Ive played a lot of games this year and wanted to do a little write up of them. I know most of these werent RELEASED in 2013 but hey, Im slow on the uptake!
Steam/PC Titles:
Age Of Empires 2 HD/Forgotten
Had a few teething problems but the devs are working on it all the time and at its heart this is still the same superb game it always was, spruced up for modern PCs. Educational, too- you can learn all about the 200 year war between the Aztecs and the Huns over the land of Texas, and guide Joan Of Arcs machinegun-toting sportscar to victory. Community-led and MS-endorsed Forgotten expansion adds a slew of new stuff, too.
Sonic Kart Extreme Terraforming Unleashed
Surprise hit of the year for me, wow this game is hella good. The controls are spot on, the track design is really smart, the fanservice is all there but doesnt get in the way of making it a great game, and the developer is still supporting it and hugely active in the community. Huge recommend, could happily go toe-to-toe with a certain other mascot racer.
Atom Zombie Smasher
Fun zombie evacuation strategy game that doesnt take itself seriously at all, it sorta begs for being played multiple times. Youre quite at the mercy of the dice early on, sadly, but starting over until you get a solid start isnt an arduous process.
Botanicula
Super cute plant-em-up, the puzzles arent too difficult for the most part but thats not really the point of this one- EVERYTHING does something and its a lot of fun giving everything a tap to see what the effect is. Would be GREAT for youngsters too, though be warned it wont convince anyone not to be scared of spiders.
Defenders Quest
Im not normally a fan of tower defence games but something about this one kept me going for 40 hours. Play it in Hero Mode (without extra recruits) for a very thought-provoking strategic experience. The writing is really good too, genuine laughs. Theres an extensive demo on the developers site or on Steam and you can port your save over from the demo to the full game.
NightSky
Very relaxing physics/platformery kinda game, excels at stop-start gameplay since each level is only a minute long and you can stop at pretty much any time. Not lengthy but I enjoyed it.
Puzzle Quest
Played through this while my computer was broken and only had the laptop to carry on with, it sorta kept me going! Tacking RPG elements onto an otherwise-standard match3 game is a winning formula. Possibly goes on a bit too long, but then again thats maybe unfair since I couldnt play anything else.
Splice
THE MUSIC. Like, the game is quite fun too, puzzles like this arent really my thing so I didnt finish the bonus missions, but the MUSIC, jeeeez. Made by the same folks as Auditorium and its wonderfully presented.
KOTOR and KOTOR 2
Surprised by how much I enjoyed these! The second has stronger-written characters and a more complicated plot but was sadly released in an unfinished state, the first one is a lot more solidly put together and actually gave me one of the biggest surprises story-wise of all the games Ive played this year. Knowledge of Star Wars universe helpful but not required, knowledge of D20 combat systems recommended but youll probably pick it up.
Super Hexagon
Gonna copypaste my steam rec here. This is the only game I own that I can start up, play a full game of to its completion, and close again before the Steam Community pop-up has disappeared. Yes, its hard, but its infinitely playable nonetheless and theres absolutely zero barriers to the game. Youll want to sing about it every time you add 5 seconds to your time, and cry and scream when youre 2 seconds away from the one minute target of each level. Its the kinda game you can play for half a minute while youre waiting for a youtube video to download, 2 minutes while waiting for the bathroom, 5 minutes when you want to push your time, and every moment spent in it feels like youre achieving something- more familiarity with that one pattern that keeps getting you, an extra 0.2 seconds on your record. The music by Chipzel is superb and is available from her website if the game does your head in.
Surgeon Simulator
Greatly enjoyed it at first, but the game was let down IMO by the ambulance missions which are pretty much complete random luck whether or not theyre possible. The game is supposed to be really fiddly and hard to control, but in the surgery room it can be MASTERED. The ambulance is too random and despite best efforts, if your tools drop out of the back youre screwed. Was fun while it lasted.
Thomas Was Alone
Charm, charm charm charm. Its not difficult or taxing but its charming like crazy and you wont believe ow much you come to care for 6 coloured rectangles. Another puzzle-platformer with something of a Lost Vikings style of gameplay to it but far more forgiving.
To The Moon
This is more of an interactive story than a game, but the design and writing are spot on. I completed it in one day-long sitting and was deeply moved. Cant really say why because spoilers.
