Top 10 PC Games I Played in 2013

As promised here's my list of games that I played this year that I think are the best.  Once again, games that I PLAYED this year.  Not games that came out this year, just ones that I played.  And after toying with the idea, I will indeed be including games that I have not written a review for yet or skipped writing for whatever reason.  Seeing as how I do not get paid for this, I can't take the time out to plan a post, crop photos, do research or finish some games to the extent where a post comes out.  I just do it to watch my hit counter go up a little more for each post.

I won't be making much in the way of comments on games I've already done posts about as repeating myself doesn't serve much of a purpose.  So some of these are going to be rather short.  If you want to see what I have to say in full, the posts are along the right and it's pretty easy to navigate, at least in my opinion.

Once again, these are my opinions, I'd say about 10-15% of people will agree completely with what I say, but such is the nature of doing Top 10 lists.

HONORABLE MENTION
Terraria 1.2 Update

 If it wasn't just the update and it came out at least in 2012, this would have been number 1.  I felt it wasn't fair since it's had all this time to polish itself, but it's by leaps and bounds my most played game of the year if not of all time.  It's still not done either, a new patch came down just a few days before my writing this.  Buy it, now.

NUMBER 10
Rouge Legacy

  
Fun, cheeky and addictive as hell, Rouge Legacy cemented itself in this list as soon as I passed the 30 hours mark.  It is also the only indie game on my list, which you may find off because Gunpoint beat it in my games of this year list, and that's because Rouge Legacy has better sticking power.  Gunpoint is a fun game with a great story, but it's tough to get really passionate about something that doesn't cause me to lose sleep over.  And because I'm making the list, I can do what I want.

NUMBER 9
Shadow Warrior

 
A late entry, but amazing all the same.  It's fast, violent, self deprecating, crude, low-brow, crass and is amazingly good fun.  And it affirms what I've know for years, swords can have good controls on the PC.  This is the summer blockbuster action movie of games.  Look for too much depth or forget to turn your brain off and you might think it can't possibly be good.  But shut up, unsheathe your katana and go kill some demons, quit thinking so much, there's things to dismember.

NUMBER 8
Spec Ops: The Line

 
Challenging "Moral Choice" systems of games past, Spec Ops: The Line is the best military game in a generation.  Bleak story telling, solid controls and great writing makes for an experience that's going to stick with you whether you want it to or not.  It's nothing you expect and never ends up being like you'd expect it.  Toss in some of the best scenery I've ever seen and you've got a game for the ages.  Just remember to play it on hard.

NUMBER 7
Hitman: Absolution

 
Challenging gameplay with new ideas in the stealth genre makes it a proper heir to the Hitman throne.  You might miss the open level layout, but it's still there in a large part of the game and dealing with things by being clever still brings the same amount of joy it ever did.  Not everything can be a remake of Blood Money and eventually at least some people will realize tht chances must be taken in order to innovate.

NUMBER 6
Bioshock Infinite

I'm still not sold on it's 94 on Metacritic, but I seem to be the only one who has this opinion as this game is topping lists all over the place.  Good setting, good characters, horribly dumbed down combat and weird controls.  It's still good and I may or may not have snagged a Season Pass for it's DLC while it was on sale, so how bad could it be really?
 
NUMBER 5

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

 

Alien chess with super soldier.  I haven't made a post about XCOM because I keep starting over.  Combine a seriously challenging game with a huge learning curve in which you can mess yourself up in horrible ways by making incorrect decisions and restarts are going to be inevitable.  But the game is incredibly good and compelling.  The gameplay, while difficult, has patterns and rewards your cleverness and ability to adapt.  It's a very nice departure from modern turn based strategy, mostly due to it's difficulty and innovation.  I was worried Friaxis lost their roots with the modern Civilization games which I find far too easy and lack a huge amount of depth from the Civ games I grew up with.  But with this as they're new IP, it makes be excited for the future of turn based strategy.  Only problem is it makes me rage quit on a regular basis so progress has been... slow.

