5. Antichamber

Developer/publisher: Demruth

Platform: Windows

Release Date: January 31, 2013

Ars Technica review

It’s in vogue today for games to emphasize how “realistic” they are; how well they emulate the real world. Personally, I think that’s kind of limiting. The whole point of video games is that you can simulate things that don’t bear even the slightest relationship to the real world; things that are better than the real world. Sure, plenty of games take advantage of this by indulging in fantasies surrounding super powers or science-fiction machinery or fearsome creatures. Antichamber goes the extra step of creating a world where the basic laws of physics, optics, and spatial relations are turned on their head.

Stepping into Antichamber’s world of magical realism requires forgetting the laws of perspective and object permanence that you’ve spent your entire life learning. Like a toddler, you have to figure out how even the most basic elements of the world work step by painful step, tinkering with the impossibly shaped rooms and hard-to-conceive looping hallways to determine their inner workings. Refreshingly, the game doesn’t hold your hand, forcing you to pay attention to your surroundings and small scraps of clues to get through.

This only makes it all the more satisfying when you’re finally able to unscrew your brain, and things finally start to make their own kind of dream-world sense. It’s then that you realize the scale of the world-building achievement in Antichamber. Anyone can create a game that mimics the real world. Antichamber creates an entire world that’s much stranger, more fantastical, and more mind-bending than that.

-Kyle Orland

4. Grand Theft Auto V

Developer: Rockstar North

Publisher: Rockstar Games

Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360

Release Date: September 17, 2013

Ars Technica review

The rest of the gaming industry has had years to top 2008’s Grand Theft Auto IV, to ramp up open-world concepts like vehicles, destructability, superpowers, and on and on. But then Grand Theft Auto V showed up in a seemingly comical, late-night-infomercial fashion to top the also-rans of years past. How much would you pay for one main character? But wait, there’s more! We have three now! Bam!

That multi-protagonist design decision turned out to be pretty refreshing. Namely, it forced the Houser brothers, the game's writers, to build a world not just with three protagonists but also three "hometowns," letting players experience the slums, the Hollywood Hills, and the junkie-infested badlands alike. Nobody seems to agree on their favorite anti-hero (despite the obvious superiority of Trevor), which is a pretty good sign that the very well-acted plot finds the right balance between empathetic criminals and button-pushing dirtbags.

In terms of play, the series’ scope expanded in kind, complete with a "Red Dead Auto" setting in the game's meth-ridden hills. Everything from speed boats to biplanes to dune buggies just felt better with a bigger world, more substantial side content, and much-improved controls.

Pardon the early '00s-sounding pitch, but all that solo content does come with a fantastic online mode to match. Sure, the substantial multiplayer heists are still just teases at this point, meaning some of the online-only content feels a little wimpy compared to the solo portion's coolest content, but GTA Online still delivers enough sandbox insanity to keep pals entertained in the meantime. In terms of sheer bang-for-buck—with no reason to spend a penny on DLC—GTA V clearly wins on supermarket shelves in quantity and quality combined.

-Sam Machkovech

3. Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Developer/publisher: Blizzard Entertainment

Platforms: Windows, Mac OS

Release Date: August 16, 2013 (closed beta)

Ars Technica impressions

No. 3 might seem like a high ranking for a game that’s still in beta, and I’ll admit there are still some minor bugs and card balancing issues affecting Blizzard’s latest title. Compared to other games on this list, Hearthstone is also almost completely lacking in narrative, and its gameplay, at its base, is relatively limited, consisting merely of playing various cards in various orders to reduce a number from 30 to zero.

Regardless, I placed Hearthstone so high because it’s the game I’ve consistently returned to when I find myself wanting to play a game for fun, rather than for work. A good chunk of my free time these days is taken up by choosing different combinations of the few hundreds of cards available in my collection, drawing them in a random order, and deciding how best to deploy them to eliminate my opponent. The sleek interface and a design that keeps individual games at 10 minutes or so make it incredibly easy to just get lost in a “one more game” spiral that Blizzard is already well-known for.

