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@asrealasitgets Top 10 List of 2014.


10. Endless Legend (PC)
One of the many games that weren’t on my radar this year but then captivated me after playing it was Endless Legend, the Civ style, Empire building/management simulator set on an alien planet. I was particularly drawn in by the beautiful visuals and the many options for starting races-- they all seem so unique with their own lore, histories and motivations for colonization. The planet you inhabit can be particularly hostile, complete with seasonal weather cycles that look really amazing. The whole game map seems impassible when it’s covered in snow during the winter, there even seems to be less light as well just to make things more visually interesting.  I don’t normally play these types of games and I had to visit several forums and wiki pages to figure out all the nuances in order to make a dent on my progress in the game. There is a very handy tutorial in the beginning that does a good job of leading you in to the game, but it honestly requires a bit more research than that which I didn’t mind doing. The game is just very beautiful. If a game in this genre managed to pull me away from MMOs and backlogs then it deserves a mention on my top ten of 2014!

9. Shadowrun:  Dragonfall (PC)
I really love Sci-Fi! I enjoy Sci-Fi more than Fantasy. So when an RPG comes along with a Sci-Fi theme, well I’m just ecstatic! I don’t think there is enough isometric science fiction themed RPGs on console or PC, except for maybe Mass Effect, Deus Ex, and XCOM, but only one of these is purely tactical, isometric and turn based. Just like how The Evil Within came along during a time when I really wanted a horror fixin’ Dragonfall drops when I’m really feeling like a return to turn based sci-fi game that are mostly available for table top, and it’s great! I especially love the Matrix-style theme, sound and atmosphere. Sometimes I just want a gun RPG instead of a sword RPG, and this game delivers.

8. Shovel Knight (PC)
While most recent  ‘old school’  design influenced Indie games claim to be ‘old school’, they really aren’t. Not in mechanics or design. I’ve complained about the excessive reliance on 2D platforming and puzzle mechanics that make up the majority of Indie games now, and for the most part it’s this ‘2D platforming’ aspect that helps these games earn their appraisal for being nostalgic, but very few are actually true to the design and mechanical limitations of older games. Then comes along Shovel Knight, a game that quite possibly could have been released for NES in the ‘80s alongside Mario, Mega Man, and Metroid. The game not only looks like an old cartridge game, it actually moves and feels like one. It’s almost as if someone dug it up out of the ground from a time capsule, blew off the dust on the cartridge pins and popped it into and NES system and booted it up. The shovel item is very unique to the game and quite practical for use in combat or digging up gems. It’s a truly is a nostalgic ‘retro’ game or Mega Man with a shovel!

7. Hearthstone (iOS/PC)
There isn’t much I can write about Hearthstone. It’s quite popular and very well marketed so I doubt I’d have to explain what it is. It’s a card deck battling game and it is very well made and quite addictive. I especially like its RPG elements, leveling up different classes throughout the campaign is pretty genius. I sometimes play it on iPad or on PC. I’m not particularly great at it, and I mostly approach it as a time waster when I’m bored, but it is very good! I don’t really play card games, but this one drew me in and I found it to be very enjoyable.

6. The Wolf Among Us (PC)
I’m not sure if it’s the quality of the source material that Telltale chooses to work with that makes their games good, or if they just really have good story tellers developing the games and they would be great no matter what the material was they were working with?  I don’t particularly like Telltale games. As story adventure games go, I prefer the more text heavy digital novels to the embedding of combat quick time events into cut scenes that make up Telltale games. In any case, I really enjoyed The Wolf Among Us, both story-wise and control-wise. The action didn’t really bother me as much as it does in other Telltale games, and I actually found it to be quite fun, and forgiving.  I think part of the forgiveness of the controls is due in part to the characters in this game being somewhat immortal, so they can absorb a lot of damage during combat and also give you plenty of chances to survive in the case of the main character. If you aren’t familiar with this game, it is inspired by the graphic novel called ‘Fables’ by Vertigo comics and it’s about fairy tale characters living in the real world (New York City), while Snow White and the Sheriff Bigby (The Big Bad Wolf) try to hold order and conceal the identity of Fabletown, which regular humans aren’t aware exists. The game is nice and short. It is very well paced and revolves around a murder mystery so it will keep you captivated throughout wanting to talk to as many characters and investigate as many locations as you can throughout the game. Also, waiting to see what other fable characters pop up in the story is part of the fun!

