Gaming's finest in 2014

Yup game of the year listings are here again. Last year it was Sly cooper theives in time for me, with games like metro, shadow fall, R&C, and even risk of rain backing it up. What'll this year be? I know, you're all so sure its rambo right? Well sorry, but nope. This year had a lot more pleasing releases, and many of which I've still yet to really play. Some will just look at the big high profile games, and note how they've fallen. Broken and buggy Unity, the mediocre watch dogs, the plain and undersold TitanFall, and of course the problematic MMO wannabe Destiny. Yet I can see far beyond those. Maybe its only coming from those that overhyped it, but personally I found a lot of good around. Dust and awesomenaughts properly made their PS4 debute, that Insomniac game I will envy xbox for, Shadows of mordor bringing people their first "next-gen" revolutionary feature, Far Cry 4 was amazing, we had horror hit back hard with PT, Alien, evil within, and continued strong support from the indie scene with games like the massively trending 5 nights at freddy's, there's a new dragon's age and dark souls, I think 2 games out of ubiart, and nintendo hit hard this year with games like smash bros, mario kart 8, and more. Oh and to make up for the downfalls, there's AC rogue for those die hard AC4 fans and COD is supposedly doing the best thing now since modern warfare. How has this been at all a bad year? Is it because there aren't enough "serious" games like last year? Because people sure loved to eat that up in 2012 and 13 while the great games for fun's sake stuff got shunned. Personally I've really enjoyed the year. That being said, I'm shocked to say I don't think I've gotten a sinlge game from under Sony's publishing. I think they maybe only had driveclub, and Infamous, but maybe with that being all that's why I didn't grab anything from one of my favorites. Just saying that little odd bit, anyways continuing. Anyways out of all the incredible games I've narrowed it down to my top 5 and followed it up with some honorable mentions. Remember though, I'm not a guy that's able to get but so many games a year. I missed out on some games that may easily make it on some lists. Shadows of mordor might easily be on this list if I had actually played it, and maybe advanced warfare would have surprised me, or maybe Donkey Kong Tropical freeze is way more genius than its kiosk demo had me believe. Either way I wont know for sure because I haven't played these and quite a few other games.

Honorable Mentions:

Trials Fusion

Probably the closest to making the list but not totally there. This game was a pleasant surprise. It went from a demo I just grabbed because I was bored to becoming this awesome little medal chasing addiction. I played the demo over and over again, grabbed the retail copy of the game, and spent a bit of time with the level maker. I really loved this strange mix of physics racing and platforming while chasing after medals. That's nothing new on the whole, but its new to me and I really enjoyed it here. Add that on top of some interesting settings, a surprise attempt at a story, and best of all a level maker and I'm happy. I was really ready to put this up on the edge of my list at one point, but at the end of the year I haven't stuck with this as much as I thought and there are deeper games out there being enjoyed a bit more. 

Awesomenaughts Assemble

Yeah I guess this is the case of a port so its not making the list. Still this is what Awesomenaughts should have been to begin with, and it was a great re-release. I really enjoyed playing it this year.

Towerfall

Two fold for this one. For starters its a port, though a pretty hefty update from what was essentially some mobile game. So maybe you can chalk this up with awesomenaughts? However the major dealbreaker is the way its designed for local co-op, and that's something I just can't do. The concept and most of its execution is a dream game though. The archery shots, power-ups, art style, all the tweakable settings, and feel to it all is just perfect. Seriously the one time I got to play this with somebody was a blast. The time trial mode is fun, and the wave horde mode would be cool as a distraction, but the main allure and its value is the co-op which I cannot enjoy and its painful knowing they couldn't make bots to give me that fun anytime I want to play it (and without any dispute with the settings). As it is though I keep it on my PS4 almost locked up waiting for either a magical update or someone asking to play it with me. Kind of heartbreaking really, as I'd adore this game otherwise. I'm sure to those gamers with a co-op buddy on hand at nearly all times, this is a big highlight for you. For me personally though I can't get so much out of it, which is a shame really.

