Complex.com (yeah I don't know who they are) did a top 15 list.

#1. Bioshock Infinite
#2. Last of Us
#3. Tomb Raider

While B:I and LoU were a given, it is nice to see Tomb Raider is getting recognized on some sites. There were 3 or 4 others that did mid-year lists with Tomb Raider near the top.

I like the overall tone, the stealth mechanics (including using musical cues as a means to add that "I'm being watched" feeling you'd get if you were in such a situation), and I really like the world built and how it made me feel for the characters and the situation. Even how story was revealed through gameplay (like the sewers) rather than cinematics. It felt cinematic but I always felt like I was playing, even when I was watching.

I also like the different ways to approach combat and how I could prepare areas for incursion before I went to achieve an objective. An example of this was when I had to go into a dark room to turn on a generator. I got swarmed by clickers and they had a bloater with them. Since I prepped room (with explosives) and left myself one way out (that offered me the quickest route to the exit), I avoided a lot of unnecessary combat and bought myself time to escape (you even heard my charges laying waste to the infected in the bottom floor as I made my way to the exit). You are open to approach all but one combat scenario (the sole "boss fight" in the whole game) in like manner. That freed me to be created with how I approached almost every dangerous scenario.

The overall game was far more pleasing to me than Tomb Raider. Although there were branching paths, the areas didn't feel as big as the original game (which even had multiple dead ends to make it feel like you were really exploring), the puzzles, though fun, were rather simplistic, and the combat was a bunch of tedious shooting galleries that actually robbed the game of the "lone survivor" tension the cinematic sequences were struggling to create (only to be undermined by said shooting galleries that felt completely out of place). I really liked the game and it's Metroid-lite approach to gear/ability upgrades but it didn't really feel great to me. Just very good.

I can't speak for Bioshock Infinite as I've never played it.

Thanks, Roc...good write-up. I agree that LOU's biggest strength is that for most encounters there are multiple choices to getting through. I also like that going off the beaten path and scavenging for hidden items has a benefit beyond getting collectables for an achievement.

Other: Ni No Kuni

I haven't finished LOU yet. But to me, sometimes it feels like story goes against the gameplay. It's a great story that sometimes is derailed because I want to "play" more.

For example, I met someone, and he says, hurry up, we have to go to this place. If you follow the story you run behind him. But it's almost always better to not listen, and go exploring, you'll find a lot of good stuff, "make the game easier". But then they are just there waiting for you, like WTF man! So you kind of lose that "sync" with the story. Not sure if I explained this well.

But of course, there are also rewards if you pay extra attention:



Oh yeah, this is one of the most emotional games I've ever played.

Weird. I clearly saw Ellie pick that toy up in my playthrough. She even made a comment about it.

Hope you also stopped and listened to her when she whipped out the jokebook.

I missed at the jokebook part.

I think I missed it too, did I needed to stay still?

Tomb Raider is even worse about this. "OMFG that guy is bleeding out! I need to get to him NOW...oooh, an artifact!"

The part with the joke book was great. I actually stopped playing to hear all her puns and Joel's reactions to them.

I recall that she whips out the book when you need to climb a bus, after a group of hunters pass by where all these abandoned cars are just lying around (f you hide, the entire group will pass you by without incident and Ellie will announce when they are gone). I don't recall if you need to prompt the conversation with triangle or if she just starts talking on her own.

Yeah, I thought Tomb Raider was worse with the distractions. I like the minor ones in Last of Us so far, they don't diminish from the story and fit more properly to me.

Are people really calling Tomb Raider "game of the generation"???

I guess I need to play it and see if it's Really better than Mario Galaxy/Galaxy 2, Uncharted 2, Arkham Asylum, Bioshock, Half-Life 2, Portal/Portal 2, Fallout 3, Skyrim/Oblivion...and I'm sure some folks would add Gears to the list...and probably a bunch of stuff that isn't in my immediate memory.

Somehow, I kind of doubt it.

Well, "better" than those is a matter of opinion based on personal taste. But it's definitely of the same caliber as all those games.

In terms of gameplay it's tied with Mario Galaxy.

In terms of pacing, it's tied with Uncharted 2.

In terms of other aspects, it's a little behind the titles you mentioned.

I personally found Elder Scrolls * and Fallout 3 to be boring. I consider Half-Life 2 to be last gen.

Portal, Mario Galaxy and Tomb Raider are my top 3 games this gen with Uncharted 2 not far behind. The thing the first three get absolutely right is they're actually fun to play. Uncharted 2 had so-so gameplay but it was wrapped in awesome. and bacon.

