2014 Games of the Year

Marc Thompson 2014 Games of the Year List

Dragon Age: Inquisition – Best RPG from an AAA company Award

assests.rpgsite.net

You had us worried, Bioware. After the mediocre Dragon Age II, the debacle over the horrific Mass Effect 3 ending, and the disappointing Star Wars MMPORG; gamers were wondering if you had lost your touch, eaten by the brain rot that seems to infect any studio touched by EA.  But you delivered this time. I was really impressed by the detail put into the characters, the voice acting, the world, and you`ve managed to tell a complete story that you actually have an effect on; and it is one that actually engages you. The game isn`t short (I had 80 hours by the end) and doesn`t reuse the same dungeon over and over (the levels are varied, huge, and gorgeous). It doesn`t make you feel like you have no impact on the story or game world (quite the opposite). The game isn`t perfect, but no Bioware game has ever been perfect.  I look forward to full-length DLC and expansions for this game, which is something I rarely, if ever, say.

South Park: The Stick of Truth – Only good game from the first six months of the year Award

s.pro-gmedia.com

In fact, this is pretty much the only game I can still remember that came out in the first six months of the year. How rare is it to find a product tie-in game that not only doesn't suck, but fits nearly seamlessly into its licenced product? This game was so good it actually made my girlfriend a South Park fan, and she’s hated it for nearly 20 years. 

Highly memorable and you really should buy it if you haven’t given it a try already; it should be on sale on both Steam, Xbox Live, and the PSN pretty soon. Of course, it IS South Park, so viewer discretion is advised.

Alien Isolation – Holy shit, an ACTUAL Survival Horror game Award 

amazon.com

An Aliens game and its good? And it’s an ACTUAL survival horror game instead of being a cover shooter with jump scares?  And it’s made by Creative Assembly, a company known only for strategy titles?  And it came out in 2014? How the hell did this happen after Colonial Marines?

Alien Isolation does a wonderful job of making you feel like a soft fleshy human who can be killed at any moment. The space station you are stuck on oozes the creepy, retro 80’s future atmosphere of the movies brilliantly. The Alien isn’t a bad guy to be killed; it’s an unstoppable thing, a force of nature. You hide, or you die.

Creative assembly gets this, and through good use of pacing, anticipation, and not making you some unstoppable badass with a pulse rifle. Just try and play it on hard if you can manage, it’s really the way the game was meant to be played.

Divinity: Original Sin – Best B Company RPG Award

wikipedia.com

Here is a game that brings it old school, with a funky, late 90’s/early 20’s style isometric RPG complete with action points, tons of non-voiced dialogue, and a bizarre and arcane character upgrade system that allows for oodles of customization.

There are lots of options of players to deal with problems, from being sneaky gits with invisibility to setting up a bunch of exploding barrels. It reminds me a bit of Fallout 2 crossed with Bauldur’s Gate 2, only with a higher focus on tactics instead of strategy. The gameplay is 70 hours plus, so this is definitely worth picking up if you are a fan of RPG’s.


Far Cry 4 – Best Shooter 

joystiq.com

It’s like Far Cry 3, but with a more developed primary villain, even if the secondary villains aren’t as cool as Vaas (but who is?). Basically, it takes most of the good stuff out of Far Cry 3, fixes a few things, makes the protagonist a little more likable, and adds in honey badgers, elephant riding and awesome Bollywood music. It’s good stuff, though would like to have seen a bit more of what Kyrat turns into once you take over. This is probably the game I agonized over the most. Far Cry 4 is just good, not amazingly super brilliant. I had more fun with this shooter than any other I played this year, so it deserves an award.

Robocraft – Best New MOBA you’ve never heard of from a company you never heard of

amazon.com

What, you’ve never heard of it? Not surprised, it’s still mostly in Alpha. This game is a crazy combination of World of Tanks and Minecraft. Essentially, you create a tank, car, walker, hovercraft, flier or even a blimp out of different colored blocks. Then you battle them in an arena. It’s an awesome turducken of nerdiness, a rare planetary alignment of themes that combine like chocolate and peanut butter. I love obsessing about optimal character builds before I play, and this game lets you putter around for hours in the garage looking for ways to make my design more efficient. The more artistically inclined can form the various blocks to create a replica of Kim Jon Un’s face with machine guns coming out of his mouth. Did I mention this game is free? Give it a try.

Best of the Best: Game of the year (and Best Indi Game)
This War Of Mine

11bitstudios.com

This War of Mine manages to wonderfully get across its theme describing life in a war… for civilians.

 It’s so rare to see a game that`s so fun to play, emotionally engaging and perfectly themed, particularly for a little known developer like War Child. It is grim without being hopeless and difficult unless you heavily strategize.

I consider this the best game of 2014 because of its originality, and the fact it was executed so well. No game I played this year got me nearly as engaged in what I was doing (no, not even Robocraft or Aliens: Isolation). No game invested me as heavily into the narrative. When I played, I genuinely felt like an awful human being for stealing medicine from old people (or any of the awful things I had to do in this game). I haven’t felt as conflicted over a game since Spec Ops, only This War of Mine standard gameplay is far more fun, and the game was created on a non-budget from a studio you’ve never heard of.