Ys Series (Origin, Chronicles, Felghana)
Everyone who knows me knows Ive fallen head-over-heels for these games. A series of action RPGs, I think most comparable to Kingdom Hearts inasmuch as theres more value to learning enemy patterns and countering them than just powerlevelling through. Origin was my point of entry and its the one Id recommend starting with- Chronicles is a remake of the first two games released in the late 80s and it retains that oldskool streak so is a little unforgiving (save often), and I just didnt enjoy Felghana as much.
DLC Quest
Was over before it began but thats to its credit I think- they ended it before the joke wore itself out. Look- I spent 50p on it during some sale and got ~2hours fun out of it, so what the heck, go for it.
Dynamite Jack
Couldnt get into this its sort of a futuristic bomberman-meets-metalgear game where getting spotted means you DIE INSTANTLY. Some enemies can spot you even when youre hiding and meehhh, it didnt grab me. Sorry!
Evoland
Evoland is similar to DLC Quest except it sort of accidentally got swept along and fell into its own joke. Its supposed to be a criticism of how JRPGs used to be fun and now are slow grindfests, but in doing so, it became a slow grindfest and forgot the point it was trying to make. A shame as it starts out really nicely!
McPixel
I dont really get McPixel. Very Warioware except you cant really fail, you click a thing, OR you pick a thing up and then click a thing, and its either the right combo or it isnt but theres very little logic to what the right solution is. Get it wrong and you get another go. To get a gold on each level you actually need to see every possible combination, both right and wrong, which seems a bit of a weak way to pad it out. Easy-going though and would appeal to oddball humour fans. Perhaps one to play with some friends rather than on your own.
Rock Of Ages
Didnt realise when I bought it this is angled at the multiplayer crowd and the single player mode is quite thin and sort of soulless? I dunno how to describe it, but Im pretty sure itd be a lot more amusing in person on a couch playing against someone you love (and will no longer love by the end of it).
Steel Storm
Prides itself on being a tough-as-nails shooter game but neuters itself by giving you infinite respawns with no loss of progress? That sort of put me off- that kinda thing is fine in an exploration game or if it uses checkpoints, but this is constant combat with no REAL punishment for not combatting well. I lost interest before I could finish it.
Thief, Thief 2
Hooo boy these are old skool. Back when you needed to attend a course at college to learn how to control first person games, theres about thirty different ways of walking/running/etc forwards. Very popular with others but the archaic controls turned me off.
Thief DS
The engine was revamped for this one and as a result this pampered gamer was able to finish it. Some confusing level design and the AI is easy to game, but the atmosphere is right and the writing of the various groups was great (Is beesy wanting him deadings!) There was one level in particular towards the end that was genuinely a thrill, though. I dont want to sound too negative as I did have fun with it.
Beat Hazard
Couldnt play it x_x too flashy. You can turn the flashiness down but not all the way and also apparently that lowers your score, in a game that is all about the score. The developer seems like a lovely chap though so I do recommend checking it out and throwing some money at it if its your sort of thing.
Solar 2
Im afraid this one didnt really take me, either. The missions seem a little beyond scope? Like you can level up your bit of space dust to an asteroid to a planet all the way up to a black hole and each stage has missions to complete but it feels like youre never really quite powerful enough to do whats being asked. More likely I just suck
Sword And Sworcery
The video game equivalent of a person telling you they are a poet and then saying dont worry if you dont GET it, not everyone can be as clever and artistic as I am. And I mean that literally because the game ACTUALLY SAYS IT- after the first act it cut to a narrator-type suggesting I take a break in case the psycho-cosmic poetry is too much for me. That's... not what I want from my games.
Touhou 14
A return to form, in my opinion, after TH13 was a bit on the weaker side. Th14 is hard as BALLS but a lot of fun despite it, and the musics pretty good too. Im humming the final boss theme right now. 12 remains the favourite though.
(3)DS Titles:
Rune Factory
All the sleepy just one more day fun of Harvest Moon, with added swords and RPG plotline! Its a bizarre combination but it worked and I spent a long time playing this one. I started to get worn out of it just as I got to the end, too, so that was good.
Pokemon X
Well, what can I say, its a pokemon game and you all know what that entails, but this is pretty much pokemon perfected. Thats hard for a gen5 fangirl to say. Its like they took all the annoying little foibles of past generations and fixed em, somehow, along the way building a beautiful world and a great soundtrack. Storyline is weak compared to generation 5 but thats really all I can say negatively. (My trainer is so cute she breaks hearts wherever she walks.)
And lastly,
Trauma Centre New Blood (co-op)
Its probably true of every game, but playing this co-op made it 100x more fun. It was already a recommended title but having a friend to play with makes it fantastic.
How about everyone else, what kept your thumbs twitching this year?