2014 In Games

[mauve]

Super Mario Bros Wii-U: Either I suddenly became an amazing gamer or this is a billion times easier than the Wii version. My sister and I are supposedly on the final level and we played it maybe six hours, tops.


Mario Kart 8: I seriously don't understand the hype for this game.Everyone who played it kept saying how great it was, but really, I'm not digging it. Player 2 STILL doesn't get audio, the vehicle transformations don't really do anything aside from the air form, and the AI is just as predictableas Double Dash's. AI characters do not vary in their placement throught a cup: If in the first race you win 1st, Daisy wins 2nd and Bowser wins 3rd, Daisy and Bowser will ALWAYS come in at 2nd and 3rd unless you cause some sort of catastrophic event via koopa shell.

Smash Bros wii-u: It's Smash. It's great.

Blackwell series: Every now and then I find a game or series that just completely enraptures me, even despite its flaws. The Blackwell series hooked me. Despite the terrible audio in the first installment (indie game), despite the constantly shifting art styles, sprite quality and voice actors, even despite the short lengths (each installmeent is between 2.5 and 3 hours long, except the final one), I loved this series. Joey was a great character, and he got stronger as the series went on and you learn how long and frankly hopeless his afterlife has been. Rosa sstarts out kinda cookiecutter but really grows as she interacts with others across the series. Lauren's dry banter is delightful: she's a decidedly different protagonist than Rosa in a story that ends bittersweetly--for everyone. As a serries it's not perfect, but I still adored every minute of it.

Dishonored: As I've mentioned earlier, I've really grown to like this game. My first playthrough was an utter disaster: Accidental high chaos, stumbling past sidequests, not sure what the hell I was doing. My second playthrough, armed with the knowledge of experience and removed of my MUST GO TO OBJECTIVE NOW blinders,was highly enjoyable and much more interesting. I liked seeing the differences in the world itse'lf between my high and low chaos games: Emily's drawings, the attitudes of the NPCs and other characters, and the amount of weepers in the city. I look forward to tackling the Daud DLC.

Broken Age: Such a promising start, such a disappointing wait. This kickstarted title from Double Finehas a lovely art style, good writing and a stellar cast.... and yet still only half a game. The devs promised part 2 would arrive in Summer of 14... then Fall 14.... then Winter... and now, eventually. EDIT: Looks like they're thinking Spring 2015 now. AND they plan on selling a physical disk copy of the game. We'll see how that pans out.

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel: Lacking the maniacal whimsy of Borderlands 2, Elpis is less enjoyable to explore than Pandora. And the fact that Athena narrates and stars alone in cutscenes is annoying for the people who aren't playing as Athena. Considering WIlhelm and Nisha are bosses in BL2 and Claptrap is... Claptrap, I exppected more story focus on them rather than Athena, who was in a single DLC story for the ORIGINAL Borderlands. Other series favorites like Tina, Mr Torgue abd Sir Hammerlock are just sort of thrown in as halfassed audio-only cameos.

That said, Pre-Sequel is fun. Wilhelm is a surprisingly good character, and I wish his story had been delved into more aside from the usual ECHOs and a handful of pencil drawings in the credit sequence. Ice weapons are infinitely better than slag weapons-- good riddance to slag weapons. Ground-stomping is also a fun combat mechanic with multiple uses, which adds to the usual strategy of "get guns, shoot things until better guns show up." Jack remains entertaining, although his character development was kinda shoehorned into the second half. Zarpedon and Random Eridian We Never Learn About were weak and single-dimensional villains, which is a little disappointing after the hilarity of BL2's Handsome Jack. BL2 overall had a demented charm to it: the enemys' in-game chatter, the vvisual gags outside of the plot were great, and Pre Sequel lacks a lot of that. That said, if you're expecting a well-thought-out and flawless plot from a Borderlands game, you're doing it wrong. There are some really hilarious sidequests (and some that just fall flat) and a few really good jokes. I also really like how your player characters talk to each other and to npcs, and get personalized dialogue to reflect thatt they are all individual charactersinsstead of the usual "HELLO THERE, VAULT HUNTER OR VAULT HUNTERS!" They use your character's name, they react differently depending on who you're playing as, and your character will use names if you're in multiplayer. It's nice.

