EWB GOTY 2013 - The Results

[Plubby]

67 Games....

1514 total points awarded....

37 Voters.... (Not inclusive of EWB's Best Poster who posted their intention to vote and didn't follow through, and Niner who stopped by our thread once but not to vote.)

And now we have...THE LIST~!

But before the the list, we have some honourable mentions.

Firstly: The game that made me the most sad I was the only person voting for it.

Our winner: BEYOND: TWO SOULS~!

I enjoyed what I played of this. Shame I was the only one.

Secondly, two special honourable mentions to The Stanley Parable and Don't Starve who lead the leaderboard for average points per entry with 9.5 and 9 respectively. But that's only half the formula needed to poll in the votes, so did they make the list?

Last honourable mention is to a game NOT making the list, XCOM: Enemy Within who missed out on 25th place by .83333r points.

Stay tuned for Game #25!

[Benji]

B:TS got knocked off of mine in favour of Papers, Please. I'm happy with my decision.

[Sam]

Beyond two souls was a great story but a boring game.

[Plubby]

#25

Lego Marvel Super Heroes

First released: 22 October 2013

On: All major consoles

Weighted Score:

85.333r

3 Nominations, 5.333r Points per Vote.

One of nearly 50 Lego videogames, I am pretty much the only person I know of who hasn't played one. Join the various heroes of Marvel as they attempt to stop the creation of the "Doom Ray of Doom"!

Next time: We stay in the pencil-and-ink world!

[Kaney]

Does this really need to be strung out one game every twenty four hours?

[TEOL]

Yeah, at this rate it won't even be 2013 when it finishes.

[Plubby]

Does this really need to be strung out one game every twenty four hours?

That wasn't on purpose, I had other things on. Thanks for stopping by the thread, I am pleased that tension of the countdown has reached fever pitch for you.

[Plubby]

#24

Batman: Arkham Origins

First released: 25 October 2013

On: PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U, PC (Available on Steam)

Weighted Score:

100

4 Nominations, 5 Points per Vote.

The first (apparently) of the Arkham series of Batman games to introduce multiplayer elements (so says wikipedia), Origins is the third installment of this wildly popular series. It was not as well received critically as it has been by our beloved EWB'ers so here's hoping the inevitable fourth installment catapults higher up the list!

Next time: The first of our cutely-retro-graphics indie games!

[Plubby]

#23

Rogue Legacy

First released: 27 June 2013

On: Playstation Family (3, 4, Vita), PC (Available on Steam)

Weighted Score:

133.3333r

3 Nominations, 6.6667 Points per Vote.

I really like the concept of this game's mechanics, and given that it is 50% off on Steam (link in the above doobly-doo.) as we speak I may just snaffle it up. It's got some rogue-like elements (Rogue-LITE as they've dubbed it) and each character you play has a unique quirk which I can imagine makes it immensely replayable. Having said that, reviews make it sound a touch difficult or perhaps unforgiving, so maybe for the sake of both my hand and monitor I might have to do some yoga or meditate before playing it. It garnered positive reviews online and those of you who played it among us really dug it, so maybe you'll like it too! (Again - on sale on Steam, link's above.)

Next time: From retro graphics and indie to modern graphical technology and among the least indie franchises in gaming history

[GoGo Yubari]

Rogue Legacy isn't so much really hard as it is time-consuming by design. Any game I'm capable of beating is probably not that hard.

[TKz]

It's not hard, it's more of a grind than anything, really. You'll die constantly even when you've learned the mechanics, but you're meant to. You go in, play five minutes before dying, spend your gold on upgrades and so on then do it again. Except this time, you last a minute or so more. I haven't played a ton of it since beating the first boss, but I expect to enjoy it way more when it comes out on Vita. I'm more likely to put time into it if I can play it on the go. And it's kind of perfect for that, too.

[GoGo Yubari]

I played it on my laptop while watching TV, particularly during commercial breaks. It's perfect for that.

[Monkey D. Lars]

Arkham Origins should be up way higher.

[TKz]

No, it really shouldn't. A bug riddled inferior rehash of another game. I'd put every game in the list of missed games (outside of Beyond) ahead of it. It's not even close to the best superhero game on this list so far. And there's only one other superhero game thus far. (which happens to be really good)

[Plubby]

#22

Super Mario 3D World

First released: 21 November 2013

On: Wii U

Weighted Score:

144.5

2 Nominations, 8.5 Points per Vote.

Old familiar. It wouldn't be a Nintendo console without Super Mario, and here's a game that polled strong but infrequently. Which is kind of a metaphor for my personal life right now. Ahem. It's earned rave reviews from the critics too so if you have the console you should really be giving this a run.

Next time: We stay Nintendo, but go handheld! What will be the first handheld-exclusive game into The List?!

Note: Sorry for only 1 tonight, got wrapped up playing DuckTales.

[zero]

Arkham is fine, but TKz is right, it didn't do anything new. It was unfairly bashed for being unoriginal while plenty of other series get a yearly pass for that exact same problem, but it wasn't one of the 20 best games of the year.

Now Super Mario 3D World, that should be way, WAY higher. Criminal to not have it in the top 5.

[Your Mom]

If I had a WiiU I am sure Mario would have been way high on my ballot

[Sousa]

I'd have probably ranked Mario except, well, the Wii U is a Christmas gift, it's still in my bedroom, and I don't have the game yet.

[TKz]

Arkham is fine, but TKz is right, it didn't do anything new. It was unfairly bashed for being unoriginal while plenty of other series get a yearly pass for that exact same problem, but it wasn't one of the 20 best games of the year.

Now Super Mario 3D World, that should be way, WAY higher. Criminal to not have it in the top 5.

I agree with the sentiment, because Call of Duty gets a yearly pass from most reviewers, but I didn't really have that problem with Arkham Origins. My problems were that the story ended up being way weaker than it could have been (OH IT'S THE JOKER AGAIN, FUCK USING THE REST OF THESE INTERESTING CAST MEMBERS) and the end boss was the same thing every other Arkham game has used. Boss battles have always been the weakest part of these games, but I think overall Arkham just disappointed for me. They had a great chance to tell a story with any of the other Batman villains that could've been fantastic. But nope. It's just Joker again.

Though I'll admit one of the strongest parts of the game was easily when you played as Joker. Also fuck them for promising the entirety of Gotham City and like 90% of that is a bridge and a slightly retextured Arkham City. And that wasn't even done very well, they left in a bunch of stuff that made no sense, like huge walls and the like. Asset reuse bugs the fuck out of me.

And to be fair on the Super Mario 3D World thing, I think only like 5 members here even own a Wii U.

[GoGo Yubari]

Yeah, I outright groaned when I realized that it was going to be The Joker again. One of the most exciting parts to me was that it wasn't him as the main villain.

I didn't have the problem with bugs because I was patient and waited a month for it to go on sale for $30, at which point most of the bugs were fixed. That being said I think it had some problems with not being nearly as intuitive as the first two games at points. I'll forgive a lot because of the Deathstroke fight, though, because that was great.