Top Game this year you think others have missed or ignored

I've tried to get a few friends into Smite, which is tough since most of them are console guys and it's not on X1 yet. My PC friends seem stuck in DOTA 2, LoL, or not into MOBAs at all. I've tried all the major MOBAs out and I think Smite is easily the best one... as someone who likes "real" combat and not RTS style point & click. Smite is more like playing Diablo rather than controlling a single Starcraft unit. I don't really see major gaming sites covering it all. I've heard pretty much every Bombcast I don't think they've ever mentioned it at all either.

Is there any game this year that you think is good and sites, your friends, and/or gamers in general are kinda ignoring/missing?

Velocity 2x

The South Park game was pretty great on PC. I hope people remember it when goty discussions occur.

Ether One.

Transistor.

Destiny, I don't think anyone played that game

*sarcasm*

For whatever reason this site (and most others as well) ignore the Wadjeteye Games that are actually made by them, not just published by them like Gemini Rue. I'm a big fan of the Blackwell series, and Blackwell: Epiphany (which came out in april I think?) is a great, eventful closing chapter for the series. All the Blackwell games are basically retro pixely looking point and click adventures, extremely well written and for the most part with good, not too gamey puzzles, and Epiphany just goes all out story wise.

Though I have to admit, quicklooking it without having any experience with the previous games wouldn't have made a whole lot of sense. Maybe someday Vinny gets around to playing them, I'd watch a premium feature of him (and Alex?) playing through the entire series.

I limit my gaming-podcast consumption to the Giant Bombcast, so take this with a grain of salt, but I would argue for Alien: Isolation. The main game is fantastic until the last two hours, when it devolves to just pretty good. Plus the DLC for it is great, filling out the stories of what happened on the station before Ripley shows up. My game of the year right now.

I think it's really odd how Kentucky Route Zero has been so heavily ignored

TIE Fighter.

Dark Souls part 1, again and again and again and again.

Wasteland 2 comes to mind. It got a lot of discussion in the week it came out, and then nothing. It's as if everyone forgot about that game.

I feel like the gaming "public at large" have mostly ignored Bayonetta 2. It's like all PlatinumGames: is received really, really well by critics and those who actually play it, but doesn't sell well. I got it at a Best Buy and there apparently had hardly been any copies at the store but still were 2 sitting on the shelf. I think also people who play it play through it several times, unlock all the stuff, then forget about it.

In terms of GB, we've heard it talked about a little bit on 2 bombcasts, had a QL, and a passing mention in bombing the A.M. and that's about it. I hope I get to hear the bombcrew's thoughts on the game when game of the year comes up, because it's a damn fine game and one that's got me back on board with character action games.

@deathstriker: I don't know what Diablo game you played, but when I played there was a whole bunch of pointing and clicking.

I remember Jeff talking last year about having a hard time filling out his GotY list. He didn't seem to gravitate strongly to really anything that was being highly considered by the rest of the crew, or the games media/gaming public at large. I couldn't have been further from him on the spectrum of considering last year's games.

The top 8 games on my list last year would each easily be at the #1 position had they come out in this calendar year. This may be the weakest overall calendar year for video games since I really started paying attention to the industry as a whole (maybe 2006 or so). That's not to say there aren't games I've enjoyed or ones I'd recommend. Nor have I played everything I wished I could have - funds are a little tighter this year, sorry Bayonetta 2 and others. But most of my favorite games I've played this year are games I missed out on from last year. Pikmin 3, Super Mario 3D World, Antichamber, Stanley Parable - they all stand toe-to-toe with my favorites from 2014.

