Topic: The New Yorker's Top Ten crucial Games of 2013.

We complain about the state of Games Journalism and how top ten lists have become gentrified with whoever's giving them the most money. So its refreshing to see a list of games that's pretty diverse and well written to boot. Each of the big three has games on the list but its not the games you'd expect.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/12/the-mo...

10.Tearaway
9.The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
8.Candy Box
7. Saint's Row IV
6. ridiculous fishing
5. Pikmin 3
4. State of Decay
3. Super Mario 3D World
2. The Stanley parable
1. Paper's Please

.... Saint's Row IV? Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm... I guess I'm the only one who sees that game as a cash-grab.... I wasn't impressed with State of Decay of either.
You're right. This list is not something I woulda expected. Its nice to see Tearaway instead of freaking Call of Duty, though.

Did you read the article because both games are summed up well.

State of Decay celebrates the tension of a survivor community in crisis in a post-apocalyptic, zombie-pocked landscape. You hole up in an abandoned house and venture out to connect with other local men and women, inviting them back to the expanding commune. These characters provide your “lives.” If a zombie bites you, control switches to the next comrade in line. If you run out of friends, the game is over, a systemic theme that echoes its story.

As the community grows, its burden does, too: you’ll need more food and medicine to sustain the group. The world’s diminishing resources create a mounting sense that you’re in a race against your own consumption. State of Decay has problems: it is a patchy, occasionally ugly game; it does a poor job of explaining its own rules; and the gunplay is functional, not refined. But it contains a vivid, interesting world, in which impromptu, unscripted stories arise with astonishing frequency.

Once known as a poor man’s Grand Theft Auto, Saint’s Row has blossomed into a game that boldly satirizes not only the bluster of modern criminality but, with it, contemporary game mechanics. Here, the wild-eyed, frat-boy humor of the narrative has been exaggerated to improbable proportions: the game opens with the protagonist climbing a nuclear warhead as it sways into the stratosphere, to Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing.” After disarming the nuke, he parachutes through the ceiling of the White House, where he ushers in a new Administration in which pimps occupy the most senior roles and new furnishings include dancing poles.

But the game soon reveals itself to be a postmodern blockbuster, pulling apart the “open-world” game premise and subverting expectations to glorious, often parodying effect. The game’s greatest accomplishment is perhaps in dispensing of the friction around play: there is almost no downtime between the action. Moreover, whether you’re throwing your character into traffic in order to file a false insurance claim or running to drop-kick an alien from the top of a skyscraper, the action is rarely less than thrilling. It is endlessly silly, but stronger for it.

Cash Grab doesn't mean the game isn't good or fun. For something that started off as an expansion pack for the Third game it turned out surprisingly well. Just like the third did it takes being a GTA Clone and owns it so damn well.

Having Played Mario and Zelda I can safely say that State of Decay is probably my favorite game of the year

Its a competent list but I'd probably kick Zelda off the list for say Animal Crossing or The Last of US.

I'll agree that it's a refreshing list. I don't agree with the choices, but I'd rather have a hipster list full of games I don't care about than a generic list that I could...actually, I wouldn't agree with it if it was a generic list, either.

...so yeah, I appreciate this list.

Tearaway from my understanding is currently competing with Wonderful 101 as the best game NO ONE PLAYED this year.

also cool little list that doesn't pretend Last of Us is the pinnacle of gaming. Sweet.

This is the only crucial game, now and forever:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2013-12-23/date-your...

Awful list. No Bioshock Infinite? Gone Home? Beyond: Two Souls? Why aren't these fools celebrating all the progressive story telling we've had in games this year?

Reminds me that I still want Saints Row IV.
I enjoyed Saints Row the Third's over-the-top, absolute ridiculousness - and Saints Row IV looks even more ridiculous!
Saints Row is the only GTA-style game I enjoy playing, because it doesn't take itself seriously!

lololololololololol forever

In my opinion I would get rid of Candy Box, Saint's Row 4, Pikmin 3 and 3D World for Grand Theft Auto V, Animal Crossing New Leaf, Pokemon X/Y and The Last of Us

Lol forever at all 3. If the stories in those games are "progressive" it's no wonder so many people doubt Video games as a storytelling medium...

I liked the approach to storytelling in Gone Home, but I couldn't get into the story itself. Besides, I'm pretty sure I've played Freeware games that took similar approaches and I'm pretty sure I liked those games a lot more. If only I could remember their names...

Bioshock Infinite, barring maybe one element of it, is really just a new twist on Bioshock's story. Which does make it better than the vast majority of gaming stories by a longshot, but it's not doing anything "progressive" whatever that means, unless you mean progressing my love for an FPS series again, which is nice.

Goodness, I haven't heard of half of those and I own only one. I guess that makes it an interesting list.

Infinite has the problem that as good as the world building and story telling is, the gameplay is pretty bad for an FPS and you notice it alot more in a adventure setting compared to a horror one.

I dunno, the gameplay's not great but I'd take it over a lot of shooters I've played over the past few years.