And now the real list.

5) Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare

The latest game on this list in terms of me getting around to it, but I think its worth at least the edge of this list. Nobody really took this game seriously at first, but popcap games took an insane spin-off idea and ran with it pretty well. Its pretty much one of the few games to take a stab on Team Fortress 2's gameplay style of shooter, only its got plenty of twists and tweaks to distance itself. You work with a strong emphasis on classes to fight a suburban battle between plants and zombies. There's also a small bit of asymmetry working into the game as well, with classes having parrelels but still coming off as quite different. The teams strike a decent balance where they have very fluid counters that you can learn. For example the zombies have an exclusive smoke bomb ability, but they can't see through it any better so I take advantage of that to hide an explosive chilli bean bomb with the longest fuse and biggest bang. I don't have much of a strong bias because both teams are really fun to play as. The core mechanics are also great. There's no super regenerating health, instead everybody has a beefy amount of health to them and it only regenerates slowly around the 1/3rd point. For better recovery you need a medic. Oh and the game modes are all pretty good to. The gardens vs graveyards mode is my favorite. Its basically TF2's locked down defend/attack mode but you have potted turrets or buried zombies to use bringing up some of the traditional gameplay aspects of the original PvZ. In addition it really tests the best of each class's abilities, and I'm finding myself looking at every point with multiple ideas prepared. Meanwhile if the zombies successfully push onto the very last point its almost like a boss battle pops up. They'll then have to dodge their way through giant potato boulders, strafe around corncob cannons, or at least protect a golf kart bomb. Its a great little twist on the mode, and the ideal reason at least a couple more games should have competed with TeamFortress2.  The game even makes its progression system fun! I can't believe I'm saying that. You basically get coins like XP, and in the process of playing a class you're also working on challenge milestones. These are like "kill 3 peapods with your rocket launcher" or "plant 3 spud mines". Completing enough challenges or getting enough coins gives you access to card packs. These will contain random items based on what card series you buy or what character you level up, and often pull out cosmetics, fun alterations on your weapons or abilities, taunts, or give you the minions that help you in battle. My only gripe is with the sticker outfit system (where you need like 5 separate pieces), its a bit too far with how random and how long it must take to get one complete. I guess I love it because of how fun the game already is from the start, as you never need more weapons and each thing is a bonus. That combined with the aesthetic of card packs, and the fun cosmetics and taunts, and the additional fun gear you can get makes this all actually a fun process.

That all being said this game still isn't too special. Its not exactly doing a ton to work on this list, but its pretty much just a lot of fun if taken in at the right amount. Maybe if it had better support (server lists and bots) it wouldn't be so bad, and honestly just like titanfall I think its a deeply missed opportunity and wasn't a proper online focused game. Though unlike titanfall, its priced right and was later even given out free to PS4 owners. Still its a blast to play, and while it may be nothing too special its got a grand and fun execution. Its one of the games to come out this year truly reminding me that yeah its a new generation of consoles, and whether its temporary or a lasting trend there are new shifts and shooters are returning to a more openly fun and colorful stance instead of just copying COD all the time. Its a great game, and I feel its a good thing to put on the very edge of this list as an awesome release in 2014.

4) Dark Souls 2

Fine you can come up with a 45+ minute analysis of where this game goes wrong, as many have with this game. I get it, its disappointing compared to the original. Personally I found there to be a ton of improvements undermined by the complaining. Sure the level design is a bit poorer, the game has some odd choices made in places like leveling and torches, and then there's just a couple confusing things left in when all is said and done. However there's also proper dual wielding, the new durability system was pretty awesome, the framerate was better, etc. Naturally a lot of the values from the original were carried over, and as a result even many haters and harsh critics are saying it one of the better games out there right now. There have been moments where the game has honestly been so powerful I put the game down and couldn't keep a smile off my face for the next 30 or so minutes even with the cause way off my mind. Some of the satisfaction and interesting tense but rewarding tricks, the atmosphere, and the deep combat system all leave strong with you. The game is pretty grand in that sense at the end of the day. I do agree though it could have been better, and leaves some questionable choices in its design. furthermore like the original there's just this weird point I cut off from it, preventing me from actually feeling ready to beat it and complete and amazing quest. So I'll just leave it here at 4th place. 

