The funny thing about many of the best videogames of the last year -- and we think this trend will continue -- is you didn't see them coming. Sleeper hits, the games that stay off the radar because they aren't part of the game industry's annual jillion-dollar marketing extravaganza, have occasionally popped up in years past -- who could forget the year Katamari Damacy won our hearts with little advance fanfare? There are more and more Katamaris these days thanks to the independent developers who must rely upon post-release word of mouth, not pre-launch hype, to sell their products. Of course, some of the overly hyped triple-A stuff turned out to be pretty great too. After much passionate debate, here's our list of the best games of 2013. Above: Saints Row IV (PS3/360/PC) The Saints Row series once imitated Grand Theft Auto's style of stealing cars and causing mayhem but has since distanced itself from its inspiration. Saints Row IV is the logical endpoint of that divergence, if by "logical" you mean "absurd." The action takes place in a game-within-a-game, a Matrix-like simulation that contains the usual criminal trappings but also grants super-powers. That means there’s little need for stealing cars or drive-by shootings when you can sprint across town in minutes or punch cops into the air. And since it's all inside a computer-generated environment, the next mission could occur anywhere: a side-scrolling beat-em-up, a stealth action game, or the 1988 John Carpenter film They Live. Saints Row IV is the first open-world game in years that actually feels open, because it disregards the notion that players must struggle in the early chapters. This is no rags-to-riches tale -- the ground floor is “super-powers” and it only gets better from there. – Daniel Feit

BioShock Infinite (PC, PS3, 360) There aren't a lot of mystery stories in videogames, and the fact Bioshock Infinite has one makes it special. The mysteries are where BioShock Infinite is at its best: Who are these people in the rowboat? Where are we going? For that matter, who am I? And am I going to like the answers? Infinite doles out answers bit by tantalizing bit as you make your way through Columbia, a floating city modeled on the prettiest and ugliest parts of America at the turn of the 20th century. Almost any time you hear a song playing on a radio in a corner, it's not just background music, it's a coded message dropping hints about the story's central mystery. The set pieces of Columbia are equal parts fascinating and unsettling; you want to stare and savor the details, but not for too long. As I argued in our Bummers list, Infinite didn't need to be a shooter. But if triple-A game publishers are going to make shooters, I'd like them to feature deeply imaginative worlds like this. – Chris Kohler

Grand Theft Auto V (PS3, 360) Until recently, I was a total Grand Theft Auto virgin. I'd played some GTA IV, but it simply wasn't good enough to keep me hooked once I got booted back to the beginning of a janky half-hour mission. So I was genuinely shocked that I enjoyed Grand Theft Auto V so much. I visited Los Angeles last weekend and couldn't escape thinking, "I've driven around here before" as Pet Shop Boys' "West End Girls" played in my brain. Uncanny realism pops up in the strangest places; one thing I most remember about GTA V is one of the canned, by-the-numbers side missions -- riding a motorbike all the way up a parking garage, sniping someone in the head and peeling out without being noticed. Mid-mission checkpoints and other niceties make it much less frustrating when the game's open world doesn't react the way you'd hoped and planned. This is more than just another sequel. It's the best Grand Theft Auto ever. – Chris Kohler

Ridiculous Fishing (iOS/Android) This standout mobile app feels like three games in one, and each lives up to the title. First you send your fishhook into the impossible depths and try to avoid all the fish, then once you snare something you try to catch everything you can as you reel in your haul. Finally, you shoot the fish before they can return to the sea. If this was the entirety of Ridiculous Fishing we’d still recommend it, but there’s also a story woven in via "Byrdr," a Twitter-like service in which the lone fisherman chats with his buddies about everything that happens. In a sea of nickel-and-dime mobile apps, Ridiculous Fishing stands out due to its high polish and expectations for the player. The steady stream of upgrades help players explore deeper areas, but the central fishing mechanic ultimately is one of skill. The only way to get that Mimic Fish is through mastery, not grinding. – Daniel Feit

Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS) Nintendo is slogging when it comes to the Wii U, but it's absolutely killing it on the handheld 3DS. The game that shined brightest was the darling animal-town life-simulator Animal Crossing: New Leaf. In the months following its North American release last summer, the game hit a fever pitch. It seemed every 3DS owner in America was busy palling around with a pack of anthropomorphic animals, issuing mayoral decrees and stressing about the proper tree formation to maximize island bug-catching revenue. Thanks to the online functionality of the 3DS, it was easy to do all of these with your friends. And with StreetPass showing off a model of my home to friends and strangers, I had more of an incentive to make the place look nice. – Bo Moore

The Last of Us (PS3) Just when you thought you were over zombie games, along comes The Last of Us, an artful, emotionally powerful survival game set in a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by a Cordyceps (read: zombie) pandemic. As Joel, a mercenary hired to protect a "special" young girl named Ellie, you journey across a ravaged United States where you face monsters, cannibals, and moments of unexpected beauty. It's a brutal game at times, but not without reason: The shooting and shivving (at least between the moments of excellent stealth gameplay) is ugly business, but it's also the rhythm of survival — and the crucible that forges the relationship between Joel and Ellie. She quickly becomes the only thing Joel has to live for, and the reason he's willing to do increasingly horrible things to protect her. But unlike most games, this doesn't absolve him or make him a hero. By the end, The Last of Us is about more than learning to survive. It's about realizing when holding on to something you love is the most selfish act possible and the real act of bravery is letting go. – Laura Hudson

The Stanley Parable (PC) What began two years ago as a quirky mod for Half-Life 2 became one of 2013's most inventive releases -- a game that satirizes the very people who play it. The Stanley Parable is self-aware in the sense that it knows what you, the "gamer," want from it. You expect your decisions to mean something. You expect to have a certain type of influence on the way events in this interactive narrative unfold. The Stanley Parable knows about these expectations and abuses them, good-naturedly. We think. – Ryan Rigney

Super Mario 3D World (Wii U) I was a little bummed that this wasn't a single-player game, but darned if I didn't end up pulling marathon sessions through 3D World every spare moment I got. I think EAD Tokyo has more good ideas before breakfast than most platform game designers have in a year. Every single level you enter in Tokyo's Mario games is different than the last, populated with some new spin on the run-and-jump formula. It's easier to forgive Nintendo for obstinately refusing to consider experimenting with altering the style, the story, the character of Mario games (as it would have in years past) when the fundamental gameplay is never content to rest on its laurels. And the Bowser fight might be the best ever. – Chris Kohler

Gone Home (PC, Mac, Linux) One of the best games of the year doesn't have a single weapon, enemy, or even any characters that appear onscreen. Gone Home is a first-person exploration game set in an empty house, and it tells the story of a young woman who returns home from a year abroad to find her family mysteriously absent. It's also an experiment in exactly how much of ourselves we leave behind in the debris of our lives — the crumpled notes, discarded receipts and forgotten boxes in the basement. Why did your sister leave a note telling you not to look for her? Why is there a sobbing message on the answering machine? What really happened between your father and his uncle in 1963? The answers lie in the scraps you find scattered throughout each room, and how they coalesce in a surprisingly moving story about what happened to your loved ones while you were gone, and the secret pains and joys they carried all along. – Laura Hudson