Metacritic Releases Critics’ Aggregate 2014 Game of the Year
For disclosure, we here at GameSided are not yet privileged to enter the hallowed halls of games review aggregate, Metacritic. Nevertheless, it is still interesting to see what the critics at large agreed upon when coming together and rating the year’s popular games. As such, I found it quite intriguing that a Nintendo platform won the Metacritic 2014 Game of the Year with Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, at a score of 92 overall.
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It’s the first time in five years since Nintendo have taken top honors for Metacritic’s year-end list, with Super Mario Galaxy 2 coming in at a whopping 97 overall. It also marks the first time in which a Metacritic Game of the Year winner has received a score lower than 95 ever since aggregating games critics in 2009, which some will take as an opportunity to denote the quality of game releases that came out this year.
That’s not to say higher-scoring games weren’t released this year, although. Both the Xbox One and PS4 versions of Grand Theft Auto V scored at 97 and 96, respectively. Additionally, The Last of Us Remastered was scored 95 overall by the community of critics. The reason they were not counted was because they were ports and upgrades of games that came out in 2013.
What blew me most away was the comparison between dedicated handheld gaming devices. The PS Vita has secretly been bolstering up their output this year, both outnumbering the Nintendo 3DS in the amount of score games in the West (84 vs 72) and in overall score (70.1 vs 67.3). Alas, the number of “good exclusives” on the 3DS (games scored 75 Overall or above) still vastly outmatches the Vita, at 17:5 ratio this year.
Below is the complete Metacritic 2014 Game of the Year list, as aggregated by the community of reviewers.
| Title (Platform) | Publisher | Genre | Metascore | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Grand Theft Auto V (Xbox One) | Rockstar Games | Action-Adv. | 97 |
| 2 | Grand Theft Auto V (PS4) | Rockstar Games | Action-Adv. | 96 |
| 3 | The Last of Us Remastered (PS4) | Sony | Action-Adv. | 95 |
| 4 | Super Smash Bros. for Wii U (Wii U) | Nintendo | Fighting | 92 |
| 5 | Dark Souls II (Xbox 360) | Bandai Namco | Action-RPG | 91 |
| 6 | Bayonetta 2 (Wii U) | Nintendo | Action | 91 |
| 7 | Dark Souls II (PC) | Bandai Namco | Action-RPG | 91 |
| 8 | Dark Souls II (PS3) | Bandai Namco | Action-RPG | 91 |
| 9 | Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition (PS4) | Blizzard | Action-RPG | 90 |
| 10 | Rayman Legends (PS4) | Ubisoft | Platform | 90 |
| 11 | Velocity 2X (PS Vita) | FuturLab | Action | 90 |
| 12 | Fez (PS4) | Polytron | Puzzle/Platform | 90 |
| 13 | Shovel Knight (Nintendo 3DS) | Yacht Club | Platform | 90 |
| 14 | Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition (Wii U) | DrinkBox | Action | 90 |
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