The Best Video Games of 2013 (So Far)

This year will go down in video game history as the time Xbox and PlayStation cornered one another in their biggest battle—with blades drawn, in front of the entire world and demanded each other's beating hearts on a pixeled platter.

Other than the impending (and somewhat manufactured) console war, we will also remember 2013 as the year that Nintendo doubled down on the Wii U—solidifying the future of the console, and some might say the company itself, by embracing new and old franchises within their broad stable of upcoming titles.

With 2013 nearly half way over, we still have much to look forward to from the gaming industry. Two major video game conventions (PAX East and E3) came to a close and we're now slack-jawed at the enormity of what's waiting for us down the line this holiday season.

Watch Dogs, Grand Theft Auto V, Call of Duty: Ghosts, FIFA 14, NBA 2K14, and so many more await us in the second half of the year and considering that the first half has been filled with one absurdly ground-breaking title after another, we can only hope that 2013 will always be looked back on as the year that gamers were the ones that actually won the console wars. Now let's check out The Best Video Games of 2013 (so far) and discuss what made these releases so butt-clenchingly awesome.

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Developer: 4A Games

Set in post-apocaliptic Russia, it's up to you to defend mankind from the Nazi Reich. While most gamers would agree that the story telling can be slow at times, it still doesn't take away from the beautiful disaster of Metro: Last Light. Developers 4A Games did a top-notch job creating the despair of roaming a nuclear wasteland where if the mutated wildlife doesn't do you in, the radioactive environment will. There's so much to worry about—from splashing around in contaminated water to breathing in the putrid air. Not since Fallout 3 have we been so immersed in such a desperate position to stay alive.

Developer: Crytek

Crysis 3 was over-the-top unbelievable like a July 4 summer blockbuster movie and we loved it. The wide array of weapons made it difficult to decide which to use to turn enemies into ground round but somehow, we found our way through the battles of Bishop to save a nano-domed New York City from the greedy mitts of the evil CELL Corporation. Though badass, the skin-tight nanosuit was a bit much even with its super-human powers. That is, unless you're a part of a jerking dance crew.

Developer: Techland

It's hard to believe that zombie video games are still around after Telltale Games put the digital smash on the sub-genre with the highly acclaimed Walking Dead video game. Dead Island: Riptide maintains the zombie lifeline with grotesque kills and heart-stopping action all the way through. The peaceful island setting provides the perfect ironic twist for a blood and guts massacre-fest you get for $60.

Developer: NetherRealm Studios

Straight from the brain of Mortal Kombat's creator Ed Boon, Injustice: Gods Among Us gave both comic book geeks and video game nerds an extra boost of excitement with extreme fighting moves like Superman's special move where he punches his opponent into outer space, flies up to meet them and then pounds them back to earth. Such extreme gameplay made Injustice an immediate favorite of fighting game enthusiasts as the theatrics added a metaphorical exclamation point to a hard earned win.

Developer: Level-5/Studio Ghibli

As far as role playing games go, Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch was the best to come out this year so far. Designed by the award winning Studio Ghibli team responsible for the anime classics, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke and Ponyo the lighthearted title effortlessly smashed the perception that it was just another kids game poised to sell merchandise.

While the game itself played like most Japanese RPGs with a slower developing story than role players in the west, it was the seamless animation and fantastical art style that made it the must-have video game for the PlayStation 3. If you've over looked this amazing yet slept on game, do yourself a favor and pick it up. You won't be disappointed.

Developer: Re-Logic

While immediate comparisons to Minecraft are unavoidable, Terraria sets itself apart on plenty of decisively welcome levels.

Yes, there is crafting, and yes, there are design/construction elements that bear more than a passing resemblance to Minecraft. But that is where the similarities happily end. The entire experience is curated from a 2D, side-scrolling perspective and gives players a much more 'adventure' experience than Minecraft.

Completing quests with specific goals and interacting with NPCs are two of the major components that Terraria uses to define itself as seperate from the games that inspired it. The game is currently slaying on Steam, Xbox Live Arcade, and the PlayStation Network. The title has gone on to sell over 2,000,000 copies since its launch in January. Think of every LEGO fantasy you've ever had and multiply it by a million.

