from the previous three, Metro: Last Light and BioShock: Infinite instead focus on more personal affairs. From keeping track of your gasmask filters to hoarding your precious ammo by avoiding fights when possible, Metro: Last Light lets no element go to waste in telling its tale of folks living in the Russian underground railways after the surface became a nuclear wasteland. It’s a gritty and dirty world, where folks are trying to merely irk out any sort of a respectable existence, all while dealing with the various factions warring for resources and the abominations that nuclear fallout has created. The game’s optional Ranger mode takes this to another level, reducing the amount of resources in the game while also removing the HUD and cross hairs. This turns Metro: Last Light into a deeply immersive experience where having a sense of how much ammunition you have left is just as important as being able to make each shot count.
On the same token, BioShock: Infinte reaches for new heights in visual storytelling, corny pun yes, but still true. At its core Infinite puts a world on display and uses this setting that’s dripping in details to layer its storytelling upon. Columbia and the characters within are as breathtaking and charming as they are rotten once the veil is pulled aside. It’s a richly crafted world that, like BioShock‘s Rapture before it, elevates setting as a quintessential element in the formula. Elizabeth is ultimately the star of the show, and brilliant performance by Courtnee Draper and meticulous work by Irrational Games breathes life into the character that is not only centrally important to the game’s narrative, but also dodges many of the video game companion pitfalls. She’s capable and helpful rather than a burden. If anything, BioShock: Infinte biggest fault is that it leaves you wanting to see more.
Which game will win The Escapist Award for Best Shooter of 2013? Check back next week to find out!
The Escapist Award Nominees for Best Platformer of 2013
DuckTales: Remastered
Super Mario 3D World
Tearaway
The Bridge
Rayman Legends
Josh says: Platformers have come a long way since their heyday during the reign of the NES. One of the most prevalent genres in gaming, platforming has moments of unparalleled frustration with occasional moments of unabashedly joyful celebration. Although the former was the more common emotion associated with classics like Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, when you did finally power your way through that nigh-impossible level, there was really nothing like that feeling of triumph.
Super Mario 3D World is the latest entry in what is arguably the most recognizable name in platforming, and perhaps in gaming as a whole. 3D World offers bright and colorful environments, and traditional Mario gameplay, which has always stood as a standard of excellence in the genre.
Unlike the evolution of Mario from 2D to 3D over the years, DuckTales: Remastered contents itself with being a straight reskinning of a 2D classic. DuckTales doesn’t try to do anything new, instead focusing on the already-winning classic platforming gameplay formula, while sporting updated graphics.
Platforming in 2013 was heavily driven by recognizable franchises, not the least of which is Rayman Legends. Legends brings an impressive local multiplayer experience and a plethora of levels to the table, including 40 remastered levels from the previous entry, Rayman Origins.
Not everything in the genre was about the classics, and Tearaway shows that you can still innovate. Tearaway immerses you in its paper cutout world with real-world interaction, where you skin characters in game with a picture you take with the Vita’s camera, or reach into the world itself with the touchscreens, interacting directly with its inhabitants.
Finally, we have another example of truly innovative mechanics and gameplay in The Bridge. Not all platformers are about physical dexterity. Sometimes they can require mental acuity to solve puzzles by manipulating the world around you. The Bridge is flush with dizzying environments based on the works of M.C. Escher, which lend themselves to some genuinely mind-boggling platforming.
Which game will win The Escapist Award for Best Platformer of 2013? Check back next week to find out!
The Escapist Award Nominees for Best RPG of 2013
Pokemon X & Y
Path of Exile
Fire Emblem: Awakening
Shadowrun: Returns
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
Justin says: In some ways, not having the 800 lb. gorilla that is the latest entry in massively popular franchises like The Elder Scrolls or Mass Effect has led to a slightly more eclectic list of nominations this year. We’re drawing from every strata of where RPG mechanics have reared their little statistically driven heads: free-to-play, hand-held, mmo, you name it. It’s a testament to how deep this genre can truly be, and we were happy to get lost in the experience of each and every one. These are our picks for best RPGs of 2013.
Ok, so maybe there is one major franchise on the list this year. Exploding onto the scene 15 years back, Pokemon has become one of the biggest names in gaming. Despite the extraneous games, shows and everything else connected to the Pokemon universe, the core games have continually iterated on a nearly rock solid RPG based around capturing fantastical creatures, leveling them up and pitting them in battles against each other. The most recognizable improvement with Pokemon X & Y is the switch to 3D, Pokemon finally having hit the limit of what they could do with sprites shaking about on screen. The new battles are now visual feasts to enjoy, but ultimately it’s the crunchy center, not the shiny candy coat, that sells the game. With even more Pokemon and greater variety in the starting areas, Pokemon X & Y still retains the simple joy of lovingly building your perfect team.
