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.