Gord's game of the year is Shadow of Mordor.

Wasteland 2 was his favorite thing to come out of a Kickstarter, though he will be quick to tell you that Broken Age and Interstellaria are super cool.

He spent an enormous amount of time playing Binding of Isaac: Rebirth.

But the best new game, the one that got right what it imitated and forged ahead with procedurally generated gameplay within a substantive story structure, the game that surprised him the most, that drew him in and held his interest, was Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor.

He played for twelve hours before hitting up the first plot quest. To initiate a challenge, he stood next to an ethereal icon and pressed the interact button. Without leaving the game field he confirmed away a prompt and around him was built the moving parts of the challenge. He stood in a green circle and performed the special instruction, sometimes within a certain time, sometimes without triggering the notice functions of the orc denizens. When he was finished, he walked away, onto the next thing.

At times he abandoned even this small amount of structure and wandered, merely basking in this new world, these abilities. Were the enemies during a state of highest alarm infinite? Could he survive these odds? How about these? Or these? He was deeply satisfied with how the game overcame his fear of failure and reliance on save files, while firmly engulfing death within its accepted operations. He hadn't realized that this was possible.

He explored every cranny of the place before moving on. He found some places that weren't on the map. He was glad that the sign-posted collectibles were only roughly indicated, because he enjoys a good terrain riddle. He wanted to see how many uruk captains he could eliminate before they started to fill up again - eleven. He drew them out, he came at them in full force, he snuck up behind them, he tamed wild beasts and trampled them. He was grateful for the variety of gameplay in this, when this was still not the game proper. He could do this for ages, he thought. Then...

Then he looked ahead in the skill trees and noticed a few spots where the story would greatly broaden his options. New avenues promised to open up, new levels of complexity and depth unfolded as he progressed. And then, just as he began to miss the freedom to roam wild, the game offered him an entire second realm to discover - new rooftops to prowl, new ravines to sneak, new tents and caves and shanty towns, with its own Nemesis structure.

So deep into the meat of this thing, he wasn't sure which part of the game was the purpose, the primary feature. At times the two parts were perfectly married, each aspect weaving back and forth through the other.

He thought, perhaps, that it would be okay to perceive them both, the infinitely generated and the bespoke guiding storyline, as the same whole.

Gord's Game of the Year 2015 is Heroes of the Abathur. He can't stop playing.