 

5. Divinity: Original Sin (PC)
This game was completely off my radar. I only started taking notice of it after reading a few forum threads about how weird it was, and it was also mentioned on a few gaming sites and podcasts after launch as well, but it being a Kickstarter indie game, I would imagine that it doesn’t have the kind of marketing budget to keep it in the spotlight too long after launch like say a Dragon Age game would.  Divinity is an RPG done in an older traditional style like Baludur’s Gate, Avernum or maybe the first Dragon Age game and many other top-down computer RPGs with emphasis on narrative, exploration and detailed character customization.  You essentially move through the world via mouse-clicks and talk to dozens of NPCs with tons of dialog options. The game is visually impressive. It doesn’t look at all like an old game despite its game mechanics. There is also a lot of interaction with objects in the environment and you can do things like mix weather/magic elements for desired effects. In one case there were a couple of enemies standing in oil so I cast a fire spell to set them on fire, thus avoiding combat. In the beginning of the game there is a ship in a harbor set on fire and you can extinguish it with a rain spell that changes the weather entirely into a downpour for a short time. The weather effects are just awesome. The game allows you to recruit extra party members to mix up play style and has a fairly long campaign too.  Very good!

4. Lightning Returns (PS3)
Lightning Returns is a game that wasn’t supposed to exist. Final Fantasy XIII was the first part of a three part trilogy which also included Type-0 and XV. For whatever reason Square Enix decided to put out two more sequels closer related to the first game and titled XIII-2 and Lightning Returns—probably due to financial reasons, and the irony is that for a game with the shortest development time and no real planning for its existence, Square Enix, or should I say Tri-Ace, put out the best of the three games to date, and no one seemed to really appreciate it. Each sequel seemed to have remedied the problem of linearity and auto-pilot combat of the previous game and open up the world more for exploration. Lightning Returns does that as well and really lets you customize the hell out of your gear and combat abilities. Never mind the story, even as much as I loved the XIII series I cannot defend the narrative, but I can defend the combat and customization. It’s also one of the shortest of the three games which I really appreciate nowadays—cut out all the fluff and just get to the point!

3. Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls (PC)
I wrote a blog about the defense of mundanity and redundancy in games. The game I was referring to was Diablo 3 and its newest expansion in particular called Reaper of Souls. I played through the game when it first launched and if you’re not familiar with the game you should know that the game required you to keep replaying the games main campaign to keep leveling up past the level cap, which was kind of dumb. Even still you couldn’t unlock higher difficulties until you played the campaign on normal at least once, for every character which was also kind of dumb. Aside from all of this, the world maps are static, they are exactly the same every time you played the campaign, which is also well… dumb. The new expansion lets you choose higher difficulty levels and added a new campaign chapter to the end of the game as well as an adventure mode that gives you rewards for accomplishing objectives like clearing out all enemies in a level. All of this gives you XP as well, and it’s another option for grinding, but it’s still very, very grindy. I don’t have a problem with this. I usually just play Diablo 3 to relax. It is very fast paced and the game gives you tons of rewards for simply punching anything really, and it feels really good. As much as I like challenging games, I sometimes want to just relax and wind down and feel good and I do that with this game.   

2. Dark Souls II (PC)
Dark Souls II is not my favorite Souls game. If I had to make a list of favorite to least it would be Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, and then Dark Souls II—but with the expansion added to it. As much as I appreciate the new direction the developers took to make Dark Souls II ‘different’, I have to admit that I felt a bit let down after finishing it. I really missed the epic boss fights of the first two games and discovering the interconnected shortcuts as well. The DLC for Dark Souls II did a lot to remedy this ‘world is flat’ issue, and you can tell how different DS2 would have turned out if they had used more puzzle-like level design that made up the expansions. I don’t hate the game by any means. I just felt it didn’t live up to expectations and how could it coming after a game like Demon’s and Dark Souls? Here’s looking forward to the remix they are putting out on PS4 and the new BloodBorne game.

1. The Evil Within (PC)
Resident Evil 4 is one of my favorite games of all time. Yup! It’s up there with the best Marios, Zeldas, and even Dark Souls. I particularly love the horror genre, particularly the old ones of PSOne, and a return to old form with shiny new visuals, or gross visuals, and an interactive fun house filled with traps design was a great way to add a twist to an old formula. The Evil Within doesn’t really change much from older games in its genre; it more or less experiments with some new game play ideas before abandoning them for more familiar action of the Resident Evil series and has some very fun boss fights and a great spooky atmosphere to experience.   I much prefer a new interpretation of old ideas as opposed to just uprezzing the same old games over and over. I’m looking at you Resident Evil HD remake—even though I will buy it as well!