@RobDev: Although I might be a wanker, but I still have the capacity for free thought.

What's your excuse?

I sincerely don't need you to tell me what you thought the best game this past year was. I lived this past year in videogames, have a brain and can form my own opinion. Said opinion, I value way more than yours, Danny's or anyone in games journalism.

Don't get me wrong. If you have a case to make, I'll gladly listen, but as to the arbitrary numerical order you assign to games? I have no interest: none. I'm sure someone will tell me that humans are psychologically programmed to enjoy ranking things. Perhaps, but that doesn't stop it from being mind-numbingly dumb. It's mind-numbingly dumb and you just justified it as a good thing because it gives you a chemical rush. That's junkie logic.

Why I don't need you (or any games site) to tell me what the best game of the year was? I have my own game of the year, and it certainly wasn't some bloated AAA hype machine. It was Pillars of Eternity. Followed closely by Nobunaga's Ambition. Why? Because I enjoyed them the most. Does that mean that you would similarly enjoy them the most? Likely not! I hope you do enjoy them as much as I do. But if you don't, that's okay too.

Game of the year articles are meaningless, reductive, self-indulgent wastes of words that contribute and produce nothing. It only serves to be a vicarious dick-measuring contest of pedant fanboyism.

I'd write more, but I think I've made my point.

@Calikidd86: two of those four are dos games from the 1990s.

@Reichmaster01: This is true. They lack parallels that would make favourable comparisons possible. Ergo, it cannot have anything on Forza Horizon. Very astute.

@xolivierx: Ace Combat is a natural IP for making VR. In a plane, the pilot's body doesn't move, like in other action games, so the player is already mentally prepared for a game where move/shoots and look are already disassociated.

Needlessly Burning Bridges 101

@normanislost: You mean establishing cities by logistics based gameplay? Making functioning supply chains requiring several islands production?

@transk53: I find this comment derivative of Siskel and Ebert's review of Ghostbusters.

As an Anno game, it doesn't deserve a 5.

As an Anno game, it actually innovates gameplay in really interesting ways. The biomes completely change the logic of city construction in a game that people have basically been playing the same game for the past couple decades.

@RainbowDashPony: PDX Grand Strategy games ARE turned based. The turns simply auto end and end very quickly.

You know this because progress ticks up per day (or hour, if you are playing HOI). Nothing happens between days. If you pause half way through a day's turn over, the army didn't walk half of the way to its destination. The research isn't half done, the tax isn't half collected. Everything in PDX games occurs on the new turn and actions occur over several turns. But it's still very much a turned based game.