Game of The Year 2014 Users Choice
This is my list of my personal top 10 favorite games of 2014. They might not be your favorite games, but that probably has something to do with you not being a clone of me.
List items
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When people talk about Dark Souls 2, all you ever hear about nowadays are complaints. This isn't as good as the original Dark Souls, and that isn't as good as the original Dark Souls. Well, they're completely right. It isn't as good as the original Dark Souls, but that's one hell of a high water mark to set for a game. I wish as much as anyone that it had reached that mark, but even though it's not as good as the original it's still a damn good game. Like It's predicessor it's not a game for everyone, but for the people it is for it's one of the best games out this year. I rarely ever play a game twice in a year, but Dark Souls 2 found me sinking 90 hours into the game twice this year. If I can love a game enough to put a second 90 hours into the same content I went through once already, then the top of my list is the only place for it.
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I'm not normally one for games that are obsessed with seeming retro. Too often they just try to copy what's been done before without adding anything interesting of their own. Trying to make their games "NES hard" without understanding what made games NES fun. Shovel Knight is not one of those games. It stands with the likes of Volgarr the Viking as a retro style game that can stand toe to toe with any of the best games of that era on its own merits. The levels and characters are all fantastic, filled with life and creativity. The game sparks the exact right amount of challenge at every stage. Feeling fulfilling and challenging without ever falling into the pitfall of being cheap. In a year where Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros Wii U came out, this is the best game on the Wii U that I've played. Maybe the best that I've ever played on that console. That's a strong statement, and a well deserved one. If you own a 3DS or Wii U, get this game. It's a classic no one should miss.
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Similarly to Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart 8 is more Mario Kart. Except the online works great unlike Smash Brothers. And the courses are some of the best the series have ever seen, whereas Smash's levels were rather underwelming. And the changes and additions to items are all smart and super fun, whereas smash added a lot of crappy cheap items. And the DLC is excellent and fairly priced, whereas Smash wants me to pay $40 for the 3DS version to get Mewtwo. And despite being on the less powerful Wii U this is far and above the best looking game released on consoles this year, whereas smash isn't very impressive in that regard. God damn this is a good fucking Mario Kart.
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Dragon Age: Inquisition is the make good for Dragon Age 2. It fixes nearly everything that was wrong with that game. It has a much better story, more interesting characters, and a massively huge and gorgeous world to explore where nearly every area is uniquely crafted. No more travelling through that one cave over and over again. That being said, it was the story, characters, and exploration that kept me enthralled with the game. Not the combat. What we have in that regard is MMO like combat that tries to be part action game and part old Baldur's Gate style CRPG. Unfortunately, the CRPG side of that falls completely flat. The tactical view is too zoomed in to be of any use at all. I understand why they have this mix of action and CRPG combat. Dragon Age started off as last generation's Pillars of Eternity. An attempted revival of the CRPG genre. However, those games don't work well on consoles. So they've constantly been trying to make Dragon Age more console friendly little by little. What we have here is the mid-point, where the combat is a bit of everything and no one is happy. They either need to go back to being a CRPG, or ditch that entirely and make an action RPG. As much as it pains me to say this, since I don't think they will be making the game PC exclusive any time soon, the action RPG route makes more sense. Still, despite it's combat this game was one of my favorite games of the year. If we get a sequel and they can improve that one huge weak point there's a potential all-time classic in the making.
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Destiny has a lot of problems, and if you were to list them out to me I'd agree with the vast majority of complaints. It's a hollow shell of what was promised. Still, I kept going back to it for weeks and weeks after I had finished the campaign. In fact I ended up with a level 27 Hunter, a level 21 Warlock, and another level 21 Titan. I'm not sure what compelled me to play as much of this as I did. The best answer I can come up with is that Destiny is my personal Dynasty Warriors.
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Hearthstone's strong point of being good for beginners to the card battle genre is also its weak point. It feels very basic compared to something like Magic the Gathering. I had reconciled that Magic had been building upon itself for years, so you couldn't create a new game that feels as deep as that. That may be true, but Infinity Wars showed me you could create something that sure as hell feels more complex than Hearthstone. I'm not an expert at either, so I don't know if this feeling shakes true at competitive levels, but I had much more fun with Infinity Wars than I ever did with Hearthstone. It just felt like I had more options with what I could do with my cards. Building themed decks felt more satisfying. This compounded with the excellent visuals of the animated cards made for a game that I just gravitated to far more than its more popular rival. It took a bit of getting used to cards being planned out and then played simultaneously, but once I got into it I found my favorite digital card game to date.
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I didn't back Broken Age, but I'm very thankful for the people who did. This game won't offer a super challenging puzzles, or thankfully any pixel hunt nonsense. What it will give you is a fantastic world to explore with wonderful characters, and outstanding voice acting. I can't wait for act 2 to come out so I can see where Shay and Vella's journey leads them next.
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This game wasn't even on my radar this year. In fact, if it wasn't for being free on PS+ I might not have even tried it. In the end I'm glad I did, as I found a super addictive fast paced puzzle game that takes a lot of cues from Pac-Man. Specifically Pac-Man Championship Edition DX. Sure they pretty much just copied that game's aesthetics, but they did it flawlessly and it's as enticing as it was in DX.
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(Wii U Version) It's more smash bros, and that's not a bad thing. It's got more characters than ever, and the new 8 player battle is a blast. It's as fun a local multiplayer game as it ever was. If it wasn't for how disappointing the single player modes are compared to Brawl's Subspace Emissary, and the overuse of reused stages instead of adding new ones it would be much higher on my list.
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Hearthstone is the ultimate card battle game gateway drug for those new to these types of games. It's an extremely well put together little card game with the same amount of Blizzard polish you expect in their triple A games. On top of that it's one of those rare free to play games that doesn't feel like it's trying to force money out of you. A great game for anyone who has ever thought of trying something like Magic, but been put off by the initial steep learning curve.
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