Game Theory: The Best of 2013 The Game Theory panelists have feverishly replayed, reconsidered and revisited many video games of 2013. Here are their selections for the year's top releases. Chris Suellentrop The opposition to BioShock Infinite in some corners has gotten a tad ideological, in terms of criticism and politics, in ways that make me uncomfortable even if the naysayers often have a point. Perversely, all the lice-hunting has deepened my affection for the game. First, the politics: Several writers - here's a powerful example - seem to suggest that it was immoral of the game's creators to turn Daisy Fitzroy, an African-American revolutionary waging a war to topple an evil apartheid regime, into a tyrant once she attains power. The claim is absurd historically - leftists with righteous causes have succumbed to the corrupting influence of power since at least the French Revolution - and worse, horrible dramatic advice that would consign black characters in video games to lives of dull virtue. That said, the device used to turn Fitzroy into a villain is, as I wrote last week, cheap and unearned. The critical ideology is on sounder footing. The argument is that the game's themes are disconnected from the core activity of shooting. But while I endorse as a general principle the idea that video game themes should be inextricably interwoven with the actions that players are asked to carry out, in practice (or at least in this instance) I think it's akin to insisting that all musicals examine the meaning of singing and dancing. The less sophisticated but more damning criticism is that the game's shooting is not as excellent as its other constituent parts, particularly the setting. Again, in principle I endorse the Modernist notion that games should isolate and underscore what they do well that other art forms cannot. By that measurement alone, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, is the game of the millennium.) But using it as the sole determinant of quality is self-evidently ridiculous. Good novels are more than strings of pretty sentences. Movies are judged by more than cinematography. Story, character, atmosphere, imagination, ambition - these things matter. BioShock Infinite takes the quasi-religious reverence that Americans have for the founding fathers and (sorry) converts it into a literal religion. What would that world look like? In posing that question, the game pokes at some ugly history and suggests that our country would be less, shall we say, Edenic if the Constitution actually were holy writ. With BioShock Infinite, Irrational Games gave players the most richly imagined video game world of 2013, more wild and more daring than the zombie apocalypse of The Last of Us or the parodic Los Angeles - one that absolutely nails that city's otherworldly daylight - of Grand Theft Auto V. It probably tried to do too much and didn't always cohere, but it had something to say about America, about religion and xenophobia, about parents and children, and about how video game stories are told. Stephen Totilo I've had a hard time deciding which 2013 game was my favorite. The choices are so diverse. Do I select Papers, Please, the amusingly drab, playfully tedious computer game that put me in the role of a border agent in a fictional Eastern European police state? It's probably the best game I could recommend to a reader of The Times who cares about politics, class, history and, perhaps, a step forward in interactive storytelling. Do I listen to my heart and select the wrenching post-apocalyptic PlayStation 3 survival game The Last of Us? It is as much a pseudo-zombie-shooting game as it is a story about being a parent. Its ending is among the medium's best ever. Should I trust the wisdom of the clock and go with Fire Emblem: Awakening, the Nintendo 3DS adventure that plays out as a series of strategic battles, each conducted one chess-like turn at a time? It's the only 2013 game that I've played for more than 50 hours (and counting). No, I'm picking Grand Theft Auto V, with all the critical guilt of selecting something so extraordinarily popular. Simultaneously rough-edged and polished, it presents a new way to do a thing games rarely do: present an interactive ensemble drama, letting players hop back and forth to control the lives of three troubled men in scripted and unscripted moments set in one of the richest game worlds I've ever played, a sprawling version of Southern California that is more beautiful than the real thing. Now please don't ask me how I kept The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds out of my top spot. It hurts. What a gaming year. Harold Goldberg For adults, Grand Theft Auto V offered so much more than other games. The carefully curated radio station music alone was worth the $60 price of admission. When "Gin and Juice" is played early on, you know you're in for an ingenious on-the-road soundtrack. Close attention paid to detail (like humorous billboards, one for a 20,000-calorie energy bar) in the fictional Los Santos resulted in a sprawling world of curiosities, crazies and criminals inspired by David Chase, Quentin Tarantino, even Mike Hodges. When you had enough transgression, you could dive into the sea around Los Santos - exploring for hours, if you liked. Despite having a blockbuster-movie-sized budget, parts of Grand Theft Auto V - like the television shows - had an indie, something-to-prove spirit. The cutting narrative and biting satire within the game saved the interwoven tales from becoming depressing. It wasn't perfect (though it came close), and it could have featured an independent-minded female character. Still, this isn't the last Grand Theft Auto, and Rockstar keeps making the series better. I'm optimistic about the future. Who knows what kind of incandescent thug life in they'll immerse us in next time? Laura Parker In a year defined by revelations of government surveillance and infringements of personal privacy, a little-known iOS game called Blackbar impressed me with its sharp commentary on censorship and freedom of information. Your only task is to decode a series of letters between a young woman named Kenty and her friend after she takes up a role with a government intelligence agency. The agency doesn't like some of the things Kenty is saying to her friend, Vi, about her working conditions and soon begins censoring their correspondence. It's the player's job to figure out the missing words or phrases that have been deleted by the agency, helping Kenty to uncover the truth about who she's really working for. Some of the letters - especially toward the end of the game - are delightfully difficult to figure out. The feeling of satisfaction when you finally triumph is one of the reasons to love this game; the other is its subject matter. The letters, beautifully written, grow more and more personal as the game moves forward. Soon, Kenty and Vi sound less and less like characters and more like primary sources in a disarmingly familiar account of a reprobate government struggling to keep its secrets safe. In a climate where we can no longer expect a private email to remain private, Blackbar feels only too real. Kirk Hamilton My favorite game of 2013 was The Last of Us. For all its violence and unpleasantness, it was a resolutely humane, emotionally honest game, thanks to writer Neil Druckmann's terrific script and to the fearless lead performances of actors Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker. It demonstrated masterly pacing and was an uncommon example of a game that got better as it went and ended with force and purpose. Its balanced design and consistent, evolving challenge showed a respect for the player that remains rare among modern action games. And I adored Gustavo Santaolalla's musical score, which so thoroughly eclipsed most video game soundtracks that it set a new high-water mark. Like many games of its scale and ambition, The Last of Us must surely have been immensely difficult to make. The completeness of its success makes it seem possible that big-ticket, blockbuster games this good might one day become regular - though never ordinary - occurrences.