A couple of months ago we asked you to vote on your favourite games of the year (up to the end of October, except for the blockbuster of the year award, which is still running now on the site). You’ve voted and now, in the coming weeks, we will unveil the results.
The process: Earlier in the year we asked you, our readers, to rank nine different games per category in order of preference (or how interested you are in a game, if you haven’t played it before). We have taken those rankings, averaged them up, and the resulting list below are the top four games – three runners up and the winner.
The Wii U hasn’t exactly had the greatest year in terms of sales, but what it has done remarkably well is provide us with compelling games to experience. We do have our fingers crossed that Nintendo can turn it around in 2014, because it really is a great console they have produced that has unfairly struggled in the market.
Disney Infinity: Disney’s Skylanders competitor is, in the opinion of many including us, much, much better than its inspiration. Taking Disney’s most valuable asset – its IP – and throwing it all together into a game that encourages creativity and gives fans of the various Disney franchises more ways to engage with their favourites makes for a game that parents will hate for the sheer cost of it, but collectors and fanatics will simply love.
Just wait to see what happens when Disney starts releasing Marvel and Star Wars miniatures and levels.
Pikmin 3: For many people, this was the first Wii U game that deserved the title of “system seller” – it was an exclusive experience that really played to the console’s strengths and offered an experience that was both deep and entertaining. If you have a Wii U, and you don’t have this game, then you’re absolutely missing out.
DuckTales Remastered: It’s impossible not to love the work that Wayforward has put into the remake of the classic platformer. DuckTales Remastered is a short game, in the end, but it’s also one of the finest looking 2D platformers you’ll ever play, and it has so much personality that it’s the kind of game you’ll finish in a single play through, love every second, and wish to yourself that there was more to it – not because you think you’ve been ripped off, but because you simply want more.
Pandora’s Tower: On the one hand, it’s a shock that Pandora’s Tower won this, because it is a “last gen” game, being a Wii title (and note, Super Mario 3D World is in the “blockbuster of the year” category to be revealed in the coming weeks, rather than the Wii U game of the year)
But on the other hand it’s not surprising at all. Pandora’s Tower is one of the most intelligent JRPGs you will ever play, bar none, and we would suggest that it deserves to be considered a work of art. It released far too late in the Wii’s life to get mainstream attention, but if there’s one game from the last gen that you haven’t played yet that you really should, it’s this one.