Woah, I rambled on longer than intended for that one.

Super Time Force Ultra: It's so silly, so charming, so frusterating, and so hardcore awesome I can't not love it. Hilarious writing and fun sprite art. I love wa[tching the real-time playback at the end of each mission, watching characters pop out of nowhere, take down a boss in 6 seconds, and then have all but one die in the same idiotic way. Shieldy Blockerson is surprisingly badass.

I know there arew more games I played, but I'll add 'em as I remember 'em I guess.

EDIT: Remembered some more.

Transistor: As mentioned by everyone else who reviewed this, comparisons to Bastion are inevitable. But I really enjoyed Transistor, particularly its mysterious method of almost-backwards storytelling. It was a fascinating world: A strange technological dystopia where the color of the clouds was controlled by computer programmers and "upstarts" went mysteriously missing on trips to "the countryside." I wasn't sure if the game took place inside a computer, or just in a world so totally enveloped by technology that nature itself could be bent to the whims of a popular vote on social media. Either way, I liked it. The plot had some holes, and I would've liked the game to have been longer, but for what it's worth, it was a beautiful little game. The fantastic narrator from Bastion is back as the voice of the Transistor, to a wonderful effect. The relationship between Red and the Transistor really carries this game. I cared about that damn talking sword, even before I really knew what it was. Like Agro in Shadow of the Colossus, it's your only friend in the world and the game is good at making you realize that.

Let me put it this way: In this game you have a control that makes you hum. Your character, Red, is stricken mute, except for this ability to hum. Humming really doesn't do much, mechanically speaking, and she just hums along to whatever the game's ambient music is playing at the time (sidenote: This means the vocalist had to record a humming track for the entirety of every single musical piece in the game. Wow.). But as the game goes on, you notice that whenever she starts to hum, she picks up the Transistor and cradles it in her arms, like she's trying to comfort it. Humming is her only means of communicating with the world.

Without going into spoilers, there is a point in the game where bad things happen to the Transistor. It is your only companion, the only thing in the world that speaks to you like someone who knows you, even though you as a player have no idea what it is. And then the sword starts to suffer. For a time it starts losing its lucidity, saying it can't see or feel anything, growing afraid, slurring its words like it's in pain, begging for you to talk to it because it's terrified that you've abandoned it and left it to die... and you can't talk. For me, that scene really hit me. I am not ashamed to admit that I spammed the hell out of the Hum button during that whole level. Don't cry, Sword-Bro!!!

Kentucky Route Zero: Oh gosh. The art in this game is gorgeous. It drunkenly dodges back and forth over the line between the real and surreal worlds, starting out with a simple melancholy story of a man making one last late-night delivery and somehow ending up with ghosts, giant eagles, mysterious backroads marked by glowing constellations, and figures vanishing between trees. It's creepy and thoughtful and melancholy and silly, all at once. I can't wait for the next chapter.

Shadowrun: Dragonfall, The Director's Cut: I have a love-hate relationship with this game. I loved the DLC version of Dragonfall, but the stand-alone title robs some of the mystery and makes everything a little darker. That said, it fixes a lot of the problems that existed in the DLC version and adds some character development and improved game mechanics which are very nice. I'm digging some of the new missions, too, although the NPC I have to buy healthkits from is even more of a horrible person than he was in the DLC.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Let's see, out of the games I've started and finished during 2014 with one exception.