Honorable Mentions

Danganronpa
This is one of the very few games that ever made me consider buying a Vita. I suppose it is technically available on PSP as well (and came out in Japan a few years ago). It is basically a cross between Phoenix Wright and Battle Royale. Lock a bunch of teens with amnesia together, and the only way out is to kill a fellow student and not get caught. Of course, I’ve only actually seen it played (and saw the anime), since I don’t own a Vita, so it is only an honorable mention.
 
Valkyria Chronicles for PC/PS3     
Technically, this game came out nearly a decade ago but until recently has been a bit hard to come by. It feels like cheating to give an award in 2014 for it, but it deserves mention now it is now available on PSN for PS3 and on Steam for PC. This is a fantastic mix of RPG, FPS and strategy war game. Its themed on a magitech based WWII, complete with ethnic concentration camps (seriously), propaganda wars, serious character growth, bat shit insane characters on both side and the knowledge that any character can die at any time. Anyone who likes RPG’s really needs to play this one.

Persona 4 for PS3
See everything I said about Valkyria Chronicles.  If you like JRPG’s at all, Persona 4 is a must buy.

Shadows of Mordor

I didn’t quite gush over this game as much as most other people. The closest thing I can think of to it is Batman: Arkham City, only without nearly as interesting a story. Still, its nemesis system is fun and randomly makes what should be regular “easy” fights suddenly turn into fit inducing frustrating battles as Doche the Craven (that boss who you were sure you decapitated five minutes ago) suddenly decides to pay you back by coming at you just as you are starting a fight against another boss. I just couldn’t get behind it as much as some other people, possibly because they tried to package early review copies with the condition that reviewers would only give favorable reviews of the game. And that’s too bad, because the game stood up quite well on its own merits.

Borderlands the Pre Sequel

It’s pretty good. Not great, just good. It’s well written, but I think I’m getting bored of the formula. Sadly, “did what it’s supposed to do and introduced new elements” puts it well above the pack for 2014, so it deserves mentioning anyway.

Obligatory list of dubious awards of 2014

Akiba’s Trip – “Oh, Japan!” Award

funnyjunk.com

I love quirky Japanese games (I bought Way of the Samurai and Yakuza 4), but couldn’t quite bring myself to pick this one up. Basically, it’s a beat-em up RPG game where you play a nerd who fights vampires…. by stripping their clothes to expose them to sunlight. It’s on the PSN store.  I honestly don’t even know if it’s any good.  But I find the fact that a game this weird exists on the PSN store hilarious.

Beyond Earth - Huge Underwhelming Disappointment Award) 

i.mgur.com

Let me be clear; this isn’t a bad game, per se, it is just so… bland. It’s the first Civilization game I’ve ever played where I had no desire play halfway through my first play through. I set the game to the hardest difficulty, took over half the map, and just don’t have the heart to finish. This game is trying to emulate SMAC, but it just doesn’t measure up. It neither has the writing chops to make me care about the world or my faction, or the gaming chops to really make me interested in conquering the world, because the AI can’t stop me on the hardest levels. It failed to really engage me once I actually started playing it, and that’s the first time that’s happened with a Firaxis game.  There’s no real excuse for a game to be so unengaging when most of its engine was developed back in 2010.

Assassin’s Creed Unity - Awful AAA title and why Ubisoft should be Ashamed Award

vipmedia.globalnews.ca

Ubisoft released early copies of Assassin`s Creed: Unity to the gaming press, and then issued a review embargo that expired 12 hours AFTER the launch of the game. Thus, reviewers who had early copies of the game couldn`t warn consumers that the game was buggy as hell in single player with constant glitches ranging from distracting to game breaking. Multi-player (which was largely hyped before release) was pretty much non-functional at launch (with recommended tech solutions like “delete all your friends and play offline”). Ubisoft was lambasted for this by critics, but a few weeks later announced review embargoes for their upcoming game, “The Crew”, and the gaming world collectively face palmed.

Dungeon Keeper Mobile - Awful AAA Mobile Title and why EA should be ashamed award
It just wouldn’t be a shit list without EA, wouldn’t it? Everything you need to know about this wretched, festering boil can be summed up with two overused clichés.

First, this isn’t really a video game. There’s no strategy involved in this “game”. There’s no real gameplay at all. Just build a room and either wait 24 hours for it to dig a tile or spend real money so you can start another timer and spend more money. People may say virtual novels aren’t really games, but at least you have some options, and the game has a narrative, a story you follow. This doesn’t even have that.

Second, this is an example of everything that’s wrong with video gaming today. The fact that EA thinks they can slap mechanics more exploitive than Farmville and sell that shit to people who grew up with Dungeon Keeper (who are now in their early 30’s) speaks volumes about how badly EA understands the hard-core gaming audience. 

news.bbcimagine.co.uk

This is awful, even by mobile standards. This is awful by EA standards. When it comes to buying up your childhood memories and whipping quick cash, Micheal Bay has NOTHING on EA. At least if I hit a Bay movie, I can expect explosions, cheap laughs, and shallow entertainment, instead of just paying a shit ton of money for nothing in particular. In short, I hate this game and everything it represents.
#keepitnerdy
Written by Marc Thompson