3) Super Smash Bros 4

So I guess more of the question is why isn't this the best game of all time? Well honestly I'm slightly disappointed with it in some areas. Not enough to hinder how incredible the entire game is, and it so justly deserves to be praised as one of the best games this year and will keep my attention into next year. Still I find the unlockable characters list thin and got them all by my 3rd sitting of the game, there is no proper solo mode and the board game is terribly executed, and some of the stages I so badly wanted actually turn out to be in the 3DS exclusive version which leaves me feeling cheated. I mean seriously, why is the flat gameboy inspired pac-land stage (that I'm guessing nobody associates with pac-man) the thing that gets on Wii U while the pac-man maze stage iconic to one of the biggest new character additions is exclusive to the hand held? Oh and something I'm quite surprised I don't hear about, the graphics kind of have a strange change to them. I remember Brawl amazing me with textures that looked so real at the time. SSB4 improves things by resolution of course, and the details are more sharp and solid, but... there's a noticeable lack of them. Everything is also flat and closer to a bubbly look leaving almost nothing to stand out or look interesting like it did in Brawl. Except for lava and medal, that stuff is shiny and reflective! However link's outfit is plain showing almost no details, Mario and friends have overalls with typically flat line seams and nothing else unlike how you could actually see their stitches before, and other characters actually just used recycled textures which didn't have much of an impact carrying over. Of course it still looks great and I'm complacent with how solid it all looks, but its just they kind of took one step forward and one back. Finally, some of the events and extra challenges are just flat-out miserable to work for. I quickly ended up staying away from events because it boiled down to ones that were just made unfairly, or glitched up and cheated on me. This is one of the first games in years that I've found myself throwing the controller down in rage thinking its outright cheated me on multiple occasions. There's healthy frustration from good challenge or humane inconviniences, and then there's this old school hard for hard's sake crap mixed in with unfair disadvantages that just aren't good game design. That hurts the overall experience a bit, especially when again there's no proper solo mode to give you a better break.

Now on the other hand there are tons of improvements to that I wont deny. The team mode now doesn't change your character's color making you force into some ugly looking team battles, the omega stage mode is an amazing feature, some of the stages that are present are awesome, transforming characters are now replaced by proper solid characters which is great, and the new characters are still freakin' awesome. I love pac-man!  Also I love the lightly picked up speed of the entire game's pacing. Oh and how can I forget the customization! I spent over an hours and made 10+ matches out of experimenting with fox and falcon concepts alone, and I even recreated and made a better wolf type character in the end of it. That's just awesome and I can't wait to get more specials and items unlocked. I'm also anxious to get my hands on an amiibo figure or several, preferably Yoshi, Fox, or Samus. At the end of the day its another smash bros worth well over a month of investment and fun, and they've made some awesome improvements to the series.

2) Wolfenstein: The New Order

A well deserved medal for you Wolfenstein. This is the kind of shooter I've been waiting a long time for and insisting that it needs to exist, and it really delivered. Perfect shooting mechanics, an awesome story, interesting setting, well implemented aesthetics, some decent music, great controls and gameplay, and a surprisingly interesting sense of pacing that I really didn't expect. This game was so much fun I had to make it one of the very few games I absolutely 100% completed. I got everything. I cracked all the enigma codes and grabbed the chat code modes, I got all the collectibles, I beat both timelines, I beat it on the maximum difficulty from beginning to end, and I ended up actually shaking with excitement as I walked up to the very last thing that earned me a platinum trophy. No really, I was actually barely able to hold my controller. I spent hours to put together a fun montage of the gunplay, had some hilarious goof-ups, enjoyed toying with and manipulating the engine, and most importantly it was the exact kind of shooter I grew up loving and reminded me why this genre was so incredible. This game proves its not about some rose tinted nostalgia goggles, when people talk about how older shooters were better this is what we were referring to. Wolfenstein brings you back into an FPS where the enemies you shot were contextualized by both gameplay type and as an interesting villains (historic fiction sci-fi nazis in this case), into a shooter that realized the important of survival just as much as the importance of impact to your weaponry, a shooter that knows when to have fun and when to challenge you, one that gives trusts you as a player to enjoy and explore interesting level designs, and a game that is prouder of its gameplay than of any bad gimmicks or a half baked multiplayer.