Developer: Iron Galaxy Studios

Moment of complete honesty here: I've been dying to talk to anyone that will listen about how fucking dope this game looks.

Capcom ruled the quarter cabinets of the 90s with plenty of phenomenal 2D beat-em ups. Anyone remember their Aliens vs Predator title? Still better than that garbage SEGA title whose name we will never speak again.

Anyway, Chronicles of Mystara is a perfectly curated, current day homage to those 2D arcade titles. Offering a much deeper RPG experience than it's two spiritual predecessors,Tower of Doom and Shadow of Mysatara, the game is a perfect love letter to both D&D nerds and Capcom arcade enthusiasts. A richly devoted commitment to the source material is sure to have D&D devotees checking how much they need for a saving throw against Beholders, Hippogryphs, and Gnolls. Mystara is perfect for you and four friends to play co-op as you relive the cartoony glory days of roller rinks and movie theater lobbies gone by.

Developer: Mike Bithell

While AAA studios spend untold millions creating games offering 'immersion' and 'emotional resonance' by making pupils dilate and pores clog, one designer managed to create a deeply compelling story using nothing more than geometric shapes and flawless voice acting.

Designer Mike Bithell originally created Thomas Was Alone as a flash game for browsers, and the game was quickly ported to Steam and the PSN in early 2013. Controlling simple anthropomorphized polygons that represent AI programs, players must control these programs, that have now gained sentience, through the inside of a computer main frame.

Each shape is a given a very clear and distinct personality conveyed through an almost hypnoticly British narrator. The game is a puzzle platformer that had us more emotionally invested in the well-being of mere shapes than some of the most expensive scripts that we played through in 2012.

Do yourself a favor, play Thomas Was Alone and surprise yourself at how much heart simple shapes can pack into this indie gem.

Developer: Dennaton Games

While the title eeked into the waning moments of 2012 for Windows users, Mac and Linux users had to wait till 2013 to be able to experience the blood soaked perfection of Hotline Miami.

While an overly simplistic definition of the top-down shooter might be Drive: The Video Game, the game leans on Nicolas Winding Refn's 2011 Ryan Gosling vehicle only as much as it needs to.

Sure the PERFECT soundtrack of droning synth from the likes of Sun Araw, El Huervo, and M.O.O.N propel the game into a trance-induced altered state, it's the game's unflinching embrace of ultra-violence that many pointed to with jaws hanging open. The neo-noir title has players take control of an anonymous, possibly insane, hit-man that takes commands from the voices (possibly in his own head) on his answering machine.

Jacket, as he is informally known, is the 'hero'. And he owes his nickname to his unchanging wardrobe of a varsity high school letter jacket. Each completed level sees the player rewarded with a new animal mask that grant you both anonymity and a changing power-up: invisibility to guard dogs, the ability to take more than one bullet, starting a level with a switch blade all offer players strategy suited to their play-style.

You will die A LOT in Hotline Miami, let's just make that very clear. The twitch fueled gunplay makes death seem like less of a scolding setback and more of a coke-fueled invincibility potion to be guzzled until your blood soaked varsity letter jacket needs to be wrung out. Again and again and again.

Developer: Ubisoft

Another title that owes its success to both the schlocky VHS action films of the 80s and an entire generation of game developers with a seemingly unquenchable thirst for nostalgia, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is one of the most self-aware titles we've played in years.

From its release announcement 'leaked' on April 1 most people assumed that the title was Ubisoft's contribution to the 'don't believe anything on the Internet on April Fool's Day' rule we've all learned to follow over the years. Really, how could a game that is set in the 'far-off' future of 2007, puts players in control of a 'Mark IV Cyber Commando' named Rex Colt, and has you battling wave after wave of cybernetic ninjas in what are very clearly motorcycle helmets be anything other than an elaborate joke?

