For all the negativity around the 2014 releases, I didn't have a hard time finding ten games I enjoyed. I could have easily listed 20 games I enjoyed. They weren't all as great as past years' games, but this was the best of the best for me in 2014.
Dragon Age: Inquisition has an interesting place in the series, needing to live up to the beloved debut Dragon Age: Origins and make amends for the much reviled second entry Dragon Age II. The tactical combat mode returns for the original, blended with the more action oriented approach of the second in a move that manages to blend the best of both worlds. What makes this my game of the year though is the fantastic writing and deep world building in such an epic setting. It would be easy to write this off as “Most Game of 2014” given I’ve played 30+ hours and spent most of that time in exploration and side quests, but that time spent feels rewarding, helping you understand the world you’re on a quest to save. Multiple competing (or outright warring) factions not only have conflict with each other, i.e. the iconic Dragon age mages vs. Templar conflict, but the Templars are at with themselves, as are the mages, and every other group you encounter. Bioware’s managed to create a world where there are no easy answers, or at least no uncomplicated ones, and mixed in warmth and humor and genuine human moments in the loyalty missions you undertake with your party members. The romance options are varied for all play styles and the scope of human (or elvish or dwarvish or Qunari, etc) sexuality, and not in a way that feels like pandering to special interests, just in way that reflects a world where people fall in love with who they love. This is also one of the few RPGs where the epic story of saving the world feels enhanced by the amount of side quests and optional missions that help to build out that world, not padded by busy work that takes you away from a grand story. If there’s a negative I’d like to complain about, it’s that each potential party member is so well written and fully realized that I feel constrained by the four member party structure because I want to spend time with everyone I’ve recruited to my cause and hear the funny, poignant, and thought-provoking ambient dialogue between the various combinations. There have been some minor technical glitches, and the War Table interface is clunky at best, but not enough to take away from the overall experience and prevent me from easily calling Dragon Age: Inquisition my 2014 Game of the Year.
Released in beta in 2013, Hearthstone got a full, legitimate release on both the PC and (later) on iPad in 2014. The mechanics didn’t change from the beta to release, and Blizzard proved they were invested in the game by occasionally balancing cards when their telemetry determined certain combos were too powerful and dominating the metagame. They’ve also released two bits of extra content – the Curse of Naxxramas and Goblins vs Gnomes expansions which introduced new cards, new challenges, and shook up the metagame as well. The presence of daily challenges to earn in-game currency that could be used on cards or arena entries keeps me coming back regularly, although not daily as I was prior to my move to Seattle. The absence of free text chat and locking players into predetermined emotes is also brilliant, making playing against other people actually fun with almost no need to worry about online abuse or harassment from your opponent. In a year that saw Blizzard publically cancel their much discussed, much anticipated, little actually discussed Project Titan, it’s good to see that smaller efforts, when given the Blizzard polish and attention to detail, can succeed on such a grand scale.
The next gen console release of Diablo III rolled in the Reaper of Souls expansion and several changes to the loot system that were present in the original main game on the PC in late 2013. The Ultimate Evil Edition felt tailor made for console controls, the loot treadmill was immensely satisfying, and the automatic sending of rare items to people on your Friends list when you killed a rare monster who had killed them in their sessions was ingenious. Where games like Far Cry 4 had a story worth seeing once and Titanfall kept me playing for a few months, I can see myself going back to Diablo III repeatedly to find one more piece of gear, or craft one more legendary gem.
The second effort from Supergiant Games shares a lot with their first game, Bastion. The isomteric view returns, as does an intriguing story and an emphasis on combat puzzles. Transistor sets itself apart in the way you’re able to stop time to plan out moves or battle in real time, depending on your skill loadout. The fact that each skill can be used on its own or as an augment to your character or to other skills means there’s an almost limitless number of ways to play the game, and finding a combination that works for you AND each combat encounter is rarely easy but always satisfying. It wouldn’t be fair to include this without mentioning the phenomenal soundtrack from Darren Korb (also responsible for the Bastion soundtrack) which goes a long way in helping with world building and setting the game’s uneasy atmosphere.
