Take a look at most of the top critics’ “best movies” lists. How many of those films were your favorites, the movies that you thoroughly enjoyed watching? I find that these lists are usually full of movies that everyone should see–and like–because they’re “serious” films that comment on society or somehow further the art of cinema. I’m sure those lists are interesting for what I’m guessing is a pretty small minority of moviegoers who care about cinema as an art form. But for the vast majority of movie fans, those lists are annoyingly pseudo-intellectual and come off as arrogant and out of touch with popular tastes. I would much rather read a list of the movies a reviewer enjoyed than those he thought were somehow culturally or socially important.

Since games, even more than movies, are almost entirely for enjoyment, I am not at all interested in compiling a best list. I think it’s much more useful to readers to hear what games I enjoyed the most. It doesn’t mean that I’m not critical, as anyone who has read one of my reviews knows. But someone else can feed the pointless fanboy flame wars, that adolescent crap bores the hell out of me. Tell me what games you loved last year and why, what games you played over and over, and I’m interested. Lecture me on why I should like a game that isn’t particularly fun but is somehow important to the furtherance of games as an art form and I’m outta here.