Your Top Picks of 2013

[BurningDoom]

It's the end of the year, and time to reflect on what 2013 brought us.

Here's my picks on the best of the year:

Movie of the Year: Man of Steel
This was a tough pick for me. Star Trek: Into Darkness was also damn good. But Man of Steel finally brought the big, powerful, destructive battles that always should have been in the Superman movies. And the Kryptonian sets were amazing looking.

T.V. Show of the Year: The Walking Dead
This is atough one. This year brought us some great T.V. Arrow, Walking Dead, Vikings, 80s the Decade That Made Us, Comic Book Men, Almost Human, and on and on. But the show I looked forward to the most each and ever week was still Walking Dead. The show is easily the best on T.V. and a monument to what a comic franchise taken seriously can be on T.V.

Album of the Year: Amon Amarth - Deceiver of the Gods
Unlike so many other metal bands that have been around for years, Amon Amarth is still at the top of their game. And this album may very well be among their best ever. Some insanely good guitar-driven tunes on this.

Video Game of the Year: Bionic Commando (Xbox 360, PS3)
I'm cheating. This wasn't released last year. I just played it for the first time last year. Such an underrated gem, and quite possibly one of the best games this generation. I'm pretty sure it didn't do so well for the simple fact that it was an old-school mentality game that had a high-learning curve and steep difficulty level. But once you get the controls down, the controls and movement is just divine.

Comic Book Story/Graphic Novel of the Year: Superior Spider-Man
Hands-down, the most exciting thing to happen this year in comics. Forever Evil has been far too drawn-out and not worth the wait each month. And Infinity was a far too convoluted for it's own good, mess of a story. Luckily Doc Ock saved us all! Possibly both the worst and best thing to happen to Spider-Man in decades.

Wrestler of the Year: ???
Seriously, who is it? CM Punk's year was last year. John Cena was out for a good chunk of the year. Brock Lesnar has barely been around, same with Taker and Mysterio. Austin Aries and Robert Rhoode fell to mid-carders. A.J. Styles & Kurt Angle has been out for a large chunk of the year, like Cena. And TNA can't figure out who to put their chips behind, otherwise. NOBODY stood out this year.

What are your top picks of the year?

[samsonlonghair]

Your post is well-written burningdoom, but I'm burned out (no pun intended) on best-of-2013 threads and year-in-review threads.

[dsheinem]

we already covered games (2 threads) and albums (one thread). Far too early to call movies, as a bunch of late-year Oscar candidates haven't yet had wide release.

[Bikeage]

Wrestler of the Year: ???
Seriously, who is it? CM Punk's year was last year. John Cena was out for a good chunk of the year. Brock Lesnar has barely been around, same with Taker and Mysterio. Austin Aries and Robert Rhoode fell to mid-carders. A.J. Styles & Kurt Angle has been out for a large chunk of the year, like Cena. And TNA can't figure out who to put their chips behind, otherwise. NOBODY stood out this year.

Nobody stood out? Do you even watch WWE? Apparently NO! NO! NO!

[MC Rex Rexler]

Wrestler of the Year: ???

Macho Man Randy Savage. This year and EVERY year.

[Gamerforlife]

Two of these are easy

TV - Breaking Bad, without question. Literally no competition there

Wrestler - Again, easy, it was Daniel Bryan. That's inarguable. This year was quite significant for WWE fans, but not in a good way. The people chose the new face of the company this year and WWE told us loud and clear that they don't care what we want. That was the strongest message that came across last year, that fans don't drive WWE's decisions anymore. It's a shame, because no one in that company has been as over as Bryan in years

[BurningDoom]

Wrestler of the Year: ???
Seriously, who is it? CM Punk's year was last year. John Cena was out for a good chunk of the year. Brock Lesnar has barely been around, same with Taker and Mysterio. Austin Aries and Robert Rhoode fell to mid-carders. A.J. Styles & Kurt Angle has been out for a large chunk of the year, like Cena. And TNA can't figure out who to put their chips behind, otherwise. NOBODY stood out this year.

Nobody stood out? Do you even watch WWE? Apparently NO! NO! NO!

I still think he's annoying as hell. But yeah, he got popular with the fans, no doubt.

[Gamerforlife]

I'm rather happy with some of new television I got this year. Almost Human is fun, if a bit predictable. Sleepy Hollow has been far better than anyone expected and some are calling it the breakout hit of the year, at least on network TV. I've been really intrigued by The Departed(Les Revenants). Of course, anyone with Netflix knows how great Orange is the New Black is. I've been enjoying Once Upon a Time in Wonderland too. Sad two see two of my favorite shows bow out this year in Breaking Bad and Nikita, both of which went out in fine form, giving fans what they wanted. The second to last episode of Nikita featured one of the greatest character deaths I've ever seen, a truly great send off for an awesome character.

TV Disappointments:
Dracula - Watched four episodes of this show and it's just not very good at all, it's just awful
Burn Notice - After a really strong season, the series finale was cliche and predictable and disappointing
Marvel Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - I don't share the strong hate others have developed for this show, but I'll admit it hasn't really hit its stride yet. I'm still interested in where it goes though. I've seen worse new shows (see above comments on Dracula)
WWE programming - The constant screwing of Daniel Bryan and all the ways they keep holding him down when he is clearly their most popular guy by a country mile is legitimately pissing me off now. From what I've been reading and hearing, they are sowing a lot of resentment among wrestling fans. The fact that their spoiled, favored son Cena has never been as over as Bryan was in 2013 must really piss off WWE.

Comic book story - I'm very biased. All the Bat family books I've enjoyed, particularly the Batgirl story with her on the run from the law and giving up the Bat signal after killing someone. However, my favorite book for quite some time has been Angel & Faith. If Angel were still somehow on air, I would have LOVED to see this on TV with David Boreanez and Eliza Dushku playing these roles still, and it would have put its peers (Supernatural, Sleepy Hollow, Grimm) to shame with how awesome it would have been. The series is sadly ended now, but the characters will still pop up in future Buffy books. The creative team of Isaacs and Gage has been phenomenal. Both in terms of writing and art, these two really get these characters. Rebekah draws them better than anyone I've seen. She's the best artist to ever work on the Buffyverse books.

My game of the year is probably either Assassin's Creed Black Flag or Puppeteer, though I'm very much enjoying Zelda A Link Between Worlds right now as well. Puppeteer was the freshest, most genuinely fun thing I've played this year and Black Flag is so amazingly successful at what it tries to do, be the definitive pirate game. I'm probably lucky that it's my first AC game, as I'm not experiencing any of that franchise fatigue

I listened to very little this year, but I've thoroughly enjoyed Chipzel Spectra and Anamanaguchi Endless Fantasy, both amazing chiptune sountracks. I guess either one of those gets my album of the year by default

I've not seen any movies this year, unless you count the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special, which was shown in theatres in some parts of the world with full 3D. I sadly only got to see in on TV and it was truly an amazing story with tons of Who fan service. The amount of production value and the guest cameos made it seem like a Who movie even watching it on TV. Movies I missed out on that I want to see are Kick Ass 2, Despicable Me 2 and The World's End

So I guess that's my year in a nutshell