Splinter Cell Blacklist refined everything I liked about Conviction. The game feels more fluid than before, and the mission structure felt strong. Even the Co-oP being mixed in with the single player missions grew on me; making them feel more asserted into the situation at hand - which, by the way, really felt like it had impact this time - there were stakes. Spies vs Mercs came back and was very enjoyable for the most part; small tweaks to fix the FPS style the Mercs played in and the online could have faired better. The transition from Ironside to the new voice actually ended up working well as they played to the style and strengths of new actor Eric Johnson. Overall, one of the better stealth action games out on current platforms.
4 - Tomb Raider
It's no secret that I love a good action adventure. It's funny to think back to Uncharted being called out for taking cues from Tomb Raider, and now Tomb Raider taking them from Uncharted. Regardless, it was a great venture back to the first adventure of Lara. The skills and item upgrades worked very well and they brought the series back very strong. You grow with Lara in terms of her struggle and her change to ruthless machine, and while a little rushed maybe, it fits the character's journey. The ending gives you a solid nod to the classics in all the right ways but my only complaint were there were't enough tombs to raid, and the ones you got didn't do a whole lot. In the sequel I'm hoping for much more exploration and less shooting dudes in the face.
3 - Super Mario 3D World
I loved Mario 3D Land on 3DS, so it was easy for me to be all about this multiplayer high-def version on the Wii U. I really enjoy the Co-Op of the 'New' series and I think it's done well in World as well. I will say that playing alone is still great and on the gamepad is just fine too. The game is less floaty than most 3D Mario games which is great, the level design is fun, and I enjoy each character playing differently. I also love that each level scores who did the best to add in the Competitive Co-oP into the mix just for fun. Everything about the experience is tight and I love the diversity.
2 - The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
A true return to form, Link Between Worlds is pure enjoyment from start to finish. Even though you are in familiar territory, the game feels fresh and exciting. The dungeon designs are fantastic, the items are used in interesting ways, the pacing of this game is great. Everything about the game is just smooth. I've always loved the simple style of storytelling they use in Zelda games, and this one does a great job of it. I enjoy the idea of going wherever I want and doing this in any order; if you get stuck in one dungeon, go to another! Renting the items was an interesting idea and upgrading them was cool as well. Seriously, the first sentence was all I really wanted to put, it sums up the game perfectly. There really isn't much else to say!
1 - The Last of Us
I honestly thought about making this number 1 over Zelda for a while, but I thought from the moment I picked this up that it was my game of the year. The opening to this game is some of the best I have ever seen in games and it just continues from there. The characters are so well done, they play their parts very well, and the story is presented so well. The ending of this game still has a few of us talking about how it is up for interpretation - and that to me is really interesting. There are a ton of moments in this game to me that sell the experience and even mechanically I thought it was fine. Surprisingly the Multiplayer was pretty interesting and, to me anyway, not throughway. I love that this game allowed you to approach situations differently as well. I had a few talks with Doug about how he hated the end of the game because he had to run and gun and he didn't like that, while I actually stealthed through the whole section. Even when it came to the clickers, I always just walked slowly past them because you could, and never fight them ever, but most people will tell you how terrifying and annoying they can get. You can run around with a shotgun, you can run around with shivs, shoot, I even found at one encounter that if I just threw down a smoke bomb and snuck through a huge group that it was a super effective way to play. The game had options, but it had a story to tell, and to me it all worked as one great package.
-Eddie
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