Additionally, this year suffered the murkiness of asynchronous platform releases. First, there's the courtship of the independent developer, largely from Sony. Rogue Legacy, Outlast, SteamWorld Dig, Don't Starve, Volgarr, BoI: Rebirth all did come out this year, yes. But they came out first last year and for the most part remained largely the same game. Should they be considered for GotY? Right now I'm falling toward "no." Then there's the quandary of Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition. I had been dying to play D3 since release, but with only a Macbook Pro for my PC gaming, I opted to wait for consoles. Then last year, Sony showed off Diablo 3 as a showpiece for the upcoming PS4, so I opted again to wait, this time forgoing last year's console port of D3. So does Ultimate Evil Edition deserve consideration? I don't know; It's all very new and nebulous.

My apologies for my thoughts taking me a little off topic. But when I started to think about what hidden gems I'd recommend to people, I had to take to my list of played games from this year. And while I certainly think one should play Dark Souls II, Mario Golf: World Tour, Octodad: Dadliest Catch, Transistor, Wolfenstein: The New Order, Mario Kart 8, Valiant Hearts: The Great War, Shovel Knight, Super Time Force, Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call, Middle-earth: Shadows of Mordor, Super Smash Bros. 3DS (and likely Wii U), and South Park: The Stick of Truth (... and perhaps Destiny...) - not a single one of those games comes without caveats and judgement calls when I think about the audience of the recommendation.

I feel like Valiant Hearts doesn't come up a whole lot, but I don't know if it counts - I thought the game was just fantastic. Really enjoyable little adventure game, fun puzzles and an excellent story with a hell of an ending. It's definitely one of my favourite games of the year, but I get the feeling it won't come up much.

In Giant Bomb's talks the game I'm most worried won't come up much is Bayonetta 2, it seems like only Dan and Jason have bothered with it (though I did miss last week's podcast, so maybe there was a bunch of talk about it there). That's a shame, because it is one of the strongest games released this year.

@thunderslash: Agreed. Wasteland 2. I played it like a crack head for a couple days straight. Finished it at about 70 hours. One of my best games of recent years. A bit buggy but whatever.

Lightning Returns. Everyone shits all over that trilogy, particularly how dense and hard-to-follow it is, but LR is a miraculous melding of a bunch of different ideas that shouldn't work but somehow do. Sadly, no one is willing to give it a chance due to the extremely negative (and hastily-given) opinions and the backstory necessary to fully comprehend the gravity of the story. It's far from being perfectly, but it's easily the best RPG of the year for its entertaining combat and fascinating world and side characters. I've known since I played it in March that is was likely going to be my GotY--several months later, this fact hasn't changed.

Drakengard 3 is also being ignored, but I can at least understand that: it's not a very fun game to play, especially for its 20-hour length. The characters are unlike any other, though, and very much worth seeing.

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments, and I while it hasn't been ignored to the same degree I feel like Alien: Isolation is underrated.

Probably for good reason? They should have left it in early access a bit longer...maybe for another year - I really can't say that I had much fun playing it during the dozen or so hours I put into it :(

Also, Heavy Bullets is definitely something that people should check out - I feel that it good overshadowed by other first-person roguelikes...

Tropical Freeze was so damn good. Dan talking about it on the Bombcast hopefully gets more people to play it.

On handhelds, I suppose Shantae and the Pirate's Curse didn't get much buzz despite it being super awesome. Along with Azure Striker Gunvolt.

And Lords of Shadow 2 got dismissed pretty quickly. Not a top game, but still surprisingly ignored.

I was pretty jazzed about Valiant Hearts but I really couldn't get into it. It just felt like a slog of a puzzle game. Neither the characters nor the setting rang true in any remarkable way so all I was left with was a basically passable puzzle game that was more irritating than fun. I found it a totally disengaging experience, which is a shame because I was so ready for something sorrowful. :/

But yea, Bayonetta 2.

The Banner Saga. The combination of it coming out in January and not a lot of people playing it anyway means it's likely to get zero attention come GOTY time.

I think that's a game that was really hurt by being episodic and hurt even more due to the fact that there was almost a year in between episode 2 and 3. It's definitely a fantastic game that more people should play though.

So few people are actually going to play Bayonetta 2, so I think it just will get left out of most GotY discussions.