It’s not hard to see what niche Path of Exile is carving for itself. After the somewhat tepid response to Diablo 3, a lot of action RPG fans were left wanting for a game more in the vein of Diablo 2. Path of Exile offers up plenty of delving into dank caverns and unsettling dungeons, but it’s the mechanics and principles behind them that really drive the game and keep everyone coming back for more. Perhaps the most intriguing element is the elimination of traditional currency from the game. Instead, you’re forced to barter with players and NPCs. With lots of incentive to find the perfect randomly generated treasure, level up your skill gems and partake in the various leagues and modes of play available, Path of Exile offers a lot of play for very little price – free – and its microtransactions are thus far limited to visual flares or low impact convenience.
While it hasn’t reach the levels of a few of the other genre’s juggernauts, the Fire Emblem series has made a name for itself with its unique brand of party mechanics, most notably the perma-death of your party members. However, due to slipping sales for the franchise Fire Emblem: Awakening was slated to be its final outing if it didn’t reach the necessary numbers. Luckily, the developers at Intelligent Systems knocked it out of the park. A solid story filled with a fun ensemble cast of characters is coupled with new or improved upon RPG mechanics from the game’s roots. Though for less masochistic fans, there are a suite of difficulty options, including a mode that revives characters that fall in battle. Fire Emblem: Awakening is one of those rare handheld title that you’ll play curled up on the couch despite more powerful gaming systems being on hand. If you don’t already own a 3DS it’s worth it to buy one for Fire Emblem: Awakening.
Despite what a few starry-eyed optimists might think, it’s doubtful that Kickstarter will ever completely supplant tradition videogame development. Where it has made tremendous strides, however, is revitalizing genres and settings with niche appeal, which might otherwise not be deemed profitable enough by big box publishers. Making an isometric RPG based on the Shadowrun setting was what developers Harebrained Schemes had in mind, and fans supported that vision to the tune of nearly $2 million in crowd funding. Shadowrun: Returns faithfully adapts the genre-mashing setting, where street samurai, dragon presidents and cyber-zombies are the norm. The game is a little rough around the edges, but sharp writing and seeing a proper return to a beloved franchise that hasn’t seen a decent release in years is still worth entry. There’s even a new patch and campaign releasing soon that will eliminate some of the initial issues. If you have fond memories of 90s isometric RPGs, or enjoy cyberpunk settings, give Shadowrun: Returns a look.
Second chances are rare, especially in the gaming space where first impressions are paramount. To say that Final Fantasy 14‘s initial release was a flop might be overselling it. Former Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada said that it had “greatly damaged” the Final Fantasy brand. To its credit though, Square Enix apologized to fans while promising that improvement would be made to both the game and the team. Three years later, we have an aptly named Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. A Realm Reborn looked to address all the grievances leveled at the original outing, and even expand on its predecessor with a new engine and story. There are even new world events to enjoy and partake in, letting players spontaneously work together to combat larger threats and events in the field. What once was an utter disappointment became a game embellished with detail and charm.
Which game will win The Escapist Award for Best RPG of 2013? Check back next week to find out!
Continue to see the nominees for Best Strategy Game of 2013.
The Escapist Award Nominees for Best Strategy Game of 2013
Total War Rome 2
Civilization V: Brave New World
Europa Universalis 4
XCOM: Enemy Within
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm
Jon says: 2013 has done nothing but prove that the renaissance of strategy titles is in full swing, including in places where the genre has been weak or absent for some time. Strangely – or not – the world of strategy stuck to tradition, releasing a variety of expansion for games a year or so old. Oddly, the world of strategy feels once again like the turn of the millennium.
Traditional RTS received yet another superb installment of StarCraft II in the Heart of the Swarm expansion, proving that while the Blizzard RTS formula is old, it can still be varied enough to feel fresh. SC2 continued popularity as an esport even after the potential unbalancing of adding more units to its very defined factions of Terran, Zerg and Protoss speaks volumes to its excellence.
Civilization V continued to improve with the Brave New World expansion, which furthered the legacy that Gods & Kings set by giving depth to aspects of the game that had previously felt unexplored – adding deep value to not only previous content, but new expansion content. The trade and culture revamps in Brave New World seemed to complete the features of Sid Meier’s long-running series and resulted in many late nights by The Escapist staff.