It doesn't just stop there though, it improves over the old. You've got higher end visuals with a rock solid presentation (at least on PS4 and xbone, PC and last-gen may run closer to Rage's quality), and a functional stealth system with an awesome knife throwing tool and a cool commander reinforcement system, peaking/leaning, a better story than most shooters, and probably for the first time ever a shooter where you dual wield every gun in the game (except the double barrel shotgun, which is only present like once and is mostly replaced with a superior auto-shotgun which can be dual wielded). Oh and I mentioned the pacing earlier. Well yeah, you've got these interesting bits where the game breaks off into an almost Hub world place kind of similar to what Dishonored does. You have moments where you're performing small down-time tasks for the resistance which is also time used to further develop the interesting and eccentric cast of heros. It pretty awesome, and shows the developers know what they're doing when developing a great campaign lead shooter instead of throwing Michael bay style gimmicks at you for 4 short hours. The game heavily encourages a lot of this down time actually, just exploring and taking in the world, looking for resources or extras, uncovering big level maps and alternate routes, and it all really adds to the pacing giving you some natural quiet time in between the awesome shoot-outs. At the end of it all, I wasn't disappointed one bit. Wolfenstein is where shooters should have been by now, or at least been supplying off to the side of the lesser military variant. Its a masterpiece of the genre, and I believe almost everyone should pick it up and give it a full run. That's why Wolfenstein: The New Order gets my 2014 Game of the year award because... oh wait. This is number 2. What the heck!? Well what could possibly beat this masterpiece?

1) FarCry 4

I usually don't think too fondly of open world games. There are some great ones out there, but ultimately a lot come off as grindy and unadventurous. You have a wide open world full of nothing special, versus incredible linear experiences that are so good you'll feel encouraged to explore more than you ever would within an actual open world game. Games like the above, Wolfenstein, especially fortify this and if you are so desperate for something more replayable and unpredictable then get a multiplayer game. However some day there needs to be an exception to the rule, and a special crafted adventure across a wide open virtual world that keeps you hooked was bound to happen sometime. A few already have come so close, namely Skyrim and Far Cry 3. You can get lost in those worlds and wound up on some awesome discovery, yet ultimately something repetitious or dull kills it. Someone once said Far Cry 3 is "Skyrim with guns!" which was a laughed at quote that people continue to mock and poke at. However I'm finding that to be surprisingly fitting for the game's sequel, at least in positive aspects rather than either of their downfalls. Of course its not skyrim in RPG elements, but that's actually what makes it better. It shed the negative aspects of it that made Skyrim harder to deal with, the clumsy manual looting/selling, the bad RPG grind, the off balance bosses, and the forced dungeons. It instead focuses more on FPS mechanics while implementing the same adventurous stuff skyrim had. You have handcrafted areas each a little difference with their own little story and trace of the world. There was a letter I found to villagers about a dangerous path to a forgotten temple, and then I followed its clues and went there to see this abandoned temple and found more letters and little signs. The temple by the way really was abandoned, took some work getting to, and yet held importance from past use. I go hunting for these seemingly contrived mask collectibles, and it turns out they're left by a demon worshiping serial killer that leaves behind letters and murder scenes making each of the 55 feel like a big mystery. There was a guard at some tower that was actually a sick civilian, with a note attached talking about how this guy was a sergeant's brother kicked out of the house by his wife for being too drunk and left to sit at some tower. This is something you don't have to see, its off to the side somewhere seemingly random and its a subtle detail easily missed. I'll be looking for something awesome with a buddy when suddenly a patrol comes along, or a hostage situation pops up, and then when that's all done a random tiger may kill that friend as its part of many overlapping dynamic events that can easily happen at any time and place naturally. Furthermore each sidequest, what are usually those little dull chores you have to do repeatedly separate from the main game, actually each contain their own story and written dialogue often with hilarious jokes or world building information. Each one also reinforces harsh views expressed from the main story's multiple choises, but doing so unintentionally adding subtle connections between the world and making everything feel whole and natural. All of this is just side details, you can miss out on every single thing and more by just rushing the campaign. However FarCry 4 breaks the mold and does add details, context, story, and life to every little corner and tiny fragment of this huge fictional sandbox world inspired by Tibet (a region rarely seen in gaming).