Made by the founders of Infinity Ward who revolutionized the first person shooter genre with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Respawn Entertinment launched an ambitious project that had no single player mode and relied on balancing combat between human “pilots” and enormous mechs known as “Titans.” The focus for pilots on enhanced mobility was revelatory, even if the weapon loadouts for pilots AND mechs wasn’t varied enough compared to how the genre has grown since Call of Duty 4. I didn’t play for more than a few months, but Titanfall is the competitive, online first person shooter I’ve played the most. Ever.
While technically released on current and prior-gen platforms, this should only be played on the new machines thanks to the Nemesis system. As a pre-Lord of the Rings victim of Sauron’s army who is “banished from the realm of death,” you’re literally unkillable, but that doesn’t mean orcs and Uruks will stop trying. Each time you kill a named Uruk, you create a hole in the leadership structure of Sauron’s army, which is filled by other Uruks with their own unique strengths and weaknesses. Or, if an Uruk defeats you (temporarily), he consolidates his power, growing stronger, and perhaps even advancing up the ranks and killing his leader, taking his place. This creates emergent narrative game play stacked on top of tight, Batman: Arkahm series-like combat and Assassin’s Creed like parkour in the open world.
My other iOS entry for 2014, and another perfect “play anywhere, anytime, for however long or short you want to” game. Make no mistake – this is Frogger, made perfectly for iOs touch controls. One hook is the collection of currency which you can use on purely cosmetic upgrades for your crossing animal – turn the chicken into a vampire, robot, grave digger, etc, and watch the background change with it. The other, obvious, hook is the sense of fairness in the gameplay and the sense that YOU are the reason you didn’t go as far on that last run, but you can make it a little further next time.
The first of two iPhone games to make my Top 10, Desert Golf is a minimalist take on the game. Starting from a tee, you use physics and gestures to get your ball over hills and mountains, across plateaus, and through valleys and into the hole, which becomes the tee for the next hole. Except there’s no par for the hole or course, no restarting, and almost no end. I’m on hole 2661, and have been led to believe that after completing hole 9999, you simply complete the course in reverse. Your score is cumulative, and my current score of 7901 includes a mix of 1s, 2s, 4s, 5s, 20s, and an 80 or two. Each hole has five colors maximum: the black tee and flag stick, the yellow flag marker, white ball, and the sky and ground which are contrasting shades of the same color, be it orange, pink, green, blue, etc. The changes are so subtle from hole to hole that the shift from yellow to orange to red to purple to blue takes place over hundreds or thousands of holes. Desert Golfing also benefits from iOS’s greatest strength: the ability to play almost anytime, anywhere, for however long or shirt you wish. Want to eek out a few holes on the bus? Perfect. Need to decompress for 20 minutes after work before starting dinner? Also great. Can’t go to bed until you figure out how to beat this one last hole that you’ve already had 40 trys at? Also fine, but maybe try looking at it with fresh eyes in the morning. It’s the slower paced, endless runner of physics puzzles and one of my most played, most enjoyed games of the year.
This is not the full scale remake of Alpha Centauri fans have been pining for for years, but the new and refined systems introduced in this Civlization Goes to Space entry in the series are challenging, fun, and offer new ways to play and win the venerated 4X strategy series. Consistent from the start of time through 2014: Aliens are huge dicks.
If you liked Far Cry 3, I have great news about Far Cry 4. If I described a game as a fish-out-of-water story with an exotic locale, colorful characters, towers to climb, and outposts to liberate, you probably wouldn’t be able to distinguish between the two. Far Cry 4’s villain, Pagan Min, is more fleshed out and interesting that Vaas or any of the other big bads from Far Cry 3, but some curious design decisions make this a chore to play at times. Chief among those is the need to defend outposts after taking them over; while this makes sense in the game world, the fact that these forced encounters occurred almost every time immediately after I left an outpost to continue the story was supremely frustrating. And resulted in this being ranked far lower than I anticipated.
