1. Minecraft
It's a big, low-res world in which you walk around, pick things up and make other things out of them. Meanwhile, animals will try to eat you. The end. The complexity comes from you: Minecraft's universe is endlessly reconfigurable, reflecting your own imagination.
--LEV GROSSMAN
2. Portal 2
The first Portal delivered an AI antagonist for the ages in the moody GLaDOS; the follow-up peels back the layers of her psyche to show us, poignantly, how she got that way.
--EVAN NARCISSE
3. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Top-shelf game mechanics, the sharpest motion controls yet on the...