I liked BioShock Infinite but found the gameplay incredibly dated. I had similar issues with BioShock - as involving as I found the atmosphere, storyline, music and everything, I couldn't shake the (even then) dated gameplay and ridiculous number of Pipe Dream puzzles. I had similar issues with Uncharted 1 and 3, and Last of Us - they are all well made games, but they didn't focus enough on making the game fun to play, though they are all worthwhile experiences.


And frankly, Tomb Raider gets extra points for being the only good Lost game.

I would say so far The Last of Us is my choice for GOTY. I really liked Tomb Raider but I think LOU edges it out barely(and I mean barely) because of the story and characters. Outside of Lara there weren't very many memorable supporting characters that you really cared about. But ugh its hard to chose between those two.
I put BI in a distant third because it's a great game. Don't get me wrong. But Bioshock is in my top ten all time favorite games. Because of that it was very hard for me to look at BI and not think of the original. Plus Columbia just wasn't a better setting Rapture. Truth be told, having the Bioshock name probably hurt this game from being able to stand on its own.

Half-Life 2 is definitely last gen to me as well.

That's more of a general video game trope though and hard to level against one when they both are guilty.

That's what I found funny in that discussion. The BI camp says it's hard to care about the secondary characters in TR but in the end I cared for Lara and that's one more person than I cared for in Bioshock.

I'm not sure what's funny, I don't think Infinite fans (myself included) would disagree about caring for Lara. It's the comment that the secondary characters were interesting or had "personalities" that was the contention.

I didn't connect with Lara at all. Well, I did up to a point. The game had me all the way 'til Lara's first kill and climb up the radio antenna. Shortly afterwards, I suddenly had what felt like unlimited ammo just for the sake of being in a location where it was scripted I'd gun my way through like 20+ guys. The game has way too many moments like this that completely rob it of the tension the story is trying to make. I found myself insting on the bow and arrow even in said shooting galleries to make it feel like Lara was outmatched. But the reality is that she's Rambo if he was perplexingly whining and crying while savagely murdering "nameless henchman #305". And then they try to overcompensate for this by the scripted abuse Lara goes through. Recast Lara with Bruce Campbell and you'd swear Sam Raimi wrote/directed those sequences. Even with Lara in them, I still wouldn't be surprised if Sam Raimi had a hand in the scripted punishment in the game.

I do agree with RichC2, however, that it can come across as a good Lost game. The history of the island was certainly loads better than the Jacob/Man In Black nonsense the show had.

Yeah, there were some iffy game choices in Tomb Raider, one of them was the "clear the room" gameplay - and yet those didn't bother me despite playing them and thinking "Man that's lazy" - I've sadly run into the same issue with almost every game this generation, but they were actually fun to me in Tomb Raider.

Lazy gameplay mechanic:

Clear the area of bad guys. I don't care what game you are, doing that more than 1 time in a game and that's either 1) the purpose of the game or 2) lazy. It's heavily dependent on how much "fun" it is to do as such - Gears of War: Fun, Tomb Raider: Fun, Uncharted 2: Not so much (Seriously, I really hated the gun fights in that game.) It was disheartening to see this rear its head in BioShock: Infinite as well.

I had that issue with Bioshock Infinite. You'd have mini levels that you had to clear before moving on. It wasn't fluent like the original where you'd just run into roaming enemies or Big Daddies. The original still had sectioned off areas for loading purposes but it never felt broken up like Infinite's levels. The sky rails just reinforced it since rails never took you to different areas, they just circled that specific 'arena.'

I didn't mind it so much in Uncharted 2 but I hated it in Uncharted (how many flak jackets were those pirates wearing?) and disliked it in parts of Uncharted 3.

Around the time I got to, where was it, Nepali village or something in Uncharted 2 the game had become nothing but run and gun clear-the-room battles. I almost didn't finish it because of that (but pushed through since it was at the 75% point or so)

I noticed the same thing happened in Tomb Raider, but never felt like quitting.

Yeah, that's the Unreal Engine 3 limitation I was talking about in the B:I thread. What's funny is Borderlands runs on a modified UE3 engine and feels much more open, so I'm not sure why they couldn't go that route.

The "areas" in Infinite got confusing because of the loading cross-overs, and the rails seems tremendously trivial.

Half-Life 2 is most definitely last gen. It came out in 2004 for PC and original Xbox. The Xbox 360 didn't launch until 2005.

Using those rails looked so much cooler in the commercials and trailers.