Despite the simple-to-learn mechanics, each minute of a Hearthstone game is full of important strategic decisions regarding when to push on aggressively and when to hold back for a later advantage. There’s an element of luck involved, but Blizzard has done its best to limit its role, and, like poker, getting good cards is often not as important as getting a good read on what the opponent wants to do and what he wants you to do.

The fact that I haven’t paid a cent for Hearthstone yet hasn’t diminished my enjoyment of the game one bit, even if it’s occasionally annoying to see opponents play with decks of powerful cards they obviously paid for. I’ll be perfectly content to earn my cards simply by continuing to play the game, which I’m sure I’ll do for many more hours well into 2014. I can’t say that about most other games on this list.

-Kyle Orland

2. The Last of Us

Developer: Naughty Dog

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Platform: PS3

Release Date: June 14, 2013

Ars Technica review

No game story this year has stuck with me more than that of The Last of Us. It’s possible that no video game narrative overall has had more staying power in my memory. This is all the more impressive because it’s treading over a post-apocalyptic zombie genre that has been trod to the point of flatness over the past few years. Much like last year’s Walking Dead game adaptation, though, the zombies are merely window dressing for an intensely human story of survival and connection in dire circumstances.

The story in The Last of Us is almost entirely linear and told primarily through passive cut scenes, yet it deals with aspects of moral choice better than most games with more branching narratives and integrated morality systems. At its core is the superbly crafted relationship between Joel and Ellie, a relationship that’s never quite as simple as the paternal protectionism displayed on the surface. The way these two protagonists deal with each other is constantly in flux, and it's revealed through some sharp writing and subtle, evocative motion capture work. The ending, which I watched on the edge of my seat, seemed at once shocking and also completely in fitting with the characters I’d grown to know and care about over the course of the game.

None of that is to take away from the game itself, which is a masterwork of building tension. Everything from scrounging for limited resources to human and zombie antagonists that don’t act like automatons to the sheer impact and desperation of the hand-to-hand combat contributes to a strong, pervasive feeling of struggle and survival. The beautifully detailed, dilapidated world Joel and Ellie wander doesn’t hurt either, and it represents a high point in environmental design for the end of the console cycle.

The only real sour note is a tendency near the conclusion for the game to descend into the kind of endless wave-of-enemy gunfights and action set-pieces that the rest of the game had so studiously avoided. All in all, though, it’s not enough to significantly take away from Naughty Dog’s master class on cinematic game design.

-Kyle Orland

1. Papers, Please

Developer/publisher: 3909

Platforms: Windows, Mac OS

Release Date: August 8, 2013

Ars Technica review

This year's best games include high-octane blockbusters, addictive grinds, and a few "serious" curios. Papers, Please can probably be slotted into that last group, but don’t assume it emphasizes message at the expense of enjoyable gameplay. In spite of its rudimentary looks and seemingly simple play, Papers, Please stands above the fray as a combination of all things video games can and should be: a hooky play experience married together with a unique, artistic statement that can only exist in an interactive form.

The game's mechanics, divorced from its plot, is akin to a casual puzzler—almost like Minesweeper, except human lives replace the flags and mines. Your challenge revolves around finding differences and errors in documents while manning a passport inspection station. This impactful twist on the "hidden picture" genre ramps up beautifully as the game progresses, with enough rule changes to keep the boat rocking smoothly and force things from becoming too rote.

But the gameplay in Papers, Please doesn't exist in a vacuum; your role, as the guardian of an oppressive regime's border patrol, impacts the narrative in important ways. On the surface level, how you play eventually feeds one of a variety of endings, from failure to compliance to revolution. On an emotional level, the game's disheveled citizens (and the status of your own, unseen family) respond to you, the gatekeeper, in ways that are meant to make you feel bad for excelling at the gameplay or making certain moral choices.

You cannot reach the game's end without destroying a few lives—without taking an active role in at least one type of downfall—upending the usual good-guy-bad-guy dynamic in a way that other, more passive art forms just can’t match. And it’s all tucked into a truly playable, addictive game that makes critical darlings like Spec Ops: The Line look like Call of Duty in comparison. Do not leave the year 2013 without having your gaming passport stamped by Papers, Please.

-Sam Machkovech