Well, here we are again. The 4th annual game of the year awards and this year has a lot of changes. This may be the only year you will see both of Microsoft’s and Sony’s consoles completely absent from the awards. Why is that? Well first off I like to do my awards differently than every other game website. I feel console awards should be those that the games are exclusive to. Why put a multi-platform game on one system’s awards and not the other? It just doesn’t make any sense. For starters, the Xbox 360 and PS3 are done. They were fantastic systems but no one is really making exclusive games for those systems anymore and all we are getting are watered-down ports of next-gen games. With that said PS4 and Xbox One are absent due to the lack of exclusives. PS4 had nearly zero and Xbox One only really has Titanfall and Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Everything else released this year was multi-platform. Scream and cry all you want but all four systems will be absent.

With that said the Wii U had plenty of exclusives as that’s all the Wii U really has. Of course, this was a strong year for handhelds and indie games in general. I am also adding a Reissue category that will kind of makeup for the last of console awards. Reissue or HD Remasters are becoming more and more popular and are also getting better. So many were released this year on next-gen consoles it was hard to keep count, but they were all fantastic. I am also cutting the best new character category this year as there haven’t been too many new IPs with new characters. Next year is when Microsoft and Sony are releasing all of the exclusives they have been working on since developers got their dev kits.

With all that said I hope you enjoy the awards this year. There are some good games out there and a couple I threw in that no one is really thinking about or got lost in the AAA crowds.