Rounding out the expansion packs from Firaxis, XCOM: Enemy Within delivered yet more of the game that brought back a AAA strategic-tactical experience that many had thought lost with the 90s. (And cybernetic mech troops rocket punching aliens. Don’t forget that.) The addition of the human terrorist EXALT as a secondary adversary throughout the campaign, as well as collecting the MELD resource on the dozens of new maps makes a play through of EW feel completely new.
On a more grand scale, Europa Universalis IV followed up on Paradox Interactive’s hit Crusader Kings II by making the renaissance and age of exploration simulator friendlier to a wide audience., introducing more and more people to the glories of historical sandbox simulations. The depth of the simulation allows you to feel like you playing through an alternate history, tweaking and changing world events to your heart’s content. Want to take over the world as the Pope? Well, in EU4, you can!
Finally, Creative Assembly released another installment in the Total War series, bringing us back to BC with Total War Rome 2 and elevating the production values, and scope, of a 4x series higher than ever. Rome 2 might not have had a stellar launch, but the fixes and added content Creative Assembly have brought to the game since then has more than made up for it and created a game which strategy fans will be playing for a very long time.
Which game will win The Escapist Award for Best Strategy Game of 2013? Check back next week to find out!
Continue to see the nominees for Best Action-Adventure Game of 2013.
The Escapist Award Nominees for Best Action-Adventure Game of 2013
Tomb Raider
The Last of Us
Saints Row 4
Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag
Grand Theft Auto V
Paul says: The action-adventure genre is an odd duck among videogames, often featuring titles that blend various other genres and mechanics together to create something bigger and more engaging than just your average shooter or platformer. This year saw an impressive selection of action-adventure titles, ranging from the sci-fi shooter-esque Dead Space 3, to the god-slaying God of War: Ascension, to the narrative heavy The Last of Us to the just plain silly Saints Row IV. Many were fun and great to play, and it was hard to pick which ones reigned supreme, but through careful diligence and repeated playthroughs we managed to narrow them down to a chosen few.
A reboot of the long-running franchise, Tomb Raider brought us back to the early days of Lara Croft’s adventuring career, when she was still just a student eager to prove her theories about the lost civilizations of the world. Shipwrecked on a lost island, Tomb Raider pits Lara against a hostile environment filled with dangerous pitfalls and an insane group of cultists, and it was up to players to guide Lara on her quest to save her friends and survive against impossible odds.
Featuring a unique mix of survival horror and action, The Last of Us challenged players to fight through encounters with dangerous monster and human bandits across a post-apocalyptic landscape. But what really sells The Last of Us, is its narrative of survival, as players guide Joel and Ellie, an unlikely pair of survivors, through countless hardships and horrors in their journey through a world reclaimed by nature. Filled with compelling characters, plot twists and emotional punches not seen often in games, The Last of Us was a definite highlight of gaming in 2013 and one of the best action-adventure titles to date.
Featuring a sandbox world that lets you run rampant with super powers and weird weaponry (like the ever popular Dubstep Gun), Saints Row IV is one game that doesn’t take itself too seriously. With a comedic story of the Saints Row gang taking on a melodramatic alien overlord in an attempt to save humanity, Saints Row IV is a hilarious, action-packed game that is above all, fun to play.
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag let players take on the role of Edward Kenway, a privateer turned pirate turned Assassin in a large scale open world seascape that lets players roam the oceans in search of adventure (and a good payday). With an impressively designed naval combat, brought over and overhauled from the previous game in the series, Players can wage intense one-on-one battles against English Man-o-wars and Spanish galleons in the hunt for treasure, and sneak and parkour their way around various ports and coastal fortress while hunting down their Templar opponents.
Grand Theft Auto V has been described as one of the seventh generation’s most impressive technological feats. The fictional city of Los Santos and its surrounding areas are huge, and lets players run amok in an impressively large open-world sandbox. Controlling three distinct protagonists, GTA V offers players a multitude of missions to complete, a wide variety of colorful characters to interact with and a whole host of grand felonies to commit in the process.
Which game will win The Escapist Award for Best Action-Adventure Game of 2013? Check back next week to find out!
Continue to see the nominees for Best Adventure Game of 2013.
