Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is the best game of 2014

It appears that gaming's transition year has turned into transition years. The first full calendar year for next-generation consoles PS4 and Xbox One failed to spur the release of more than a handful of great games—and most of those high-scoring releases were merely re-releases of older titles for the new platforms.

For the second straight year, just 11 console games (representing 9 unique titles) scored 90 or higher. Of those, only three were new games rather than ports of previously released titles. Overall, there were just 14 90+ releases in 2014 (see list at the bottom of this page), the lowest such total since 2006.

Even this year's highest-scoring new release—Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. for Wii U—had a significantly lower Metascore than previous Metacritic Game of the Year winners. Three other products actually surpassed Smash Bros.'s 92, but all three (including XB1 and PS4 versions of 2013's best game, Grand Theft Auto V, as well as a PS4 release of 2013's The Last of Us) were remastered ports of older titles, leaving Smash Bros. as the year's highest-scoring new game.

Over the following pages, we'll reveal 2014's best-reviewed games for each individual platform. Before that, here's a quick look at how the various game platforms compared this year:

Console/PC Comparison - 2014 Console # of Scored

Games* Score

Distribution Average Metascore Great Games**

( 90 or higher) Good Exclusives**

( 75 or higher) PlayStation 4 146 73,63,10 72.0 5 4 Xbox One 98 47,48,3 72.4 1 6 Wii U 74 29,34,11 66.8 3 9 PC 338 132,189,17 70.4 1 45 PlayStation 3 98 35,53,10 68.0 1 2 Xbox 360 71 20,45,6 66.7 1 0

Handheld Comparison - 2014 Console # of Scored

Games* Score

Distribution Average Metascore Great Games**

( 90 or higher) Good Exclusives**

( 75 or higher) Nintendo 3DS 72 26,36,10 67.3 1 17 PS Vita 84 27,55,2 70.1 1 5

And here are 2014's best-reviewed titles, regardless of platform (iOS games are excluded; they're ranked in a separate article):

Turn the page for best/worst games by platform ...

Continue to the next page for rankings of the best and worst 2014 games released for each platform, including the top titles exclusive to each platform.