I feel the best comeback award should've gone to Tomb Raider, because it's the first solid title in that series since Tomb Raider: Legends. While I don't think it was a great game, it was definitely a welcome step in the right direction for the series, focusing more intently on Lara as a character, and overhauling…

The defending Little Sister segments in Bioshock 2 are arguably the best gameplay elements in the series, since it really became a wave-based defense mode that used all of the game's weapons and abilities well. It just retread a lot of ground from the original, though its characters were a lot more fully realized…

Shadow Dragon was terrible (for a Fire Emblem game), but that's what happens when you re-release the first Fire Emblem with hardly any updates to the gameplay (and some of the ugliest character designs ever).

Super Mario Galaxy 2 was really the perfect distillation of everything that made 3D Mario games great. It may sound like ridiculously high praise, but I genuinely think it's one the greatest games of the last generation.

There was a movie tie-in game? I was just trying to get a quick shot in at the movie by reference to the awful Xbox 360 game. It turns out the situation was even worse than I thought…

I definitely got tired of the constant "Lara is falling down a chasm and barely surviving" trope, which undercut a lot of the tension the game was going for.

I was speaking more towards his adventure game idea, and that once an idea flames out, it becomes much harder for a developer to get another one, even though it may be substantially better, off the ground.

Because once upon a time, there was an Avatar: The Last Airbender game. And lo, just as with the M. Night Shabadoo movie, it was an abomination onto mankind, and was only played by Achievement horders for the easiest 1000 in the entire Xbox 360 library.

It's weird, because at first, I hated the necessity of the pairing system, because it seemed to counter-intuitive. Why would I want less units for my strategies? But after it became clear that it was a better version of the rescue system, I just rolled with it.

Gamesradar and the Escapist are both pretty reliable for GOTY stuff, but outside of that, can't really think of any other outlets that do good summation listing.

Hey, I'm still trying to remain competitive, it's just that other games keep me away from the metagame.

True, it's more of a rubbing-salt-in-the-wound kind of situation.

Well, the game is essentially a very pretty version of Rock-Paper-Scissors, so even the best planning can be laid to waste by one bit of bad luck. What part seems to be bothering you?

It's not the easiest Fire Emblem to play, to be sure. I'd say the most unexplained mechanic is the pairing system, which is practically essential in the early going of the game. It can take a little while to get into, at least until you start to really feel comfortable with the different strategy elements, but it…

It's been a good and bad year for DLC. For every Blood Dragon, ME3: Citadel, etc., there's also been the pervasive creep of microtransactions into even the most resistant developers' titles. Nowhere is it worse than the launch titles of the Xbox One, which by all accounts absolutely ruined Forza 5 and Crimson Dragon.

Galactic conquest? Because that would be awesome.

While I enjoyed the game immensely, I was really let down by the third act. Once the [redacted for spoilers] are introduced as a defeatable enemy, the game basically reverts to gunplay (which isn't particularly interesting) with very little of the stealthy, bow-and-arrow stalking that excited me for most of the game.

I liked Fire Emblem: Awakening because it is the culmination of Nintendo's greatest strategy series. Ever since 2003, when Fire Emblem finally reached the U.S. shores, I've been enamored by Intelligent Systems' perfect blend of strategy game and medieval narrative. Each entry has built upon features of the previous…

Guacamelee is probably my favorite game of the year, because it so perfectly blends the platforming, combat, and beautiful artistic style. It's just such a complete experience.

I've found myself in a weird position where I've bought a bunch of different games recently, and have stopped midway through some of the ones I was playing prior to the purchase frenzy. So, there's now a short list of games that take priority: Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Saints Row IV, Fire Emblem: Awakening (I need to…