NUMBER 4
Metro: Last Light

My 2013 Game of the Year and I stand by that decision.  It simply had the unfortunate luck to be released in a time period where the number of stellar PC games happens to be unnaturally high and that condemns it to the limbo of almost there.  However, it is still a stellar game amongst other stellar games and it's position in this list should not be taken as anything other than my highest recommendation.  Just a spell of bad luck.

NUMBER 3
Farcry 3

 The higher I got up this list the harder it was for me to determine who should be in front of who.  It basically comes down to how much I want to play it after all the time I've spent and this is the order I placed them in, subject to change in the middle of the night after I've been drinking.  Farcry 3 set a damn high bar in terms of character development and sandbox gameplay.  With enough content to keep me busy for 40 hours there had to have been something I liked.  Good mechanics, fun additions to the FPS formula and an attention to detail and pacing that I threw completely out the window the second time I played it by doing most of the game with a machete and a shitty Russian handgun.  Still an amazing game though.

NUMBER 2
Dishonored

  The more in-depth reader will probably have seen this coming a mile away since I constantly compare everything and anything to Dishonored.  The reason behind this is Dishonored has the smoothest and most interesting stealth gameplay of anything I've played.  It updated the formula without destroying it and solves a lot of the frustrating parts of stealth games past.  Tack on some of the best world-building, some interesting psuedo cell shaded graphics and slap some steampunk gears on the theme and you've got a game for the ages.  The game is well thought out and interesting.  It challenges you without being unfair and rewards you for doing things you wanted to do in the way you wanted to do them.  The whole game is nicely varied and while it does end rather abruptly, I thoroughly enjoyed the story.

NUMBER 1
Dark Souls

 
Yep, it's that good.  It's so thoughtfully designed.  Every little detail and everything you could think of is thought of an handled.  It proves that mature RPGs are possible and that modern games really do hold people's hands too much.  I don't think I've ever been more driven to complete a game before I just wanted to keep going despite the game doing everything in it's power to try to stop me.  I suffered many deaths and vastly more frustrating moments but I still kept going and I'm glad I did.  I have climbed the mountain and made it back to tell of it and I highly recommend you try the same.  Even just writing about it makes me want to start a new character and try it all again, and maybe I will.

Top 5 PC Games of 2013

It's the end of the year and it's time to look back, see how far we've come, see the misteps, and make an easily digestable list for people who like numbers and lists, you know who are.

Now, I must say this before I go on.  I don't play new games very often.  Rarely do I find anything I value at $60 that I can't wait 4 mouths to drop to half of that.  On top of that, I don't pirate games anymore.  Mostly because I can afford games now and partially because I have a backlog I may never get through.  After this post, I will make another list of the Top 10 Games I played this year as more of a guide as to what's worth picking up on the holiday sales that are about to start.

These are my opinions, if you don't like them then I'm not sure why you're even bothering to read this.

NUMBER 5

Rouge Legacy

Seems to be the year of procedurally generated games.  Rouge Legacy captured a hilarious way of making me hate myself.  The game is harsh, unforgiving, fun as hell and addictive as just about anything.  Tight controls, challenging gameplay and always new stuff to see and a new carrot to chase after, Rouge Legacy caused more than it's share of late nights

NUMBER 4

Shadow Warrior

 

A recent acquisition and I promise a full review once I get through it all, but god damn.  Stunning graphics, hilariously over the top writing and the best damn sword play to ever grace the mouse and keyboard.  A self-aware rehash of shooters past.  Gory, unrealistic, gratuitous, unnecessary and some of the best fun on the PC right now.  The only reason it's not higher is I haven't played enough to place it there. 

 

 NUMBER 3

Gunpoint

Puzzles, action, super-pants, nothing not to like.  Surprised the hell out of me and has had many a reply this year.  Additively simply, compellingly complex and a nice detective story doesn't hurt.  Great game and great writing leaves noting to be desired.  And you can make your own superpants-tastic levels.

NUMBER 2

Bioshock: Infinite 

I can't believe this made it to spot 2, but there you have it.  Dumbed down combat, odd controls but god damn what a ride.  The non-mechanics part of the game made up for everything and this game has stuck with me all year, essentially demanding a replay.  It's gorgeous, it's compelling and mystifying.  It's worth it.