The Escapist Award Nominees for Best Adventure Game of 2013
The Wolf Among Us
The Stanley Parable
Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies
Papers, Please
Gone Home
Greg says: The distinction between adventure games and its “action” brethren is actually quite profound. Adventure games trace their lineage back to the early days of computer games with text-based adventures by Infocom and Sierra’s King’s Quest. 2013 has seen a bit of a resurgence in the format’s popularity, with independent developers jumping on the success of Telltale’s The Walking Dead to push the limits of narrative and character development possible in a video game.
Telltale followed on last year’s Game of the Year with another property licensed from a comic book line called Fables. A Wolf Among Us follows Bigby Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf from the fairy tales, as he protects other storybook characters exiled from their Homeland in a 1980s New York City. The first episode proved you can adapt a complex world full of backstory without needing to hammer players with exposition, and providing an excellent opening to an ongoing mystery the player must solve. Wolf Among Us is a rare combination of atmosphere, story, and aesthetics that is just jaw-droppingly brilliant.
The Stanley Parable is a remake of the original mod using Valve’s Source engine and features a first-person control of the main character, Stanley. The game is short, but it excellently skewers both the limitations and uses of branching, choice-based narratives used in computer games since the old days. The Stanley Parable is one of those games that will be studied by game designers for years to come.
Many may object to Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies – aah, who am I kidding? That was just a needless way to get the word “object” in a sentence about Phoenix Wright. The courtroom drama game from Capcom is the first in the series on the 3DS, and it kept all of the aspects intact while adding more features and spiffy updated graphics. The story was also stellar, and introducing Athena Cykes, an 18-year-old prodigy fresh out of law school was an interesting twist.
The world of Papers, Please is dark and grim, and you have to navigate it with care. As a customs agent on the border of a communist dictatorship, you must decide whether to let people through or reject their requests. The game constantly bombards you with micro-narratives in the form of all the people seeking entry into Arztotska. Every one of them has a story, and deciding whether or not to help a few rebels, or a woman who wanted to meet her grandson, across the border is rough – especially when you had to weigh their narratives against your own family’s needs. Papers, Please is very original in both making ID-checking mechanics fun and creating an engaging story.
Gone Home is an interactive story from the Fullbright Company which allows the player to investigate objects in the main character’s parents’ empty house. The player must figure out the narrative from reading notes and examining objects, and only then does the full story come to light. It’s hard to call Gone Home a true “game” but it is a breakthrough in interactive storytelling nonetheless.
Which game will win The Escapist Award for Best Adventure Game of 2013? Check back next week to find out!
The Escapist Award Nominees for Best Horror Game of 2013
Outlast
Slender: The Arrival
Amnesia: Machine for Pigs
State of Decay
Jim says: As a mod, Slender terrified the pants off multitudes of hardened gamers, and found fame in the hallowed halls of screaming YouTube Let’s Play videos. The full-fledged experience, Slender: The Arrival adds more story and environments to the original haunted house funfair attraction, tying it further into the Slender Man mythos and paying particular homage to the famed “Marbel Hornets” series of videos. Some may find its creeping terror and loud noises cheap, but there are plenty who enjoy their horror this way, and The Arrival gives them exactly what they’re looking for. Definitely worth a punt if you want to turn yourself into a gibbering wreck.
The Chinese Room’s take on the Amnesia series was controversial, but A Machine for Pigs remains a nonetheless interesting little game. More story-driven than The Dark Descent, there’s no mistaking the fingerprints of a studio most famous for giving us Dear Esther. Much of the experience is given over to exploration, with only the very rare appearance of a monster getting in the way of the narrative. It’s a fascinating narrative, however, full of evocative – and disturbing – imagery that draws the player into a world of misanthropy and the surgical detachment of a repressed Victorian era. Those looking for a repeat of the last Amnesia game will be disappointed, but if you’re after a truly morbid story, this may sort you out perfectly. For indeed, the world is a machine. A machine for pigs.
Zombie games are so common now that rarely can you talk about zombie games without first noting how common they are. State of Decay is one more zombie game on the pile, but it manages to stand out with its emphasis on survival and resource management. Fighting the undead takes second billing next to the need to scavenge for supplies and maintain a healthy base camp of survivors. Characters need interacting with to keep their morale up, HQ camps can be upgraded with facilities that award a number of benefits, and individual characters are leveled to attain their own unique set of skills. Also, once a character dies – it’s dead! Packed full of interesting ideas that are simplified just enough to stop everything being too complicated, State of Decay is a fantastic little horror sim for those who want to think as much as they want to smash.
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That’s it! Our nominations for The Escapist Awards 2013. Feel free to sound off in the comments below or on Facebook as to how good or how terrible you think these nominations are!
