The Beginner’s Guide (PC): The Beginner’s Guide, like 2013’s The Stanley Parable, is a videogame about videogames. Both were written by Davey Wreden and use voice-over narration to great effect, but that’s where the similarities end. While Stanley examined the relationship between players and games through repetition of a single scenario, The Beginner’s Guide is instead a collection of brief, distinct games, all building atop one another to examine… well, it would spoil the experience to finish that sentence. It's a 90-minute game best finished in a single sitting that made me question a lot of my own desires about making things for other people. ---Daniel Feit

Bloodborne (PS4): If you've never played a Souls game before, your first foray into the brutal worlds of Hidetaka Miyazaki might be a rough one. After all, their biggest draw is sometimes considered their biggest drawback: they're hard as hell. Like its predecessors, the horror-themed Bloodborne revolves around a precise, unforgiving combat system that won't hesitate to erase hours of progress if you make a foolish mistake. Don't confuse ruthlessness with cruelty, however. Bloodborne is a tough teacher but a fair one, slamming you down to the mat over and over because it wants you to learn. Keep getting up. There are few gaming thrills as intense as the moment when a formidable enemy finally falls at your feet, and you know for certain that you've earned it. ---Laura Hudson

Cibele (PC): When game developer Nina Freeman was in college, she fell in love and had sex for the first time with someone she met online. Cibele, the slice-of-life game she made about the experience, draws us into the fantasy roleplaying game where young "Nina" met her digital beau, and allows us to listen in as they slowly forge a relationship over voice chat. In an even more voyeuristic twist, it lets us poke around in the chats, selfies and emails on "Nina's" hard drive to see the ripples the romance creates in her online and offline lives. First love and digital love are complicated experiences to be sure, but Cibele depicts the space where they overlap as deeply affecting and absolutely real.

---Laura Hudson

Her Story (PC, Mobile): What is this computer I'm in front of? Why am I here? Who am I? What happens when I start typing? Sam Barlow's groundbreaking indie game turns out to be a murder mystery, one told through hundreds of out-of-order video clips. To find each clip, you have to pay close attention to what happens in the clips you have found, then enter search terms in the hopes of digging up more out of the game's database. There's a beautiful a-ha moment when the game's central mystery is laid bare, but when you hit that, and how, is all up to your own detective skills. Viva Seifert delivers one of the best live-action performances in any videogame, half because of her skills and half because most of the rest of the games with live video have been terrible. Her Story's success may open up designers' minds to other innovative methods of storytelling and puzzle gameplay, and maybe usher in a revolution of live video gaming. ---Chris Kohler

Metal Gear Solid V (PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC): Hideo Kojima's final Metal Gear Solid is also his most ambitious. Ditching the narrow, narratively focused structure that dominated the previous games (with the exception of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, which serves as a rougher test bed for some of the ideas here), this entry throws the player into large swaths of enemy controlled territory, giving you the ability to plan and execute missions when, where, and how you want them. It's a Metal Gear remarkably unlike other Metal Gears, which is its secret brilliance. Free from the structures and tropes that have defined it up until this point, you can the series start to have fun again. Its best moments are so carefully implemented, so precise, so simultaneously sinister and silly, that it's easy to imagine the joy that went into their creation. Even amidst a long and reportedly troubled development, Metal Gear Solid V feels like a game that's thrilled to exist. It's hard not to be equally thrilled to play it. ---Jake Muncy

n++ (PS4): It's about a ninja who moves fast, jumps high, and has a short lifespan. With no power-ups, n++ is a game of momentum: The ninja must build up speed to leap chasms and bounce off walls in just the right way or the ninja dies. The ninja will die a lot. The best thing about n++ is also the worst thing: the controls are so precise and your movement is so specific that your inevitable, repeated demises are no one’s fault but your own. Throughout its thousands of levels, n++ dances on the line between exhilarating and frustrating. It's frustrilarating. I can’t recommend it enough. ---Daniel Feit

Splatoon (Wii U): If you don't like shooting games, this is the shooting game for you. Hell, it's the shooting game for everyone. Part paintball fight and part Slip 'n Slide, Splatoon is a four-on-four battle to claim (and reclaim) as much surface area as possible with your team's shade of paint. Your "Inklings" can shift between human form, where you wield paint-dispensing guns, brushes and bombs, and squid form, where you can glide through that ink at lightning speed. A joyful, messy romp more interested in coloring than killing, Splatoon is perhaps the best argument to date for finally buying Nintendo's Wii U, and the rare shooting game that feels less like a war and more like a playground. ---Laura Hudson

Undertale (PC): If indie games have made a habit of taking the world by surprise, Undertale is the new grandmaster of surprises. What looked like a throwback RPG with simplistic graphics turned out to be one of the most emotional games of this or possibly any other year. Players can choose to spare every creature they encounter or kill without mercy, but the latter is easier said than done: credit the writing, the art, or the phenomenal music, but I’ve never seen a more lovable cast of characters in a game like this before. Undertale’s story changes based on how you play the game, but I don’t know if I can bring myself to experience a reality where I murdered Tsunderplane. ---Daniel Feit

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (PC, PS4, Xbox One): I can't get over the dialogue scenes in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Every one, no matter how insignificant, is well-staged. Characters move onto screen in a dynamic fashion, the camera moves in creative ways, and the protagonist Geralt moves and reacts organically. It's a tiny thing, but it goes a long way toward making the open-world shenanigans of The Witcher 3 feel authored in a way that open worlds so rarely do. Every moment, from the most epic to the most inane, feels like a part of a story, one tied together by the swashbuckling, monster-hunting wandering of Geralt of Rivia. Geralt is another rarity in open-world games: a player character who's an honest-to-god character, with motivations and a personality that extends beyond the machinations of the player. He's a great character, too, all dad jokes, Clint Eastwood frowns, and a penchant for subtle, bemused kindnesses. The Witcher 3 makes even the most random, insignificant quests feel like meaningful vignettes. It convinced me I could care about open worlds. It's bloody brilliant. ---Jake Muncy

Game of the Year---Super Mario Maker (Wii U): "Nintendo should make a Mario level creator!" is a refrain sung by Nintendo fans for decades now, and if it feels like it's taken way too long, it's only because the company waited until it could revolutionize the DIY gaming space. It's not just that Nintendo's Mario creation engine has intuitive controls, or cool features. It's that the act of creating, itself, is a game, and an exceedingly fun one at that. I've lost hours and hours just mesmerized in its loop; creating a little bit of a level, quickly playtesting it, tweaking it, and on and on. I've been thrilled to share my creations with others and get some nice comments in return. And it's been amazing to play the sometimes incredible levels that rise to the top of the millions that have been created and uploaded. It's also a perfect use of the Wii U's GamePad, something few and far between on the platform. It's worth buying a Wii U for Super Mario Maker, it's worth playing even if you haven't enjoyed other make-your-own-game-games, and it's a reminder that Nintendo may be down, but it ain't out by a longshot. ---Chris Kohler