NUMBER 1

Metro: Last Light

I know I was mean to it in the first review, but this is the clear winner.  The most atmospheric game I've ever played.  Bleak, harsh and beautiful in all aspects.  Fantastic gameplay, great mechanics, compelling story, interesting world and the most poetic ending in a long time.  It's a must play for anyone even slightly interested.  Game of the Year right here.

Far Cry 3: How to break a sandbox game

I already made a post about FarCry 3, as you'll recall, I was less than happy with the release build.  Things have cleaned up since then, and I started my compltionist run, and I broke the game.  Hard.  Shit's really broken.  So here's how this happens.  Here's how to break any sanbox game.

1. Understand how the game works

This is important.  No sense running around for hours if you're not doing anything.  This is the major breaking point for FarCry.  If you understated how the game works, it breaks wide open.  I was done with hunting 5 hours in.  Just done.  I had everything I needed from the animals, no more hunting.  Second, the radio towers, if you get all of them early, the guns you get break the game, and all you need to win all of FarCry is one weapon and one weapon only, the W700 rifle.  And if you pay close attention to the AI system, supressors will make you life easy.  Complete all the side mission early and reap the benefits.

This extends far beyond FarCry, which is what I'm trying to point out.  An in-depth understanding of any game will cause almost any sandbox game to fail out right.  Oblivion becomes strangely easy once you really understand the leveling system.  Fallout turns you into a god amongst men once you understand which skills are actually worth taking.

2. Learn the AI

Programmers are getting better with the AI, but in the end, it's a subroutine in a program.  Nothing in a video game is random, it's not possible, explains why I can not rationalize playing video poker or video slot machines.  Sure things can seem random, but there's patterns.  Once you know there's a 140 frame animation when a guard's buddy dies, you know where his head will be.  Once you know that combat stances lock an enemy in a single direction, you can sneak behind them.  Once you know the running animation, it's not hard to get that running head shot.  Provided you're willing to take a rather fun element out of a game, analyzing AI patterns will break things in your favor.

3. Understand your limitations

Breaking a sandbox is going to be an amalgamation of a lot of things.  It breaks down to be a zero-skill run, and I don't mean player skill.  FarCry 3 tries really damn hard to stop you from doing what I've done.  You can't unlock all the skills in the beginning, they're unlocked later on.  You have to be comfortable with your skill and a basic skill set.  It means playing the majority of the game as an under-powered character, that's the nature of the game.  And it means that you're going to have to try real damn hard to make up for the lack of things the devs expect you to have.

Spent a lot of time staring down the sights of this piece of shit

4. Don't be afraid to fail

Doing a second run, especially a complitionist run means you're going to fuck up, a lot, a whole lot.  I died so many god damn times.  I'd say 95% of those was attempting to jump to get to the fuck damn relics which are incredibly well placed.  Failing teaches you what doesn't work.  Understanding this and not taking it as a slight against your skill is damn important.  I've gotten to to the point where dying in a game is usually something comedic.  "Turns out I can't hit the ground going 100+ mph and survive"  "Don't pick a fight with a dude with a flamethrower" Need to have that Dwarf Fortress mentality of losing is fun. 

5. Have a mastery of the game

God, how to word this without sounding pretentious as shit.  You really have to be good at a game to break it.  I've been playing PC games for 20+ years, and to say you haven't gained skill in something you've been doing that long is disingenuous.  I'm good at PC games, and I'm especially good at shooters.  To say anyone can pick up a sandbox game and wreck it is also disingenuous.  People have been saying for a while that games are getting easier and I don't think this is true, I think the players are getting better.  I'm not doing any of this on easy, I set games for the hardest difficultly right off the bad these days.  I thought it was just me until I saw other people playing on the same difficulty, turns out it's not as easy as I think it is.  I think I'm just jaded.  This came out in my Dark Souls post.  I seriously and genuinely did not have that much trouble with the game.  So this is where gaming leaves me, taking out hordes of enemies that are supposed to be tough with a bullshit starting pistol with a suppressor on it.  But fuck is it still fun.