Zone Of The Ender 2 HD (with the patch)
Story issues aside that I won't go into for the sake of spoilers. this game plays just as well as it did on the PS2. And thanks to the patch, it runs at native 1080p/60fps and looks fantastic for a HD port of a PS2 game IMO. The way the collection should have ran from the get go. They've also fixed up the frame rate dropping issue for the battle outside of Aumaan. Making it MUCH more tolerable and actually possible to A rank. In terms of difficulty the US version is apparently based off of the EU version. Which was made harder (stronger and more aggressive ai). Didn't really notice till I got to Leo and had my butt handed to me after a long battle. Beyond that it's the same old Z.O.E 2. Not much else was really changed for better and/or worst. Cutscenes are still not wide screen and look blurry on a digital display. Controls are fine though the camara can be an issue at times. The all range radar that surrounds Jehuty helps but not by much. Lock on will be your best friend. The improved AI (if you've never played the EU PS2 version) makes enemies and bosses a challenge to beat. And in a way encourages you to make good use of your sub weapons along with Jehuty's other abilities. And the sound track is fantastic. And though the story does have it's issues, it's more or less ok if you can look past Dingo being a douche most of the time and Nohman being a massive ham. And all around decent game and still one of my favorite PS2 and now PS3 titles. If you loved Z.O.E 2, you'll love the HD port.

Tales of Xillia 1 (just got 2 recently as a Xmas gift, haven't played past the tutorial battle yet) Not going to go into much detail with this since I played near the beginning of the year. And haven't really had the time to touch it or many RPGs since. Gameplay was great, I enjoyed the characters, Soundtrack is pretty good. Areas and dungeons do feel a bit dull though. But the game feels short by "Tales of" standards.

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker
Not bad, visuals look great and it feels like it's running at 60fps. Puzzles are a bit too easy during the main story but things do get more challenging in the post story mode. A very fun game.

Shantae and the Pirates Curse
Best, metroidvania game I've ever played so far. Story was fun and humorous while flushing out a few returning characters. Mainly Risky Boots, Rotty Tops, and Squid Barron to an extent. Gameplay is fairly fast paced thanks to the dance transformations being removed entirely due to Shantae losing her powers at the end of "Risky's Revenge" Which the game kind of spoils from the get go. Instead you gain some rather nifty Pirate gear. Risky's stolen gear to be specific. All of which do a fine job of making up for your complete lack of magic this time around. With the R-Pistol and R-Boots being my favorite abilities. Like with any Metroidvania game, there's backtracking and quite a bit of it too. Fortunately the areas are pretty small and since most of this game's locations are islands that you select from the world map. It doesn't take long to get back to where you need to be. Especially late game when you're rounding up the remaining Heart Squids (this game's version of Heart Pieces) and the Cackle-bats. The later of which are needed to get the game's real ending. Dungeons are a decent length and like the first two titles are puzzle focused. Each one introducing one of the Risky's Pirate Gear that she more or less allows you to borrow. For reasons that she gradually tells you about as you make your way from dungeon to dungeon. A great game but it does have it's faults. Mainly that some of the side quests and collectibles can be a bit hard to figure out/cryptic unless you're actively exploring the game and experimenting with your pirate gear. All and all it's a very great game. But if you plan on playing the second game and don't want to spoil yourself. I'd advise playing through the first and Second games first before jumping into the third. Can't wait for the fourth game which is in development now. Oh and the soundtrack is fantastic and the sprite work is amazing.

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by Hawk

How do you people manage to find the time to play this many games the fuck?!

The sad thing about my list is that it's just all the games I've played that were released this past year. If you're including games that were released pre-2014 but that I didn't get around to playing until 2014, it'd be more than twice as long.

...2014 was a really bad year for me and apparently I self-medicated with videogames.

[Arcanum]

Pretty sure my list of games played this year would be similar in length to Snake's. By which I mean double the length of his posted list, as per his last comment. And still my backlog grows

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Originally Posted by Arcanum

Pretty sure my list of games played this year would be similar in length to Snake's. By which I mean double the length of his posted list, as per his last comment. And still my backlog grows

I know that feel. I still have a bunch of RPGs that I've yet to beat.