A decent year, with some good highs, but like last year most credit goes to the 3DS because most of the console games I played wouldn't go very far. Of the poll I played Tomb Raider, The Last of Us, Zelda A Link Between Worlds and Super Mario 3D World. Of the 'other' list I played Batman Arkham Origins and Luigi's Mansion 2 (or 'Dark Moon' as it's called elsewhere).
To get things out of the way; Batman was forgettable, and I really didn't like The Last of Us. I could say a billion things about how terrible it is, but let's just keep it at that I'd say this is easily Naughty Dog's worst effort I ever played, especially with the then still fairly recent Uncharted 2 and 3 in mind. Anyway, luckily those two duds wouldn't overshadow what otherwise was a, like I said, decent year. Not even the release of the final nail in the coffin of SimCity, once one of my favourite series could change that. However that pain was already suffered in 2007, it would make me label EA as 'evil incarnate' forever after, and it was a such a giant flop that it made another company completely and utterly conquer the entire genre two years later. It was laughable really more than frustrating.
But I got sidetracked again. Tomb Raider was a pleasant surprise. I liked this game very much. I thought it was a highlight of the year. It was adventurous, with some good puzzles and action, a cool world, nice story and it actually did collectables right for a change. To compare it to Uncharted, the collectables in Tomb Raider actually make sense, are items that are where you'd expect to find such an item and they provide a wealth of backstory. It made me want to go out of my way to find them. Super Mario 3D World was good, and the cat-powerup is here to stay, but it was obvious that the concept of this game was made for 3DS with 3D Land; 3D Land was better at being a handheld game than 3D World was at being a home console game. Lastly Zelda A Link Between Worlds was a good entry in the Zelda series as well, though it was a little too similar to it's spiritual predecessor A Link to the Past. It made sense in that game that the Dark World was a mirror image of the regular world, but Lorule needn't be like that. I also wasn't much of a fan of the item renting, but the dungeons and the 3D effect were great.
Besides these this year I also played God of War Ascension, which can't stand in the shadow of God of War 3 and Zelda The Wind Waker HD, which was a good remaster that made me look upon this game more favourably. Then I also played Total War Rome 2. This was met with much criticism upon release, but I thought it was great. The campaign map is the best in the series and it makes for countless hours of playtime and I still play this every once in a while to this day. Admittedly, it did need a lot of patches to get the game to what it is now, today. I might have forgotten how it actually was back when it released.
Lastly I didn't mention Luigi's Mansion 2 yet, and that's because that game was the absolute highest highlight this year. Again the 3DS's 3D effect was put to great use, and I'd say the greatest use, because every room and location looked like an interactive diorama because of it. I loved how in this game there were more 'mansions' than one, each with their own theme. All the while the game doesn't overstay it's welcome. If you can critique it, you could say the game's ghosts don't have the character of those in the original and of the sequel. However that is minor. This year is between Luigi's Mansion 2 and Rome 2, but because Rome 2 took a while to get to what it is today, Luigi's Mansion 2 (other) wins.
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