According to uPlay, I spent 40 hours on FarCry 3, 40 goddamn hours.  That's a work week.  and it's 100% done.  I've done everything because it was fun.  The story is still fantastic, although this time around I found Sam to be my favorite character because he's absurdly funny.  If you haven't gotten this game, you're missing out of what is one of my top 2 games of 2012, it's only competition being Dishonored, which is my next review because I just snagged the DLC on sale.  It's spectacularly good in every aspect and breaking it's balance to pieces honestly just made it more fun. 

And now a press release amount of screenshots.

Indeed

Aww, such spoon

It's really pretty too

Makes up for my graphics card sounding like it's going to take off

Online handle written on a rock, feels good man

An A5M4, also know as the Zero fighter

Almost calming

Drink what now?

die Deutschen machen gute Waffen

Robot not out of style

Vaas is sill the best villain in modern gaming

REALISM!

Haven't a clue why this is inverted colors

Tatau

Roll credits

Hitman Absolution: You're doing it wrong

I can't tell if I'm getting old, or hateful, or what, but seriously, people need to chill the fuck out.  I'm not sure when it happened, I'm starting to think it was right around the time the 360/PS3 generation happened and everyone got so damn entitled.  I've spent 23 hours playing Hitman: Absolution and it's wonderful.  Seriously, I'm being sincere, I love this game and feel it's a worthy heir to the Hitman throne.  And if you disagree, I'm going to spend this entire post proving you wrong so read at your own discretion.

Effort is something seriously overlooked in today's gaming environment, unless you're indie, then you get a pass for some stupid reason.  Hitman: Absolution is an effort, and while it's not perfect, it shows a risk, a chance taken to be better while preserving an idea.  Is it perfect?  Fuck no.  Is it worthy of being touted as the "End of the Hitman Series"?  Fuck you.  No, really, I don't like you.  If you complain about video games becoming "generic" and turn around and stifle innovation there's really no use for you in the video game community.  You can have one or the other, pick, now.

I've loved the Hitman series every since Hitman 2.  They're incredibly difficult, they're punishing, they're unforgiving and it's great.  Stealth games, so I've figured out, are a play on the puzzle game.  It's a puzzle game without a set solution.  It's open ended, difficult, and requires restarts.  Hitman Absolution achieves this provided you, yes you, didn't fuck it all up.  You played on the wrong difficulty.

Now this is the fault of the devs as well, I'm not denying that they made the game have the possibility of being too easy.  Hitman is not an action game, but they made it possible to play it as an action game, which is a bit of a problem.

But what's seriously overlooked is that this is a choice.  If you play below any of the "Professional" difficulties, you're doing it wrong.  The lower difficulties are for action game people, or people who have never played Hitman and don't know what's going on.  If you play it on a higher difficulty, it is, in my humble opinion, is a proper Hitman game.

Proper

There's a lot to like here.  One of the main criticisms this game has received is the addition of the storyline.  And I understand, I really do, Agent 47 is supposed to be the anto-hero.  He's cold, he's calculated and he doesn't exist.  But I think it's nice for him to have motivation.  I don't really know how to convince you, but I like it.  It's not as if they made him all squishy and human, he's still the same cold-blooded killer you've loved, he just has motivation beyond money this time.

Her

It's good character development, it really is.  It doesn't destroy Agent 47, it enhances him.  But I digress, this is a worthy Hitman game.  The levels are challenging and thought out.  The new stealth elements and actions are a good addition.  Something that's overlooked a lot is that the previous Hitman games were not hard only because of their design, they're also difficult because of their limitations.  The AI code in Absolution is top notch.  I've always wondered why people didn't recognize that you weren't one of the doctors they've worked with for years, or that guy is definitely not on their construction crew. 

I'm new

The levels are nice, and while I greatly miss the customization of guns from Blood Money, but I don't care.  The progression is better, the levels make sense, it's a nicer game.  Innovation is stifled and I'm not having any part of it.  I love this game and it is Hitman, whether you like it or not, it's a worthy successor.  There's characters, they're real if a bit extreme and it's just lovely.  The gameplay is well thought out, challenging and rewarding.  Now I need to go garote more people, if you'll excuse me.

Back in action

The art is amazing

Mecha Swanson needs nicotine

Remember when crowds were incredibly fake looking

A machine for pigs

Fucking birds

A proper look