Game of the Year 2013 Part 2: Special Awards

With 2013 quickly coming to a close we here at NoobFeed have been hard at work discussing, voting and coming up with a list of this year's best games. After much deliberation and a bit of cordial arguing we decided on a solid list of 2013's defining games. So without further ado here are NoobFeed's Game of the Year 2013 Special Awards:

Most Disappointing - The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct

How do you profit from the popularity of a notorious show? Well, you make a game about it and fill the cast with beloved characters from the show. Now fans of the show can take control of Daryl Dixon in the midst of the zombie outbreak shortly after his father’s death, in this cheap and lazy cash-grab. If you want to play a good The Walking Dead game stick to Telltale Game’s version.
Runner Up: Defiance

Best Downloadable Game - Rogue Legacy

Digital is here to stay and it’s rapidly overtaking the physical world for dominance. Few are those who can still stay a bastion of tangible releases, certainly as tons of prime features are exclusively available online. This year, Rogue Legacy proved that it could not only overturn old conventions of death and progress; it also built a highly addictive game in that vision. Just one playthrough is never enough when there’s so much to discover time and again, as if it were new, but with touching familiarity. Practice makes perfect and this trial filled with inescapable peril is perfect practice.
Runner Up - Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Best Story: BioShock Infinite

BioShock Infinite gave us everything we wanted: a dazzling new environment to explore, a captivating original soundtrack and impressive battles with varied enemy types. All on top of an incredible story that left many guessing until the very end, yet still left us shocked. BioShock Infinite took everything that was beloved about the franchise and refined it into something magnificent; a true masterpiece.
Runner Up - The Last of Us

Best Soundtrack - Grand Theft Auto V

Half the fun of Grand Theft Auto V is cruising around in your brand new, recently stolen vehicle and switching between radio stations, discovering new music and remembering the classics. With fifteen radio stations and well over 200 songs, the music of Grand Theft Auto V has something to offer for everyone. Def Leppard, Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar, Johnny Cash and Snoop Dogg are a few of many artists that can be heard while driving around San Andreas. The game not only offers license tracks but, unlike previous games in the series, GTAV uses an original score that can be heard throughout the entirety of the game.
Runner Up - The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

Best New Character - Ellie (The Last of Us)

Motion captured and voiced by Ashley Johnson, Ellie is a powerful example of a young woman struggling to come to terms with the horror and pain that comes along with the apocalypse. Surely she handles things well on her own, yet her relationship with Joel only strengthens the love for her character. Her humor, honesty and tough wit make for one person you would want on your side during a crisis, but still players can't help but be protective of her. With a back story explored more in depth with The Last of Us comic books, one cannot help but be excited to see more of Ellie in the upcoming DLC entitled Left Behind.
Runner Up - Trevor (Grand Theft Auto V)

Best Voice Acting - The Last of Us

If you didn’t feel anything after completing The Last of Us than you’re either lying or didn’t play the game. Naughty Dog has done an extraordinary job of convincing the player to care about each of these characters, making the emotional scenes that more forceful and the many depressing situations even more calamitous. Whether it was Joel lamenting about the past or a bandit begging for his life, each character, both minor and major, felt like a real person with each word that passed through their lips.
Runner Up - Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Best Art Direction - Rayman Legends

When one puts all his heart into one’s work, the result tends to be easy to notice and hard to forget. Polar areas with various types of fruit as platforms, desert levels centered around musical instruments,  a cast of charismatic heroes, always wearing a smile on their faces, foes whose fierceness is drowned in a flood of bright colors bursting with life that eventually get tempered as you dive underwater is what you’ll find in Rayman Legends. Wearing it like a glove and waking the inner child in all of us it was difficult not to commend it for its unique art style.
Runner Up - The Last of Us

Funniest Game - Saints Row IV

Satire was the only word that came to my mind when playing Saints Row IV. Nothing was taken seriously in this adventure to save the world from aliens, whether it was saving the world naked or engaging in casual sex. With sharp writing, insane superhuman powers, crazy weapons and endless customizable options it was hard not to explore the open world of Steelport without giggling a few times.
Runner Up - Guacamelee!

Worst Game - Aliens: Colonial Marines

You would think a notoriously popular studio like Gearbox Software, creators of the Borderlands franchise, would’ve ensured that the video game adaption of the beloved Aliens franchises would’ve been worth playing. How wrong we were. Instead we were given a game that was teeming with bad A.I., unbalanced gameplay, low quality graphics and tawdry multiplayer. It was shameful to see Gearbox take such a quality trademark and used it to create this monstrosity.
Runner Up - Ride to Hell Retribution

Best Indie Game - Rogue Legacy

Those thinking that gaming has run its course of ideas need to look at independent developers, who escape tried and true molds with ever refreshing designs. With side-scrolling platforms as its base, Rogue Legacy was the one to surprise audiences the most this year, throwing a huge curveball in how these sorts of games are played. Permanent death is just a stepping stone, old environments are new challenges and forced linearity is only a suggestion. Despite only having a few pixels to present its action, attempts keep players holding off any other project, while they play one more round, forever.
Runner Up - Kentucky Route Zero

There you have it - NoobFeed's Game of the Year 2013 Special Awards. Be sure to check out part one of our GOTY awards - Genre Awards. And because we know you love a tease, we're holding out to announce our official 2013 Game of the Year. Stay tuned and find out what game claims this coveted award: BioShock Infinite, The Last of Us of Grand Theft Auto V.

NoobFeed Staff
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