The Platinum Curse is to never ship a selling product, The Platinum Miracle is getting work on a regular basis regardless of said curse.

Judging by Swery's tweets, I'd have to go with D4. Apparently, no one is buying the damn thing...which sucks. I genuinely think it's a good crime thriller (or whatever-the-fuck it's genre is supposed to be) with arguably one of the most intriguing stories in all of games as of late, but the combination of being a weird ass Japanese game and launching with virtually no marketing aren't doing this game any favors.

You can likely blame Divinity: Original Sin for that. It's a prettier, flashier (and just plain better) game than Wasteland, which probably explains why that got all the attention from people who normally don't play 50 hour RPGs. That being said, Wasteland 2 is good and more people should play it. I should consider trying to finish it soon, maybe before Dragon Age comes out.

I'll also say that too many were quick to disregard that Thief reboot, but I might be the only person who liked that game.

Shadowrun Returns: Dragonfall Director's Cut was superb. I had a great time with it - you can play the Shadowrun games just about any way you want (in how you build your character and the characters you choose for your team, and they brought in some good choices and storyline branches), and the writing is excellent. HairBrained Schemes improved upon the foundations of Shadowrun Returns in just about every way.

@viciousbearmauling: Its got a lot of critical praise so it will wind up getting a few gongs. Heck, maybe even a Game of the Year re-release to a wider audience.

I like Always Sometimes Monsters a lot, and I think I'm the only regular user on this site who played that game. Its really small and really weird though, so I totally get why.

I liked what I played of South Park - TSOT, but it seems like such a long time now. Could've as well been two years ago. Might've helped, if they had managed to push-out PS4/Xbone versions as well.

Freedom Wars has really surprised me. I nearly missed it myself, but it has some really cool ideas.

The story can really drag and having to sit through it to get missions to do can suck. But the whole premise is really unique.

I accidentally got an additional 20 years slapped onto my sentence for walking around my cell too much within the first minute of gameplay. It's pretty funny.

Transistor and Roundabout.

Velocity 2X for me. I'm not saying it's the best game of the year but it's very, very good.

I'm starting to believe that games that are 'free' on PS Plus or Xbox Gold when they first release actually get treated worse than if they were a paid release. They get largely ignored by the press and a lot of players will play them once before moving onto things they have actually spent money on.

It's a handheld year for me.

My 3 favorite games this year (Danganronpa 1 and 2, and Bravely Default) have all been handhelds. And with Persona Q due in a few weeks, I don't see my top five containing more than one console/pc release.

Luftrausers - this is free on PS+ this month so hopefully more people play it. It's almost the perfect handheld game.

Velocity 2x - Luftrausers is only almost perfect because maybe V2X is perfect

Kentucky Route Zero - It's not finished yet but its so memorable, engrossing and atmospheric that I think everyone should give it a try.

Alien: Isolation - Overly long, sure, but still really well made and wonderfully gun-free. Even if you only played for the first 5 hours, the Alien encounters would be enough to make it worthwhile.

Kerbal Space Program - I don't know if this would count, but I played it this year, and it got most of its features this year, so it does count. Such a wonderful sandbox game where you are actually learning real life things while you play, by accident! Landing on another planet or moon for the first time completely off the back of you own experimentation and learning is one of the greatest feelings a game has ever given me. It's also beautiful and funny and charming.

I don't even know if I've played many games from 2014 at all so can I just say Gunpoint again?

That's a bummer. I hope they at least get to make more seasons.

Y'all should grab D4 if you have an Xbox One! Probably the Swery-est Swery release to date, with a game design that doesn't really impede the Swery-ness. You have to slog through a lot to enjoy Deadly Premonition, but I feel like D4 is boiled down to the best bits of Swery's charming David-Lynch-as-Comedic-Anime style.

