This is the big one! The Kotaku Game of the Year for 2013. It’s been a pretty good year across all platforms. I’ve played intelligent, well written AAA blockbusters. I’ve enjoyed brilliantly put together handheld experiences and I’ve had some of my favourite gaming experiences ever on PC. All in all it’s been a good year.
But there can only be one!
Vote! And if you feel up to it post your reasoning in the comments below.
Comments
38 responses to “Kotaku Awards 2013: Vote For Your Overall Game Of The Year”
The Last of Us! That story, man. Right in the feels.
Easily The Last of Us for me. In any other year The Night of the Rabbit, Pikmin 3 and Beyond: Two Souls could’ve easily been my game of the year.
GTAV or The Last of Us is the easy choice, but I’m only choosing them because I really don’t want Bioshock Infinite to win.
Why is that? I’m half way through it and it seems ok…?
You answered your own question. It’s only “ok” 😛
Ah i see, it just sounded like you really didn’t like it so I was curious to see why exactly.
I just really didn’t like the ending and the annoying influence it has with people and especially hipsters.
The whole game I mostly thought, “Ehh, it’s alright, but I’d prefer playing either Bioshock 1 or 2”.
I hated Bioshock. It was a pretty lousy, clunky shooter with bullet sponge enemies with some okay writing.
Hey guess what? I actually thought Bioshock wasn’t as great as people made it out to be. I thought it was good, but certain elements prevented me from enjoying it. One being that it was too easy and the game was too generous with health, plasmids and Adam. Slightly fixed in Bioshock 2, but a few times was a bit generous.
I thought Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite were average games with great settings. Didn’t bother with Bioshock 2 because I’d already seen Rapture and the game itself isn’t good enough to sustain two trips to the same place.
^ Agreed.
I love bioshock but I hope they aren’t going to try and have a dramatic wtfhax twist at the end of every game.
If they’re not careful, they’ll be following in the footsteps of M. Night Shamalamadingdong.
Wonderful 101 forever.
Stop letting The Two Best Friends Play make your decisions for you.
Who?
Matt and Pat! They’re friends who play together. Learning and sharing and junk! One is nice and the other one is less nice! Who couldn’t love Matt and Pat?
Me. They sound like jerks.
Story telling – TLOU hands down, gameplay itself was ok, but nothing spectacular (how many Ellie raft puzzles did you really need in the game?). But really the dialogue and banter between Joel and Ellie make this a very special game.
In terms of gameplay – I found Bioshock to be quite entertaining, vast array of powers and weaponry allows you to mix things up alot.
Notable mention for Tomb Raider for a great reboot to the franchise.
Ni No Kuni/A Link Between Worlds/Pokemon X/Y
three way tie.
honestly i think ACIV came in swinging right at the end. definitely one of my most favorite games this year!
Of course it came at the right time. We were bogged down by triple A titles that had trouble reaching the triple A quality 😛
A lot of good games to choose from. Really not sure what I would pick this year though. Loving Mario 3D World at the moment. Loved Pikmin 3(WHy isn’t it in the list!?!?!), loved Gunpoint, loved Link between worlds, loved Monaco, waiting for GTAV on PC, Luigi’s mansion was great…
Lets just give them all a giant internet pat on the back?
What, and be civil about it? We’re discussing video games here. People’s favorite video games of 2013.
I expect there to be blood.
I’ve played two of those games. And GTAV was just the 15 mins required to launch online. Need more time to play!
P4G, lightyears ahead of the competition.
GTA V for sure. I thought TLoU when I finished it because it was a damn excellent game. But the effort that went into GTA is crazy. The fine details and not to mention the fact that it deprived me of 200 hours of my life is a testament to what an amazing gaming accomplishment it was.
I’ve only played two games on this list; GTA V and The Last of Us. I simply enjoyed playing GTA V a little more, so it gets my vote. Interested to see what games I’ve really missed out on though.
DARK. SOULS. \o/
*crashes through window, appropriately dies*
Edit: the only games I’ve played from this list are Tomb Raider, GTAV, and AC: New Leaf. And, despite them all being quite good, I don’t really believe any of them deserve the award…
Dark Souls is about 2 years old now.
…granted, it’s good enough to validate it for 2 years…
Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag – Simply because it’s best trait is that it isn’t an Assassin’s Creed game. Win.
Ashes 2013
GTAV for me, though I was a bit let down by the last few missions and the under-use of heists, it was such an incredibly polished and well-presented game.
If I had to I would vote against TLoU. Not that it was a bad game, but it’s nuts to me that people are holding it up as game of the generation. As an experience, it was great. As a game, it was a clunky third person shooter that didn’t bring anything new to the table except good writing and a good atmosphere.
I think some games are just built to be more experiences than “games” in the traditional sense. After all, Journey wasn’t really a “game” and at the time I hated that it got GOTY amongst other games that year that blended fun mechanics and great worlds. But I’ve come to realise that GOTY should go to games that push the medium forward, it should go to the candidates that best exemplifies using it to justify how games are as true an artform as any other.
And in this case, you can’t deny that The Last of Us has had a powerful effect on people.
Oh, definitely. I agree that The Last of Us was a great experience, but the gameplay certainly wasn’t at a point where it’s “game of the generation” material that people are calling it, and in my opinion not GoTY material either. I think gameplay should be the most important factor when it comes to these, but that’s just me.
Metro: LL and Gone Home for me. More atmosphere in those two than a hypobaric chamber. Also, the only two games on that list that I had absolutely no issues with (design-wise), and the only two games that kept me engaged right up until the end.
Toss up between Tomb Raider and ACIV.
I would pick Saints Row, but it’s let down by some awful technical issues…
Which leaves it as a tie between Tomb Raider and Rocksmith.
Rocksmith actually feels like it’s teaching me something (I’ve never picked up a guitar before), but Tomb Raider (aside from some dissonance in the campaign) just nailed its stated goals… also that bow.
I suppose Rocksmith counts more as a learning tool, than a game?
Torn between Bioshock Infinite and GTAV. On the one hand, a game I feel is most worthy for the award, and on the other the game I just had so much more fun playing.
Mmm…ummm…ah what the hell, my vote goes to Papers Please. Story-focused action-shooty games come out all the time, they’ll win plenty. How many other communist dictatorship bureaucracy sims are ever gonna be nominated for game of the year?
Does ScribleTaku count!? (R.I.P)
Screw it. SCRIBLETAKU!
I’m conflicted. Tomb Raider was probably the best game I played this year but there are just sooo many flaws about it I could list off.
Too many choices! Too hard… I can’t vote, there are too many good games -_-
Went with ac4 with last of us, bioshock and tomb raider tied for second