On top of this amazing sense of scale and detail is an increasingly better take on the already great FarCry 3 formula. You still have handcrafted strong campaign missions, only now they're also multi-choice and have different endings. You still have outposts and stealth, but now each outpost is actually unique, has more depth, and stealth actually works with full functions and added features. Oh and you can replay each outpost individually and strive for a highscore system. You still have side quests, but there's more to each one, they all have context, and there's optional dynamic events that happen off to the side as well. You still have a lot of driving, but you also have more places to use your wingsuit, and a buzzer helicopter as well as sidearms to shoot with while driving/flying. You still have an eccentric villain, but he has better character development than just being a lunatic, and he frequently breaks the 4th wall in subtle but meaningful ways. You sti- you get the point. Its FC3 better in every single way possible. Even the multiplayer makes sense and is worth your time. I was constantly surprised, impressed, and invested in this game and alongside great core mechanics it really sold me as not just a high mark in the series but as potentially my all-time favorite open world game. The writing, atmosphere, adventure, mechanics, side activities, music, and the general amount of fun all had me well impressed and exceeded my expectations for this game. On top of that there's a freakin' level editor still attached! I still have an issue with the game, and its actually a pretty big deal and even FC3 got it right: Replay. There's no way to replay the full game, not even another profile option. The only way you can do it is by erasing your progress, or going at it from another account. That's pretty terrible, but considering I can replay outposts, have dynamic events, and I'm still working on solving mysterious places on the map 40+ hours into the game I guess I'm still fine with moving forward without proper replay. If its all this good, I'll find it worth setting up an offline profile from another account just to re-do it all. Oh and having this game on the PS4 is also a blessing. The video capture and screenshot functions help capture sooooo many fun moments that naturally happen in this chaotic sandbox.

Anyways when it comes down to game of the year I have a few things to go by. Its not just a matter of liking the game, otherwise Last of Us would have probably made it somewhere on the old 2013 list. Its got to be an incredible game that really gave me something, it has to be something I'll want to continue playing onward, and it will likely be a game with a lot of content and one that I'll be looking back on and remembering in the future. Wolfenstein and Far Cry 4 but heads pretty hard at this one, yet ultimately one has a monster load more of content. Seriously its such a close call in general quality that these two are hugging each other for a tie, but even if it wasn't for the open world in far cry 4 Wolfenstein still doesn't have the interesting spin on Multiplayer or a freakin' map maker to create your own parts of the game. Heck while I've sunk 40+ hours into the main game, I could probably lose a month if I get too pulled into the map designing and browsing aspect. Wolfenstein is an incredible masterpiece and I still have no problem whatsoever with putting its name alongside Game of the year, but ultimately FarCry 4 blows me away in its quality as an open world game, sets new standards, and delivers more content and I think that's a better fit at the end of the day. Of course there's nothing wrong with a focused game if its of high quality, and at the end of the day this year wouldn't have been as awesome without wolfesntein. Still the tie breaker is FC4 for delivering more content on a similar high quality level, and its by far among the best games I've played that was released this year.

Charging to 1st place