The game is basically a point-and-click adventure with some silly cartoon antics/QTE action that requires wiggling your arms (or analog sticks) around. The Kinect stuff is genuinely solid, sometimes even fun (I used it sitting down about 4 feet away from the sensor and had maybe a problem once or twice?). Also you can dress up like an idiot and your guy says things with a Bostonian accent.

Totally worth the meager $15 price tag!

Let me just throw Jazzpunk out there. Really well made and I laughed my ass off while I played it.

Shadowrun Returns: Dragonfall is light years ahead of the other CRPGs that we've seen this year with the best writing, characters, and atmosphere of anything I've played to completion.

The scheduling of releases this year gave Divinity a much bigger window without competition so probably more people played it than this.... but Dragonfall was definitively the better CRPG from my perspective.

@james_hayward: I have both the vanilla shadowrun and dragonfall directors cut, you think is worth playing the first one (dead man's switch) and then dragonfall or just go straight for dragonfall? I've heard many people say that it is far superior and I'm afraid of getting burned out by playing the first one then not feeling like getting into it.

@milkman said:

I've been meaning to play KRZ, but was waiting for all the chapters to come out. It looks like that could be quite a while though... Is it worth jumping in now, knowing that the story's incomplete?

The Evil Within and Bayonetta 2 (just started this one but it's blowing my mind already).

@onarum: I'd say to start with the directors cut of Dragonfall. The story is nearly completely distinct (different location, characters etc.) from Dead Man's Switch so you won't have missed anything by playing things that way around.

ragnarok odyssey ace.the original came out in 2013,but the enhanced version came out this year and it adds so much that it was a actually a retail release(like diablo 3 reaper of souls).anyways ragnarok odyssey ace is basically a monster hunter type game,except to me its way better.the combat is way more fun,the bosses are more fun,theres more customization,theres even a massive 400 floor dungeon which actually gives you a reason to play after you have hunted monsters for the stuff you want.it gets you into the actual monster hunting way faster then monster hunter and theres alot more of it.i could go on but the point is that ragnarok odyssey ace is really good and its being ignored ALOT,maybe even more than any other game you guys have mentioned.if you guys like monster hunter i would give it a try,because once i did i couldnt go back to monster hunter.

Going to put down Bayonetta 2 like a lot of people here. Sure, most people in the gaming community are going to know about it, but so few are actually going to play it, which is a tragic crime. Bayo 2 plays like NOTHING else that's on the market, it's basically ruined all other character action games for me. It's even slightly ruined Bayo 1!; the game feels sluggish and unresponsive in comparison. Games like Bayo 2 need to be played by everyone who even remotely likes action games.

Platinum continues to show that they're the masters of action, and also the masters of making incredible games that won't sell. (Bayonetta 1, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, The Wonderful 101, and now probably Bayonetta 2)

The Walking Dead -- Season Two

At least, it didn't seem to be getting any hype and I wasn't even going to play it until my friend accidentally spoiled something that REALLY made me want to play it. I honestly think I enjoyed it more than Season One.

EDIT: @asilentprotagonist pointed out to me that the thread is actually about games which came out this year. I'm very sorry.

Plenty of games I could put here but the one that's been on my mind recently is War of the Monsters.

A really fun giant monster fighting game, especially in multiplayer. Sizeable battle arenas with plenty of destructibility. Endearing 50s monster flick styling and solid gameplay.

Not beholden to license holders either so you can enjoy your off-brand King Kong or Godzilla without annoying limitations.

Downhill Domination is another underrated game from this developer, Incognito Entertainment (creators of Twisted Metal Black and Warhawk).

Many of its key members, David Jaffe in particular, left in 2007 to form Eat, Sleep, Play, Inc. so I wouldn't expect much from this studio today.

Velocity 2X. Which seems kinda crazy considering it was a PS+ game on release. I assume a lot of other people do what I do and mess with those games for 20 minutes never to return to them.

It's not perfect, but definitely one of the better games in this pretty weak year. Oh, and that soundtrack is beautiful.