When it's Blood Dragon is when. Employing James White, the same guy behind Drive's perfect movie posters, to create box art that snapped everyone's neck to attention, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is a stand-alone, download only title that built an entirely 'new' game from the Far Cry 3 engine. Sure you can see where the game was trimmed down and re-colored in every shade of neon available, but you could care less when you realize Michael Biehn is the voice actor for the hero, Sgt. Rex Power Colt (yes, that is his real name in the game. AMAZING).

The trailers for the title played on all the tropes of everything 80s and was decidedly tongue in cheek. A live-action trailer modeled after action figure commercials, animated trailers with perfectly rendered audio and video imperfections, and dragons with neon lasers spouting from their eponymous mouths. When the game opens to Little Richard's 'Long Tall Sally' being blasted through the cabin of your chopper, fans of the flawless classic action film Predator, knew exactly what Ubisoft had set out to accomplish with Blood Dragon. I don't think I've spent $12 bucks on anything that had me grinning like an idiot and wanting to high-five my pre-pubescent self so badly.

Developer: Blizzard

Heart of the Swarm, despite being billed as an expansion, is practically a new game unto itself. Indeed, it's even been described loosely as the second part of a three-part trilogy beginning with Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty (the original game) and ending with Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void.

In addition to adding new units and tweaking the game here and there, Heart of the Swarm added 20 new campaign missions to the mix. The new missions focus on fan favorite Sarah Kerrigan and the Zerg race, providing a much different perspective on events.

Most importantly, it's on this list because it's the only release so far this year that gave Starcraft junkies a good excuse to play more Starcraft 2.

Developer: Platinum Games

Change is hard, but there's something to be said for experimentation, too. After releasing four sneaktastic Metal Gear Solid games over more than a decade, Hideo Kojima decided that something drastically different was needed. Thus Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, the slow motion swordplay game starring the cybernetic ninja Raiden, was born.

Of course, the game's ultimate success as one of the finest, most surgical action games in recent memory can be largely attributed to the involved of Platinum Games, who jumped on board after Kojima Productions found they couldn't get the swordplay quite right.

The result is something else, and luckily it's something very much worth experiencing. Just try telling us you don't love carving up watermelons and people alike with precision accuracy.

Developer: Crystal Dynamics

If you had asked us a few years ago whether Lara Croft could ever be made relevant again, we may have given you the wrong answer. All things considered, the sex symbol had become nothing more than a caricature of herself, and we would have been pretty much fine if she had gone the way of Crash Bandicoot and countless other gaming mascots and disappeared forever.

Of course, that was before we saw what Crystal Dynamics could do with her.

Where once Lara was just another big-breasted cartoon, the new Tomb Raider was a real, human person experiencing trauma the likes of which you and I will likely never be subjected to. The result is a game that causes you to connect with her even as you direct her to commit acts that traumatize and ultimately change her. For a Tomb Raider game nothing could be more surprising, and it's definitely worth experiencing.

Developer: Naughty Dog

We can't remember the last time a game received anything close to the universal praise that The Last of Us has earned. If all the reviews so far are anything to go by, then Naughty Dog's latest will likely stand among the giants of Metacritic alongside Grand Theft Auto IV, Ocarina of Time and other legendary high-scorers.

Does it deserve all the praise that's being hurled and heaped on it? Considering it just came out last week, we really don't want to spoil anything for you. But suffice to say the Uncharted developer's vision of post-apocalyptia, starring two of the most human characters we've ever encountered in a video game, is breathtaking.

And jesus, that ending. Watch out for it, people.

Developer: Irrational Games

It's rare for a game with as much hype as BioShock Infinite to actually live up to our expectations, but if anyone was going to actually deliver we knew it was going to be Ken Levine and his cohorts at Irrational.

Infinite takes the promise of the original BioShock—an inconceivable, impossible city, difficult questions of morality, and mighty men falling far—to very literal heights. As in, floating city, heights.

Columbia itself, impossibly huge but teeming with details, is one of the greatest environmental triumphs in any game. And although we were expecting some twists to the story—it wouldn't be a BioShock game without them—Infinite took us to places we would have never guessed at (despite the title). All in all BioShock Infinite is not to be missed.